How NOT to Get a Literary Agent, by Stephen King
I’m coming to the end of my sixth annual read-through of King’s classic work ON WRITING. For any aspiring writer, I consider this book to be must-read material. There is much in this book...
Tagged: query letter
Query Success Stories
There were three things that made me purchase and read LIKE MANDARIN by Kirsten Hubbard. The first was the description of the novel on Kirsten’s website. It sounded intriguing, especially since her novel centers...
What Happens to My Query When I Hit Send…?
Are you a writer? Have you ever wondered how agents process query letters? I don’t doubt there are as many methods for attacking the slush pile (or query inbox) as there are literary agents...
Thoughts and Tips on Querying: Agent Hunting and Final Thoughts
After months of brooding over my query letter, writing and re-writing it, submitting it to public scrutiny on WriteOnCom and QueryTracker (more about this tool in a moment), and getting it to a point...
Pitch vs. Query
If you’ve been reading my “Thoughts and Tips on Querying,” you will notice that I often refer to the part of the query where you describe your novel as “the pitch.” I want to...
Thoughts and Tips on Querying: Title, Word Count, Genre, etc.
Some writers like to start their queries with the title/word count/genre paragraph (what I call the “housekeeping” paragraph). I believe I mentioned before, when discussing the opening address, that I prefer to leave this...
Thoughts and Tips on Querying: The Pitch
I don’t know if that’s what this part of the query letter is officially called, but let’s call it that for now. It’s the part between the “Dear [Agent]” and the word count, genre,...
Where Have You Been?
It’s been a few days since I last blogged, and I’m trying to be good about keeping the blog current. So, my apologies for the silence. Really Important Bloggers usually drop out of the...
Thoughts and Tips on Querying: Addressing the Query
So, you’re ready to write your query. Where to begin? Do you put your address information? Do you put the agent’s address information? How do you write the salutation? Here’s what I have learned,...
An Offer You Can’t Refuse (Especially If You’re a Writer)!
Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner is offering people who join her site and/or “like” her on Facebook one of two prizes: either a $20 Amazon Gift Card, or a free query critique and 20-minute follow-up...
