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: querying
Writing about Writing
You might notice that the tag-line to this blog says “Reading Writing Music Theology Etc.” If you’ve been following for any length of time (well, not any length–I mean, if you’ve been following for a...
Encouragement from the Query Trenches
For those of you who aren’t writers, or have never queried a novel, the “query trenches”–that period of time when your novel is complete and you’re sending query letters out to Agents in the...
Query Shark
If you’re an aspiring author and have not yet encountered Query Shark, stop whatever you’re doing–no… wait… you’re reading this blog, so DON’T stop what you’re doing… CONTINUE reading! Query Shark is, I think,...
For Writers Over 30
Right off the bat, let me just say that I applaud every writer that has managed to get an agent and sell their work to a publisher while they are still in their twenties...
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...
Querying and Dating
Today I received a rejection from the wonderful agent who requested my full manuscript. <sigh>. She’s still a wonderful agent–I’m not that petty. Really, it would have been a lot of fun working with...
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...
Literary Agent Research
Among other things, I am in the midst of researching agents. This is a subject I’ll go into a bit on the last “Thoughts and Tips on Querying” post, but I want to tell...
