At Technorati, author Jane Sadek tells a little tale from an agents conference held by the Writer’s League of Texas. Three agents all agree that a certain query submission would have been stronger if it had contained a comparative title, but how do they react to the title comparisons in the queries that follow?
Check out “Goldilocks and the Three Literary Agents.”
procraftinate /pro-kræf-ti-neit/ v. – to put off writing and sending query letters to literary agents so one can continue researching, writing, and rewriting fiction.
Do you guys know how hard it is to come up with these quirky little introductions? After flagging the articles around the web I want to share, devising a compelling preface is often the most difficult part of the process.
The pressure to tap out enough text so that it wraps down below the badge! Something topical, quirky, engaging, and yet not too distracting from the cool links to follow?
The need for a new joke, a new angle, a new … oh, hey! Hmmm, I guess I’m done.
And now, links from publishing industry insiders: Continue reading
We are back around into the lit agent arc of my new link soup cycle. (Those of you who missed the big three-way split … psht! There’s an RSS button in the sidebar now. No excuse!)
Have fun; and if you know of a fantastic lit agent writing a blog I’m missing, let me know!
Jessica at BookEnds tells us how to submit a partial, and how to find agents and publishers. She also published an updated version of her publishing dictionary, which reminds me that I have to keep mine updated.
Jennifer Jackson responds to reader questions about queries that don’t follow her agency’s guidelines, Kristin Nelson rants about the agency commission model for ebooks, and Rachelle Gardner says, “Let’s Hear It For Old Fashioned Books!”
Finally, Lucienne Diver wraps up her Debut Week series of guest blogs (which I featured in my last writer link soup) with an agent’s perspective.
Enjoy!
Today, as I pound out some more pages for “The Crow and the Kinnebeck,”* I just want to throw out a blog entry chock full of agent and author advice.
For example:
Today, both Nathan Bransford and Ask Daphne address the perennial query letter dilemma: to invoke the master/bestseller comparison or no?
Daphne points out that this “kind of shorthand” is how a lot of agents pitch books to editors … but you run the risk of alienating an agent who despises the author whose work you compare yours to.
Nathan, on the other hand, advises the querying author to seek the middle ground between trying to coat-tail on a bestseller and comparing your book to something so obscure that you might stump the agent.
Both are good blog posts, from people who know. Check ’em out.
