on to the next step

[kuddliphish]

It took me a lot longer than I had hoped it would, but I've finally made all the edits and changes to my novel that were needed post beta-readers. For the past week or so I've been pounding away at it telling myself, "Almost there. Keep on target." It is a great relief to be able to finally consider it done with a clear conscience

Comments

[zellandyne]

All righty, first off - start reading miss_snark, agent007, and pubrants. Read through their archives. All of them are agents and provide excellent info on their side of the business. Miss Snark is my favorite. You may also want to read alg, an editor at Tor. She has some interesting entries about receiving pitches - though I don't know if she's in your genre.

Also take a glance at the Writer's Market books. They have sample queries. Then actually buy 78 Reasons Why Your Novel Won't Get Published, and 14 Why it Might. That's just brilliant in general. He does give excellent advice on how to structure a query letter.

Also, research the agents you're interested in. Find out who they represent and note that in the query (don't say that you're just like Anne McCaffrey, but say that readers who like Anne McCaffrey would also like your book). See what guidelines they give on their websites or, if they don't have websites, write to them for guidelines. There are a couple online resources for agents; I can't remember the names, but Miss Snark mentions them.

Hope this helps.

[kuddliphish]

Thank you so much. You are wonderful and miss snark is hilarious.