queries

Monday in the Life of an Agent: Query Letters

Rachel Zurakowski

Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski

Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

An agent’s Monday starts out much like yours, I bet, but you tell me. Here’s a typical Rachel Monday:

The alarm clock rings, and I hit snooze. This process repeats itself…

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#QueryFail: Over the Top

Wendy Lawton

Blogger:  Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: A sunny Friday

We’ve talked about avoiding the too-clever query and giving too much information. We’re going to wind up this week by talking about those queries that fail because they are…

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#QueryFail: TMI

Wendy Lawton

Blogger:  Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: Warm and sunny

In the comments yesterday I mentioned how important it is for me to know something about the author in the query. When I agree to represent a new client…

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#QueryFail: Clever Queries

Wendy Lawton

Blogger:  Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: 82º (Ten degrees hotter than yesterday)

Great comments so far on queries. Today we are going to get into some dos and don’ts. Let me say again, these are not rules, they…

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#QueryFail: Debunking the Myths

Wendy Lawton

Blogger:  Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: Return to May sunshine

Great responses yesterday.  You communicated the limitations and frustrations of the query system. Truthfully? It’s one of my least favorite parts of this job. I agree that you…

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#QueryFail: A Frustrating Process

Wendy Lawton

Blogger:  Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: May flowers mixed with May showers

If you are familiar with Twitter then you’ll be familiar with the title of this week’s blog entries– #QueryFail. That’s a hashtag* for complaints about the…

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Worst Case Scenario: Query Silence

Wendy Lawton

Blogger:  Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley Office

Weather: 61º and rainy

Early on in my life I learned that if I pictured the very worst thing that could happen and figured out some strategies for dealing with it I could…

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Entertaining a Difficult Subject

Michelle Ule

Blogger: Michelle Ule

Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the most popular film stars were Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Astaire and Rogers, in particular, danced through spectaculars, filled with…

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Following the Rules: Queries

Wendy Lawton

Blogger: Wendy Lawton

Location: Books & Such Central Valley, California Office

Weather: Gorgeous Autumn Weather– sunny and 66º

You’ve seen a number of agent blogs and agent twitters talking about query tips and #queryfail. Agent websites are filled with instructions on how and how-not…

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Agents and Rejection

Rachel Zurakowski

Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski

Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.

Agents may dole out hundreds (or thousands) of rejections each year, but we experience rejection from the other side too. Each day we receive rejections from publishing houses for authors’…

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