Write Good or Die (5 page)

FOUR SENTENCES. I bet you're so smart, you
could whittle these down further, couldn't you? You're smart, I
know! You get a gold star for smarts.

Bear in mind, I'm a novelist, not a
short-order copy writer.

I don't expect to have written deathless
prose in the query. But, as you can see, this gets the gist of the
story across.

I did not sell this query, by the way,
because I wrote the novel before selling it and already had an
agent. I'm not trying to present this as "Only THIS will sell in a
query letter."

I want to give you a sense of how simple this
is—but keep the secret to yourself!

Just kidding.

Truth is—what piques the interest of an
editor or agent is what will pique MANY readers' interest, too.
Editor and agents are looking for . . . wait for it: what people
will want to read, as well as what they believe they might want to
read, per the taste of the editor or agent.

It's their business, and they know what
they're looking for and sometimes are surprised by what they didn't
think they were looking for.

I can't spend my life second-guessing them,
and neither can you. All I know is what fascinates ME—and I've
learned how to convey that fairly quickly and simply. But it takes
a bit of practice. Nobody says you can't practice first.

BUT you can learn to get your story or plot
premise down in a brief synopsis and get on with your next novel
while you wait to hear back.

And you thought I was going to tell you how
to write the entire query letter for a novel?

Nope, but there are books for that. I can't
tell all my secrets at once!

However, my QUICK TIP!

Just write a regular letter as you would to
anyone at a company where you wanted to:

(a) not waste their valuable time on
unimportant things and

(b) get a job.

This involves being respectful, not whining,
demanding, threatening, or appearing pitiful. It also involves
self-respect, if that wasn't apparent from my previous sentence.
Double-check your spelling and look for grammatical errors.

I make errors all the time, and it's
oh-so-easy to go back and revise before sending the query off.
Admittedly, I leave typos in these notes just so I can hear from
those among you who love pointing out errors to people.

Here's a basic query letter for a novel:

"Dear _____,

My name is _____________, and I've written a
novel of _______ words that fits most comfortably in the genre of
____________. It's called ___________, and I would very much like
to send it to you for possible publication/representation.

____________ is a story of...(and here's
where you write that 3-5 sentence synopsis that includes the basic
premise, a brief highlight or two, with the idea that you're
telling the story to a buddy as if you just saw a really great
movie.)

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you
for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

YOU"

I know some might argue that this wouldn't
work for literary novels, but I don't know: if you want to believe
that, feel free. Life is short, and in the long run, you can do
what you want.

Thus, endeth my lens for the day. Please link
to this, and let your writing friends and writing groups know about
it. Heck, argue over what I've written here—but if it works for
you, I'm glad I could help.

If it doesn't help you, go forth and find
something that does. Disagreeing with me will get you nowhere, but
finding out what you need to do will get you everywhere.

Douglas Clegg—http://www.douglasclegg.com

###

24. NOVEL PITCH LETTER

By Jonathan Maberry

http://www.jonathanmaberry.com

Jonathan Maberry

PO Box 84

Southampton PA 18966

Email: [email protected]

www.jonathanmaberry.com/blog

August 22, 2008

Joe Bloggs

The Big Literary Agency

100 Success Street

New York, NY 10000

Dear Mr. Bloggs,

If you have to kill the same terrorist twice
in one week then there’s either something wrong with your skills or
something wrong with the world…and there’s nothing wrong with Joe
Ledger’s skills.

Patient Zero
is a mainstream thriller in which a Baltimore cop
is recruited by a secret government organization to help stop a
group of terrorists from releasing a plague that can turn people
into murderous zombies. The story is grounded in hard–but very
scary—science and follows Joe Ledger as he goes from a cop with a
troubled past to a hero leading a unit of first-team shooters
against the world’s deadliest threat.

Joe Ledger and the DMS
(Department of Military Sciences) would immediately excite readers
of James Rollins’
Sigma Six
novels
,
Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series and Lee Child’s
Jack Reacher books. Joe Ledger is a hero with heart: conflicted,
compassionate, idealistic and extremely dangerous.
Patient Zero
is the first
of a proposed series of fact-paced character-driven high concept
thrillers that pit Joe Ledger and the DMS against terrorists with
cutting edge bio-weapons. He’s the hero we need for these troubled
times.

Patient Zero
is
140,000 words and is
ready for immediate mailing. I would be happy to send a synopsis,
sample chapters (or the complete ms.) along with a competitive
analysis that clearly shows how strong and active this genre is,
and has been. I’m very experienced with social networking and will
be an active participant in co-promotion, using Facebook, Twitter,
podcasting, blogs, websites, forums and other forms of viral
marketing to build buzz for this book. I’m working on a follow-up
novel and can provide e-stories as incentives for cultivating
readers during the run up to release.

Your own remarkable track
record with thrillers of every stripe is impressive, and you’ve
done so well with best-sellers as well as first-time authors such
as Joe Schmoe, Jane Doe and Bessie T. Seller that it’s clear
you
get
this genre.
I look forward to hearing from you via email.

Sincerely

Jonathan Maberry

Jonathan
Maberry—http://www.jonathanmaberry.com

###

25. HOW TO GET A LITERARY AGENT

By Brandon Massey

http://www.brandonmassey.com

Let's face it, every writer serious about
publishing needs to find out how to get a literary agent. These
book professionals, considered the "gatekeepers" of the publishing
industry, can be critical to your success as a novelist. But how do
you get one?

In this article, we'll cover three steps you
can follow to get a literary agent for your novel. Keep in mind
that the steps I'm going to present are just one effective way to
go about this process. I discuss various others in my weekly
writers' newsletter on my web site.

1) Write a marketable novel.

This is one tip that will never change.
Before you have any chance of landing a reputable agent, you have
to write a marketable manuscript. It literally opens the door.

Don't make the mistake of contacting agents
before you've finished your book (unless you are a celebrity or
veteran writer, in which case, few of these rules apply to you).
Complete your novel first.

A writer with a top-notch novel will be able
to pick and choose quality representation. It's the key to
everything, and should be your first priority.

2) Use listings in directories.

You may be familiar with these guides.
Typically, these directories feature hundreds of listings of
literary agents, and include their location, contact info,
preferred markets, recent sales, and submission guidelines.

Pay close attention to these listings,
because they contain just about everything you need to know in
order to get serious consideration from a particular agency. Don't
query them about a horror novel if they say they don't represent
horror. Don't email them if they say they want snail mail
submissions only.

Just follow the query guidelines to the
letter, and you'll have a real shot.

3) While submitting, start working on a new
novel.

I can't stress enough how important it is for
you to get busy on a new manuscript while your other novel makes
the rounds of the agencies. It's a key tip, for several
reasons.

First, writing a new novel will keep your
mind occupied, and will minimize your obsession over the status of
your book currently on submission. Second, it can take several
months to secure representation, and it's always a good idea to
keep new books in the pipeline. Third, if all of the agencies you
query reject your first manuscript, you'll have something else to
shop, allowing you to maintain positive momentum.

Brandon
Massey—http://www.brandonmassey.com

###

26. THE AGENT/PUBLISHER EPIC

By J.A. Konrath

http://www.jakonrath.com

After my sixth novel failed to sell, I knew
it was time to get serious.

My Rejection Book was filled to bursting,
slips divided into agent and editor categories. Close to four
hundred of them. With the baby’s first birthday approaching and a
new house recently purchased, my friends and family were beginning
to wonder when I was going to give up this “hobby” and get a real
job working nine to five.

I made my living waiting tables. The flexible
schedule allowed me plenty of time to write. My wife worked in the
same restaurant, and I would often trade shifts with her if the
muse was in overdrive. She’d always been supportive, even when we
were dating and I had my BAD AGENT EXPERIENCE.

Rewind to three years earlier. I was fresh
out of college, where I majored in Television. I’d switched my
major to TV from Film, because I heard it was too hard to get a job
in film.

I found out it was just as hard to get a job
in television. Though I had good grades, and a killer show reel,
I’d graduated in the middle of a huge recession, and was going up
for entry level positions against people with years of
experience.

I tried my best, failed, and then wondered
what the heck my education was good for, other than teaching me how
to make my own beer bongs and how to add watermelon Jolly Ranchers
to a bottle of vodka for killer shots.

Since writing is what I wanted to pursue in
both Film and TV, and since I had a love of books and had already
written dozens of short stories, I decided to take the plunge and
write a mystery novel.

It took a few months. When I
finished, I picked up a
Writer’s
Market
book, picked out six agents, and
sent them copies of the book, figuring it was only a matter of time
until one of them called me.

Believe it or not, one did.

He was a respected, well-known agent with
some big name clients, and I immediately signed on the dotted line.
I drove to New York to meet him soon after, and he took me to a
five-star restaurant and filled my head with promises of fame and
riches while I fought a losing battle trying to match him martini
for martini.

Life was good.

When I came back home, I considered quitting
my job. After all, the sale would come quick, and the money would
roll in.

A week passes. A month. Three months.

I call my superstar agent and get an
assistant, who explains that sometimes it takes a while to sell a
book.

That hadn’t been what Mr. Bigshot told me
over Grey Goose, but I still trusted the guy.

Six months pass. A year. By this time, I’ve
written a sequel to the first book, and I send it to Mr.
Bigshot.

A few weeks pass, and I call him to see if
he’s read the new book.

His assistant explains that he’s really
busy.

Another six months go by. Finally, I call up
Mr. Bigshot and insist on speaking to him personally. The assistant
won’t allow it. So I insist on getting a list of all the publishing
houses that have rejected my book.

The assistant sends me a list. A list of two
houses.

In nineteen months, he’d shown my book to two
editors.

Even though I was ignorant about NY
publishing, I knew this was bad. There were dozens of publishing
houses who bought mysteries. Only going to two of them proved this
guy wasn’t doing a thing for me.

I fired him, deciding to
look for a new agent. After all, he was easy to get. All I had to
do was buy the latest
Writer’s
Market
, pick out a few more agents, and
wait for them to call.

No one called. I tried every agent in NY, and
couldn’t get anyone interested in my series.

This lead to a bout of depression. My
girlfriend (who later became my wife) offered to cheer my up by
buying me a unique gift. A tattoo.

"That’s very white-trash of you, honey," I
told her.

But she explained that she had 100 percent
faith that I’d someday be published, and a tattoo would inspire me
to keep trying.

Well, we went to Jade Dragon in Chicago, and
I had them put a little frowny face on my right shoulder.

But now, after six unpublished novels, all
the frowny face did was depress me even more.

Should I continue pursuing the dream of
becoming a published author? Or should I do the responsible thing
and get a well-paying office job?

"You aren’t allowed to give up," my
girlfriend (now my wife) told me. "You’re a writer, whether you get
paid for it or not."

She was right. I’d be miserable doing
anything else.

So I decided to write a blockbuster.

My previous approach to writing was very
free-form and unstructured. I’d write when I felt like it, about
whatever I felt like. My growing pile of form letter rejections was
testament to how well this worked for me. I needed to regroup.