Elizabeth Black writes in a wide variety of genres including erotica,
erotic romance, and dark fiction. She lives on the Massachusetts coast with her
husband, son, and three cats. Visit her web
site, her Facebook page, and her Amazon
Author Page.
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I'm currently searching for an agent, and I have battled
with the dreaded query letter. I thought I did my research, but after attending
the Boston writer's conference The Muse And The Marketplace, I discovered I had
not written the damned thing correctly. I had written my introduction, named
the book, gave the blurb, the word count, genre, and then my publishing history
and a little information about my prior movie and TV work.
Turns out I left out an important item – why I am the best
person to write this book. The Muse taught me the proper way to write a query
letter, and thanks to the conference I did get my first request for a partial.
Sadly, that resulted in another rejection, but at least she requested a
partial.
I'm not giving up.
According to book developer and principle of The Scribe's Window Cherise Fisher, who gave the talk "The
Perfect Pitch" at The Muse And The Marketplace, a pitch is "the
transfer of enthusiasm from one person to the next. It's like a virus. You
infect with your pitch." Books are meant to entertain, educate, and
inspire/provoke. A pitch is the foundation for your proposal. It's your contact
with an agent or editor. It's also about being as clear and concise as possible
to the person you're pitching to.
My mistake was leaving out my backstory – why a have a
passion for this particular story. I needed to personalize my pitch. The
perfect book is the book only you can write. This includes your life
experiences and your perspective, Reveal what is behind you for writing this
book. Wny are you so driven to do it? What's the story, and why is it yours to
tell?
If you want to see examples of successful query letters,
check out Writer's
Digest's Successful Queries page. Not only does the page include scads of
very good queries, there are explanations from agents following each query as
to why it was a good one. I've learned a great deal from reading those
examples.
My next step is to subscribe to Publisher's Marketplace for
a month, and find all the agents who represent erotica and erotic romance.
Then, if I haven't already written to them, send them my updated query letter
and anything else their submission guidelines require.
I'm well aware that this book may never find representation.
That surprised and disappointed me, since I've always read about famous books
that were rejected by hundreds of agents only to finally find representation
and then go on to become huge successes. I had hoped that would be my path. It
hadn't occurred to me that I may write to hundreds of agents and all will
reject the book. I was advised by one agent to write another book if this one
doesn't snag an agent, and look for representation for that one. I'm aware of
one writer who now has an agent who submitted a half dozen books over a seven year period before she
finally found representation. Apparently, that's a path I may end up taking.
So, I have hope although I know I have a lot of work ahead of me.
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