An agent in the middle

An agent in the middle

I follow a handful of  literary agents on twitter. One of the more consistently interesting and helpful is Rachelle Gardner, who feeds us eager authors insightful advice to light the path to acquiring and agent and publisher.
On her blog this week is a guest post from Billy Coffey, one of the authors she represents, discussing [...]


The Writer’s Handbook event blow-by-blow

The Writer’s Handbook event blow-by-blow

Yesterday’s series of seminar sessions put on for writers by The Writer’s Handbook, was, unsurprisingly, a mixed bag of great and worthless information. Thankfully, the good stuff more than compensated for the bad.
Our immediate impression was of a room filed with people who do not get out much. But what else might you expect of [...]


The temptation of social networks

The temptation of social networks

What do you do when you come across a list of literary agents and publishers on twitter? That’s right, spam the lot of them!
I now follow a number of literary agents who use twitter, thanks to a recently distributed list. It has turned out to be quite an education. Amongst the personal messages and posts [...]


A quick negative from an agent is best

A quick negative from an agent is best

A quick update on progress…
I mentioned recently about switching tactics and approaching literary agents with an initial query letter rather than a package of letter, synopsis, and sample chapters (based on each agent’s preference). 
Some agents make it known that they will respond within a few days, to query letters. My experience so far has been just that. [...]


The next cycle

The next cycle

The first round of approaches to literary agents are back – all rejections. So it is time to regroup and prepare for the next batch, with a new tactic…
I wrote recently about receiving rejections from literary agents. There is always a little disappointment to receive a negative response, after all, you are trying to gain [...]