{"id":11411,"date":"2024-02-25T16:23:39","date_gmt":"2024-02-25T10:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/25\/on-writing-gooder-and-even-more-gooder-books\/"},"modified":"2024-02-25T16:23:39","modified_gmt":"2024-02-25T10:53:39","slug":"on-writing-gooder-and-even-more-gooder-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/25\/on-writing-gooder-and-even-more-gooder-books\/","title":{"rendered":"on writing gooder and even more gooder books"},"content":{"rendered":"


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I\u2019m asked from time to time how I went about finding a literary agent and the whole \u201cpleasepleaseplease publish my book\u201d process. So I thought I\u2019d say\u00a0it in a brief blog post so\u00a0I can refer to it when asked.<\/p>\n

The process isn\u2019t complicated, but it\u2019s time consuming.<\/p>\n

What helped me most\u00a0was\u00a0contacting\u00a0people who were already doing what I wanted to do and finding out how they did it. Each contact is another contact to find an agent who is a match for you and can help you say what you want to say to as many people as possible.<\/p>\n

That process takes time\u2013in my case about a year of nothing, then about a year\u00a0of catching my breath and wondering whether I should give up, and then another year of saying \u201cto heck with it, I\u2019m doing this no matter what those inner voices say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with networking, the most practical advice I got was to read three books<\/strong>. These\u00a0helped give me structure and direction, and they gave me a crash course on what I didn\u2019t know, which was a lot.<\/p>\n

1. Richard Curtis,\u00a0How To Be Your Own Literary Agent: An Insider\u2019s Guide to Getting Your Book Published<\/a>\"\". <\/em>I knew I didn\u2019t\u00a0want to become my own agent, but to find an agent I had to familiarize myself with their habitat\u2013how they feed, where they nest\u2013i.e., to learn how agents think and what they look for. I had no idea whatsoever, and many of my assumptions were naive.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0W. Terry Whalin,\u00a0Book Proposals That Sell: 21 Secrets to Speed Your Success<\/a>\"\". <\/em>This book was invaluable to me.\u00a0Agents don\u2019t want general ideas, and they are not easily charmed. They want a solid book proposal\u2013a concrete project.\u00a0I\u2019d never written a real proposal\u00a0before\u2013one that includes things like a market analysis, who your audience is, and what makes your book different than any other book out there and why you and only you are the person to write it. They also want\u00a02 sample chapters (not<\/em> the introduction)\u00a0that reflect your best prose (not a \u201cdraft\u201d you\u2019re kicking around).<\/p>\n

Bottom line, assume agents have\u00a0better things to do and it\u2019s up to you to startle them\u00a0so they stop doing those other things and pay attention to you. No matter how much they might like you, they have to be convinced that your project is worth their while to sell to a publisher. And writing a proposal like that takes a lot of time.<\/p>\n

3. William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction<\/a>\"\". <\/em>Zinsser sets\u00a0a vision for what nonfiction writing can look like.\u00a0I think everyone serious about writing should own this book.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be happy for others to chime in and share their own experiences!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m asked from time to time how I went about finding a literary agent and the whole \u201cpleasepleaseplease publish my book\u201d process. So I thought I\u2019d say\u00a0it in a brief blog post so\u00a0I can refer to it when asked. The process isn\u2019t complicated, but it\u2019s time consuming. What helped me most\u00a0was\u00a0contacting\u00a0people who were already doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}