#query tips

[thewriteadviceforwriters]

Hey! Do you have any tips for writing a blurb for your book? I’m working on mine now, and wondering if it doesn’t reveal enough about the plot to intrigue readers.

how 2 blurb without screaming into the void

hello, thank you so much for this question, it's one of the many things i love doing howeverrrr it's kind of evil! but first off: you are NOT ALONE. blurbs are evil. blurbs are mini monsters. blurbs are the one part of writing that's like "okay now summarize your soul in 150 words, no pressure :)" and you're like "cool cool i'll just go walk into the sea"

BUT. we can make this less painful. you can write a blurb that hooks people without spoiling the whole plot, i promise.

what a blurb IS:

a pitch, not a summary

the back-of-book tease

a VIBEY sales hook

your book's tinder bio but if you swipe left i'll cry

basically you're giving us just enough to want more. not the full plot (heavens no!) not every twist. not your worldbuilding thesis. you're selling TONE, CHARACTER, and CONFLICT.

the blurb formula that never fails (unless you ignore pacing!!)

hooky first line (it needs to be snappy, intriguing, usually world or character focused)

MC intro (who are they, what do they want, and what's messing that up?

conflict needs to ESCALATE (give us a taste of the tension, mystery, stakes)

stakes or twist HINT (what goes wrong? why should we care? don't give me the main point of the twist, only a HINT)

the final punchy line (this is optional but great if you can do it, try to hint at the tone, leave us curious.)

okay okay but HOW DO YOU KNOW IF IT'S "ENOUGH"??

as an author, ask yourself these questions:

do i know what kind of story this is? (genre, and tone!!)

do i get a feel for the main character's dilemma?

do i feel tension/ a question that makes me want to open page 1?

do i get overwhelmed with lore/confused about names (bad)

did i just write the plot of the entire book in 3 chunky paragraphs? (also bad)

we don't need to know EVERYTHING, we just want to know more.

examples, because i'm a visual creature:

VERY BAD BLURB:

"Lunara is the Princess of the Blood Moon Court and must Reunite the seven shards of the Sun Blade with her talking fox familiar in order to restore the Balance before the Eclipse consumes the Twelve Realms."

...... girl what. i'm tired. there are too many nouns. what is the story even about??? help.

a better version:

"Seventeen-year-old Lunara's kingdom is dying, and it's her fault. To fix it, she'll have to strike a deal with the ancient enemy who burned who home to the ground. He has secrets. She has one last chance. And time is running out."

yess, we get tone. we get stakes. no lore dump, no made-up nouns (which is fine, but INSIDE THE BOOK, not the back-of-book teaser). there's intrigue. and there's danger. i'm interested

final tips that made MY blurbs less garbage:

write 3 versions. one ultra-short (like 50 words long) one medium (100-150), and one long rambly one (just for you). you'll find the gems hidden in the rambles

try to pitch it to a friend. literally message someone and say "okay here's what the book's about". write it in your default tone and then take that and revise it into a blurb

read blurbs of books like yours. what do they reveal? what kind of tone do they set?

don't try to sound fancy. just sound like YOUR BOOK. if it's dark and sexy? be dark and sexy. if it's cozy and magical? be cozy and magical. MATCH THE VIBE

once again thank you for asking me this question, i hope this help you and others. send me your blurb in if you ever want a second pair of eyes btw!! i live to blurb edit. also i might love writing blurbs more than actual books but don't tell my WIPs that. they'll unionize.

rin t 🖤🖤

[adastra-sf]

Bad news for those querying agents: "AI" is ruining this, too

Sending your book manuscript off to agents in hopes of selling it? Be aware that at least some of them have taken the lazy route and are now using "artificial intelligence" to process submissions, thereby wrecking the author/ agent process.

If an agent doesn't read your manuscript themselves, don't trust them to be able to sell it to a publisher, either. Any agents doing this have made themselves irrelevant and unnecessary, and aren't worth paying agenting fees, as they only slow submission to publishers.

[novlr]

I've often seen many publications and publishers often require a cover letter for submissions along side the work itself. Do you have any advice on how to make a decent cover letter when submitting fiction?

Query letters can be intimidating, but they’re completely manageable if you approach them in three easy steps. We’ll walk you through each one:

1: The introduction

This part’s pretty simple. You say hi to the agent; you get their name right (v. important!), you scatter in some personalisation, and you state your cause: to secure representation for your book. 

A few important things to remember:

Address the agent by their first name — not by “Sir or Madam,” and definitely never as “Sirs.”

If you open your query letter with “Dear Sirs” and send it to an all-female agency, your letter’s going to get chucked in the shredder. If the women of this agency are particularly vindictive, they may then take the shreds and make them into a voodoo doll.

Open with a quick note about why you chose this agent in particular. It might be that you heard them speak at a conference, you loved the books they listed as influences on their website, or you noted that they represent one of your favourite authors. Even though agents know that you’re querying several dozen others, they want to feel like you’ve chosen them for a reason.

2: The pitch

So now you’ve got their attention and made them feel special; it’s time to introduce them to the headliner. In this section, you state the novel’s word count and genre. Then you describe, in just two or three sentences, what the book’s about. Finally, you throw down a few comparison titles or authors that encompass your target audience. 

This is the trickiest part, because these are the lines that’s going to make the agent interested in reading your book. You may find it helpful to get some feedback on your pitch from other writers before writing your query. In your pitch, you’ll need to strike a delicate balance between writing in a literary tradition and writing something new. If your book is too weird and progressive, the agent might not feel confident it will find an audience. But if it’s too similar to titles that are already out, the agent won’t feel like you’re offering anything fresh. 

3: The humblebrag

Now that you’ve sold the agent on your book, the next and final step is to sell them on you. At this point, you can mention any writing you’ve published in the past (including short stories or related articles), any training you’ve undergone as a writer, and any biographical trivia that directly relates to the book you’re pitching. 

You may not have a huge amount of professional history to share at this point, and that’s okay. The agent just wants to see that you’re serious about embarking on a career as a writer.

Then, you thank them for their time and sign off. See? Easy!

Want some more detail? You can read the full post in the Reading Room at the link below!

[original-post-locator]

You can add: “filetype:pdf” to a search query and get related pdfs.

Examples:

[yameoto]

Wait you guys actually generate more then one reply at a time???

sure! its helpful. if an ai misses something in your original response, usually asking for a continuation of their reply will hit the missed mark. also helpful when you get a reply that takes you off-guard with the prose or humour or the raunchiness but doesn't forward the plot! continuing the bots response usually shoves things along while letting you include aforementioned thing.

warning though: i don't like doing this for more than two replies, because ai definitely needs continued user input. it cannot carry all by itself. alone, it'll get dull and repetitive fast. its why some people will experience roleplays that are lacking/can't beat the filter. you really do have to take the lead!

[bookinit02]

hiii if anyone would like to subscribe to my youtube channel i will love you forever <3 ok bye

[13eyond13]

I have a theory that Chat GPT has probably done irreparable damage to the once thriving Tumblr ecosystem of fielding wildly out of left field anonymous asks

[hayatheauthor]

Update Regarding My Sudden Hiatus + Author/Publishing News

Guess who's back from the dead!

Jokes aside, I truly do feel terrible for going on hiatus without saying anything, and then I come back and see that I've hit 2k (which btw is absolutely amazing and left me shell-shocked) and that just made me feel worse for leaving unannounced. So, here's everything that's been going on:

(click read more if you want to learn about my experience at my first writer's workshop & pitching to an agent ++ publishing updates for The Traitor's Throne)

If you DON'T want to read more: long story short I'm back and will revamp this blog Monday onwards.

Would you look at that I'm finally getting the hang of Tumblr etiquette!

Anyways, I know if I took the liberty of casually explaining everything we would just be here all day and I would ramble endlessly SO, I'm going to summarise everything into a list:

One of the biggest reasons for my departure was because *insert drum roll* I graduated! That's right, your girl is officially a diploma holder and ready to conquer college! Although I've seen the 'finals week or my final week' meme enough times to start questioning what I signed up for.

My writing life has been a little...disappointing. There's no other way to break it to you folks, but when I started this blog, I was knee-deep in the query trenches, and now, I'm still there. Does that suck? Yes. Am I going to give up? Absolutely not! BUT I do have some changes planned:

I've officially decided if this final shot at traditional publishing doesn't do well, I'm going to give in and self-publish The Traitor's Throne in May-June 2024. Which means you might potentially be able to purchase my baby pretty soon!

BUT I decided to give querying one last shot and actually joined a writer's workshop (which is going on as we speak btw). I joined the online Boston Writing Workshop, I'll drop a review on that on Sunday, but so far I've actually learned A LOT from it, and have decided to give querying another go while implementing what I've learned. Dw I'll also be putting out a review about the workshop on Sunday.

So, here's a summary: I've created a self-publishing deadline for my current project while also giving traditional publishing a final shot. I also joined my first ever writer's workshop this weekend and will be pitching to agents for the first time.

Overall, I think my lack of success in the querying scene kind of made me feel like a fraud when giving writing advice. I'm the type of author who does A LOT of research when I write, which is why I have so many tips on so many topics, but that doesn't make me an expert.

This workshop especially made me realise I've been making some rookie mistakes and focused so much on my story that I forgot the query and synopsis are just as important. Maybe this realisation came too late and I've lost my chance of traditionally publishing The Traitor's Throne, but I am grateful for everything it's taught me.

ANYWAYS—see what I meant by we'd be here the whole day if I didn't use a list??

Let's get back to the important stuff; yes, I will start putting out blogs again, and answering my asks. I'm also thinking of launching a beta reader project where I'll beta read some of your works for free! Stay tuned to see that announcement since it'll come soon.

Thank you so much for supporting this silly little blog of mine, and I hope you have a good weekend! As always, I'll see you on Monday! 💕✨

[bookwyrminspiration]

To the other anon: angling the tampon as you insert it (so the portion in you is more to the front, and the plunger/whatever it's called is more to the back) tends to help it not feel weird. For me at least.

!! ive also personally found partially inserting the applicator itself (like an inch or so) is ideal for me, because it ensures the tampon is lined up properly for when you push down on the plunger to insert it

though I will say other anon didn’t specify if insertion was their issue or not, but I figure someone out there might benefit from tips regardless :)

[inkcurlsandknives]

Querying Stats for Saints!

This post originally went out via my author newsletter, but I realized that if I’m finally going to start using tumblr as an author platform that means I HAVE A BLOG AGAIN!! 

I  recently announced that Saints of Storm and Sorrow, my Filipino Epic Fantasy sold in a two book deal to Titan UK and will be coming out June of 2024. (if you’re interested in Submission Stats definitely go sign up for my newsletter as those stats will go out exclusively in this month’s newsletter. I also send out whatever Filipino recipe I’m tinkering with at the moment, this month is a mouthwatering Kang kong/water spinach adobo stirfry)

Saints was pitched as a Filipino EMPIRE OF SAND X POPPY WAR Lunurin, a mestiza stormcaller, hides in a convent—from the Inquisition branding her a witch, and the Goddess of Storms, who sings of drowning colonizers. When she’s discovered, a marriage-of-convenience might save her from the Church, but not her Goddess. A typhoon is brewing in Lunurin’s bones. Freeing it will destroy the violent colonizers, but also the family she found in the convent and her new marriage.  

QUERY STAT TIME!

I’d like to start by saying I did query 3 books in addition to Saints, And They Called Her Stormbringer (2018- Epic Fantasy), One Half a Dead Witch (2019-Contemporary Fantasy), and Mushroom ABCs (2022- Picture Book) and I’m glad to have signed with an agent who’s so supportive of my backlist. If I’m completely honest I sent my first query for And They Called Her Stormbringer, my freshman year of college in 2012 and received such a brutal (though personalized) rejection that I stopped querying for 6 years and creative writing for almost 2. I will admit now that the feedback was accurate, but as a young writer I had no idea what to do with it or how to revise as I had no writing partners or critique groups at the time.

Fast forward almost a decade. Saints of Storm and Sorrow was fast drafted all 131k words in 31 days for Nanowrimo 2020. I worked to revise it with help from beta readers and CPs from February through August of 2021, I’m a fast drafter and a slow reviser. I went through several rounds of revision. I started querying Saints in the fall of 2021. In Oct 2021 I learned I’d gotten into Pitchwars with my amazing mentor Michella Domenici <3 and I quickly pulled all my active queries and fulls promising to resend the manuscript after the revisions I’d complete during the Pitchwars Mentorship. I then spent the winter of 2021 in an absolute whirlwind of revisions that culminated in the PitchWars Showcase in February 2022. I got 15 requests!! I was thrilled and sure that my querying journey would soon be over!! Saints and I then entered the LONG WAIT. I went into and came out of several writing burn out funks. At no point in the last five years I’ve never written so little as I did in 2022, I found it very hard to write the wait for the first time in my querying journey. Every few months I’d drag myself out of my agonies of waiting and hurl out another thirty or forty queries. Over TEN months post PitchWars I sent a total of 164 queries for Saints of Storm and Sorrow, I received 50 full requests, 4 partial requests, and finally 3 offers. For those who like maths that’s a 33% request rate. In my low moments it started to feel like I’d written a great query but a terrible book! I was told the pacing was too slow and too fast, that the world building was too hard to grasp and not detailed enough! I completed a panic revision in September 2022 trying to address these issues. I nudged everyone who still had my full or partials with the revision, and low and behold two months later, Saints got its first offer on the week of Thanksgiving. I was ecstatic. I asked for three weeks to consider (on account of thanksgiving) and quickly sent out nudges for every open full (18!) AND every query remaining open (65!). OVER 80 emails/Query Tracker messages WOW. 10 more requests for fulls and extensions to read came in. I waited, my inbox rattling with news for almost three weeks. I don’t ever want to send that many emails again! My agent Ramona Pina with Bookends actually ended up requesting my full on my original decision date! But I’d been asked for an extension by a few other agents and let her know she had 3 more days if she wanted to read. Ramona read Saints in two days and the day before my extended decision date sent me her offer of rep. We hopped on a call and I quickly realized there was no way I could decide in 24 hours between such excellent agent choices. I reached out to the other offering agents requesting the weekend to consider and contacted several of Ramona’s clients to get their perspective. After a weekend of decision agony I made the best decision for me and Saints of Storm and Sorrow.

I can’t emphasis enough how much of this process depended on LUCK and GRIT. The Luck of finding a fellow Filipina mentor in Pitchwars who totally understood my vision for the book. The luck of getting Saints into the right hands at the right time. The GRIT to keep sending my query package out even though at points I was convinced far too many people had rejected it to ever find my yes. My book had to get in front of SO many eyes before I found the right ones, but if you’re in the trenches now remember it only takes one yes. Querying is a numbers game and a luck game more than one of skill. You may read about those unicorn authors who send out 15 queries on their first book and get 7 offers, remember they are the outliers. Their books had the exceptional luck of speaking to the market at the right time. Many many wonderful books, telling excellent stories, having great literary merit will struggle in the trenches for reasons that have nothing to do with the book, but everything to do with timing, a contracting market, layoffs of editors and closing of imprints for particular genres.

It can be so hard to remember that rejections can come on your manuscript that have nothing to do with the quality of your work, but I think it’s one of the essential skills that this long journey to become published forced me to learn.

[murcielagatito]

Japan really does stationary stuff so much better than the US and it’s not fairrrr I want nice pencils/pens and cute paper tooo

they really dooo!!! my humble lil collection 😔🤲🏽

[thepedanticbohemian]

Agents constantly complain on Twitter about would-be writers breaking these simple rules that lead to immediate rejection. I've never broken any of them but still have had my fair share of rejections. 50 on the original "cozy" Ourderkirk House. Looking back, I earned those letters. It was complete drivel.

Now it's a powerful three-act rollercoaster. The characters leap off the page. The POV character is hilarious but deeply flawed. She suffers from anxiety disorder and must overcome it in the end to save lives.

IMHO, I think I need to hone my personal saleability. I can write suspense, thrillers, and erotica, for days. But put me at a blank screen writing that sell-me-and-my-book letter and I freeze like an antelope in headlights.

I'm going to submit my polished query letter to author and former agent, Nathan Bransford for critique. I already know I have to kill my favorite line in the letter, "Ruth O'Neill has ninety-nine problems but finding dead bodies isn't one."

Too close to hijinx, as Spock would say. Buh-bye.

[sexcaliburs]

COMPATRIOTA QUE ME SIGUE? no lo puedo creer

Obvio, como se debe 😋

[novlr]

Lots of people have told me I should self publish, but I think I still want to try to go through traditionally publishing my book first. I've got a finished manuscript, so how do I go about querying agents to find the best fit?

Pitching your manuscript to literary agents is a length process that requires lots of dedication, and a great deal of research. To get the most out of your querying, you definitely need to go in prepared.

We've put together this walk through for how to pitch your novel to literary agents, including some helpful do's and don'ts at the link below!

[ancientroyalblood]

How to Write a Synopsis

Crafting a Clear and Compelling Summary of Your Story Whether you’re submitting to agents, pitching to publishers, or preparing marketing materials, being able to write a strong synopsis is an essential skill for any writer. A synopsis is a condensed summary of your story that highlights the key plot points, characters, and themes—without giving way to unnecessary details or personal…

[wyrmzone]

okay im trying to find an obscure mobile game that i played years ago thats almost definitely discontinued

i think it was a gacha game, it had at least some boys, there were elements of some kind (red, blue, yellow, green?), and it had a futuristic/sci-fi/digital theme

i cant remember any of the gameplay other than waiting to use ults and probably turn-based attacks