Dear Agent: Extract 5 - What not to say

As well as containing step-by-step advice about how to write every part of the letter that you hope will catch you an agent and/or publisher, Dear Agent highlights many of the things not to do, the often-invisible pitfalls that so many writers fall into.



To coincide with the workshop I'm giving about pitching, today at Edbookfest, here are some of them, in the fifth of my free extracts from

DEAR AGENT: send Crabbit champagne

Happy Publication Day to my ebook, Dear Agent!

To celebrate, a bit of fun - well, I can but dream:

Dear Agent,
I know my book is the most important thing. So I have made it all sparkly and wonderful. But now I have to write you a letter which will make you see how sparkly and wonderful it is, so that you will be desperate to read it. I would have done something really cute and original, such

DEAR AGENT - Extract 4

Here is your 4th free extract from Dear Agent, to be published on August 10th. By the way, any agent or any commissioning editor in a trade publishing house can ask for a free copy.

Also, you're all invited to the launch party on Twitter on Friday evening! Yes, one of those Crabbit party event thangs where you either need to kick your shoes off and join in, or batten down the hatches and steer

DEAR AGENT - Extract 3

The third free extract from Dear Agent - to be published on Amazon on August 10th - cheaper-than-chips for the first weekend only. (NB I have been saying it will be 50p but I just discovered that's actually not possible: Amazon doesn't allow me to make it less than 75p, so 75p it will be. Sorry. *cross face*)


Here's yer extract. It's pre-proof-reading, btw.

A few less reassuring but equally

DEAR AGENT - Extract 2

The second free extract from Dear Agent, to whet your appetite for publication on August 10th. But first, a wonderful piece of feedback from a very important personage who has consistently supported my advice for writers. He's Merric Davidson, former high-powered and highly respected agent and now publisher and editor of The New Writer Magazine. He said:

Worth reading for the author’s “Twenty

DEAR AGENT - Extract 1

I'm delighted to announce the 10-day countdown to publication of Dear Agent - Write the Letter That Sells Your Book! Dear Agent is my nifty, comprehensive ebook about that tricksy thing: the letter pitching your book and yourself to agent or publisher. Dear Agent will make a matching pair with Write a Great Synopsis - An Expert Guide, and once you've read them both, there will be no excuse for

DEAR CRABBIT: how to use my 15 minutes with an agent

Here's a lovely positive question for Dear Crabbit!

Dear Crabbit

I am lucky enough to have bagged a 15-minute session with a literary agent at next month's Edinburgh Book Festival. My question for Dear Crabbit is: how could an aspiring author make best use of this time?

I understand that supplicants will be able to submit work to the agent in advance. I have a WIP but the first chapter won't

Dear Agent - FREE copies for you!

I'm delighted to reveal the cover of Dear Agent. *dances*

I hope you like it. Publication date is Aug 10th. And the only industry expert to have read it already has given ACE feedback - part of which you'll see if you squint at the cover.

Dear Agent is going to be the partner in crime to Write a Great Synopsis, and between them I hope they'll cover everything you need to submit a novel to an