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

A reminder of why toffee is not a way to get published

This has remained one of the most popular posts in the three years of this blog's life, so I thought I'd let you see it again. Although it's fun to read, there's a very serious point to it. Take note!

HAVE YOU BEEN TO OXFORD?

Because, apparently, if you haven't, you don't stand a chance of being published.

When someone said this to me the other day, I first ignored it, assuming it was a joke. Or a slip of the tongue. Maybe she didn't say Oxford; maybe she said, "the University of Common Sense and Jolly Good Writing". But then she said it again, more clearly. "No, seriously: if you go into Waterstone's and pick up

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND

I hope you would never do any of these things.

I have seen versions of all these awful query attempts so I know they are not exaggerated. Some people laugh at them - I tend to wince, partly because I have done similar things myself in the distant past.

Don't do it!

HOW NOT TO HOOK AN AGENT

There are many ways not to hook an agent but today we are talking about just one: the ill-considered use of a middle-person to make the approach for you, even if the approach includes a glowing report on your book. I have just had a message from an agent telling me about a submission she's just had.

First mistake: it began, "We write on behalf of our client..." NO! Avoid outfits that claim to

STANDARDS IN PRIVATE LIFE

Despite being a crabbit old bat, I have an unnatural sympathetic streak which cringes when people are found out for their bad behaviour. It's embarrassing.

BUT behaviour like this REALLY pisses me off. I have never read Dr Rachel Polonsky's books and therefore have no opinion as to their wondrousness, but she did not deserve to be rubbished by someone disguising the fact that she was the wife of

DELUDED COVERING LETTERS

I am re-posting this earlier post to help those of you approaching covering letters / queries for the first time. Many of you, I know, are old hands at this, but there are new writers coming along all the time and terrible mistakes are being made. I want to save you, honestly!

The covering letter will give an agent or editor the first clues (and they may not look further) that either a) you may

PARTY INVITATION

Even though I'm in a really bad mood for many reasons and completely fed up with the snow, I am generously inviting you all to my first birthday party. Yes, on Sunday 10th Jan, this blog will be One Year Old!

I was reading some of the first posts just now, and remembering how I felt getting my very first comments, and how extraordinarily quickly so many of you found me. Echo Freer and Tom Vowler

WHY WRITERS MUST READ THE RIGHT STUFF

A recent blog post raised a question from a reader, which I promised to answer. Have I ever let you down yet? [There's still time, of course.]

The post was here and the question from Samantha went as follows:
 "Are you saying, Nicola, that one must be widely read in a particular genre before attempting to write for it? Up until now I have written humorous chick lit and very much enjoy reading

A PERFECT SCENE THROUGH DIRTY WINDOWS

I read an interesting blog post by one of you  -  Catherine Hughes, guest blogging on the Strictly Writing blog. [Well done, Catherine!] And it got me thinking.

Catherine's right: despite constant advice from me and many others to get your covering letter+synopsis+sample perfect before sending it to an agent or publisher, perfection is not always actually necessary. In other words,a beautiful

MYTHS ABOUT WRITING

When my life hits its stupidly busy phases, I fall back on the useful practice of letting other people do the work. And when I came across this blog post recently, I bookmarked it for just such an occasion.

In case you need to be convinced as to my definition of busy, I should perhaps mention that at the moment I am trying to sell a house, buy two flats, write a novel, start a new business,

RESPONSE TO A DELUDED IDIOT

Some of you may hate me soon. Especially newer followers of this blog or people who have just come across me without warning. (There absolutely should be a warning before entering the world of one so trenchant and crabbit, I know.) You need to understand that I genuinely care for the interests, hearts and souls of unpublished writers; you need to know that I share your pain and that I can do so

COMPETITION RESULTS

In my arbitrary way, I hereby declare the "You must be joking" competition closed. You may have noticed that I forgot to say what the prize would be. So, I am now happy to announce that the prize for getting both answers correct within my time-scale would almost certainly have been a vast amount of money. Sadly, no one got both answers correct. I am devastated.The correct answersMany of you

PARTY AND COMPETITION!

Time to celebrate. House-warming for my new address and a big thank you to all those of you who have stuck by me. Oh, and lovely follower Brenda has an agent! See comments after this post.So, a competition, don't you think? Because parties must have prizes and games and all manner of fun. I'm providing chocolate and sparkly wine. Well, I'm consuming it anyway, and you're welcome to join me if

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HEARD

Certain readers have dared to say that I've lost my crabbit touch. (Catherine, are you quaking?) Feedback is all very well, but that's plain insulting.

Well, see if you say the same after this one. (Not to mention the fact that I am very very close to spilling the beans on some SHOCKING covering letters I've just seen. But that's for another time. You don't believe the direness of the slush pile

THE PERFECT COVERING LETTER

I promised that I'd post this at the exact time of my workshop on the subject at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Think of us, eating chocolate and having fun!(Btw, sticklers for correct language among you will have noticed that that last sentence can be read in two ways. It's deliberately ambiguous: either you or we are eating chocolate and having fun. And I'm not telling you which. It would be

POINTY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: 3 - SANITY (and book fest pics)

Continuing in my series of Pointy Thoughts, I bring you a thought of extreme importance. This has been engendered by correspondence from an agent friend of mine.

It is simple: do not submit any work to an agent or publisher when you are high on hallucinatory drugs. Ever.

That is the only explanation for the extraordinary example of mania that an agent has shown me.

No, let me be fair. I am

CRAPPY AUTHOR BEHAVIOUR: THE LAUNCH

It's a while since you've had a full-scale rant from me and I feel it's been too long. How you have managed, I have no idea. Wait no more: I feel the need to share a little thing that has been bugging me since a book launch I went to a while ago. Let's not be precise about the exact date and let's not go anywhere with the name or genre, because I do not wish publicly to embarrass the author, who

BE CAREFUL WHEN FALLING OUT OF PIGEON-HOLES

Excellent example of how not to hook a publisher in this insightful post over on Editorial Ass today. And for once, it's silly agent behaviour, not silly author behaviour. Please read and then return here for my piercing insights.Clearly the agent in question was clueless. Or you could say that he was actually very clueful: he gave loads of clues but no actual answers.Let's do some unpicking and

TRUTH HURTS - SO UNLEASH YOUR HIDDEN MASOCHIST

For a writer, there are sensible ways to take feedback and there are foolish ways to take feedback.I won't add (much) to the vitriol hurled from and at two writers who got themselves into the news this week as examples of extreme(ly bad) ways to take negative criticism. Alain de B and Alice H will make up their own minds how to react to the feedback to their feedback to the feedback (aka reviews)