Recently, I compared a query letter to a job interview. However, that is only partially correct. If a query letter is you, showing up a little early, dressed in a clean, pressed suit, then your synopsis is what you choose to talk about during the actual interview.
Once you’re past the first impressions (and we’ll assume you wrote a killer query letter), your synopsis is the final chance to hook your agent, get her excited about your project, and make her remember your name above the hundreds of other writers vying for her attention.
What makes a synopsis so daunting? When a writer has the stamina to finish a full-length novel, why does she struggle at synopsis-writing time?
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Writing a query letter is akin to going to a job interview. It’s your first chance to make an impression, and often times, it’s also your last.
It’s this philosophy, coupled with my experience as a recruiter, that leads me to want to put my best foot forward, knowing that I may never get another shot.
As a person who has conducted hundreds of interviews, I can only tell you that resumes with quirky fonts, or pages of meaningless, random facts about previous jobs, didn’t impress me any more than the people who showed up in sweatpants or hoodies to be interviewed.
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With self-publishing on the rise, you can now bypass the traditional route, but there are still some of us out there that prefer the “submit, submit, submit” method.
So why won’t you get published either way?
Well, let me tell you, young grasshopper. It could simply be that you’re not finishing anything.
Here are five reasons why:
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Tired of waiting months, weeks, or even days to hear back about your manuscript? Is that 500,000 word door-stopper just desperate to get immediate feedback? Do you like fast food, Twitter, and teleportation?
For those of you that want feedback from an editor yesterday, this is your guide to immediate success. Until recently, I’d never been published, but it wasn’t because of lack of talent. It was because I didn’t use these steps to woo the editors over. Now that I’ve done so, I finally got my short story collection, “Stories that Start in Inns,” published. Go buy it! Now!
You too can pursue your publishing dreams. Just follow these five easy steps and wait for the money to roll in!
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eBook Reader
This article is by P.T. Kendall.
If you are an author who has dedicated a lot of time to the pursuit of traditional publishing with little or no results, you may want to consider self publishing on Amazon’s Kindle store. Many seasoned authors have grown tired of making submissions to literary agents, polishing their query letters and waiting for publishers to give some sort of response. Fortunately for these authors the game has changed and authors can now take publishing matters into their own hands.
Authors with completed work need only take a few small steps to get their work live and for sale in the Kindle store.
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James D. Macdonald is the award-winning author of over forty fantasy and science fiction novels, including his most recent work, Lincoln’s Sword. I recently chatted with Jim about his frequent collaborations with co-author Debra Doyle, as well as his work in educating writers about publishing scams.
You’ve had a pretty amazing career as a fantasy author. Can you tell us how you got started in the genre?
I got started in the genre by reading an awful lot of fantasy when I was young. Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, the Chronicles of Prydain, pretty much every word that Robert E. Howard ever wrote, Tolkien, and endless others. My father had been reading and collecting science fiction since the ‘thirties, so we had the house filled with fantasy and science fiction.
So, fast forward a few years. I was a young sailor, with a girlfriend in Philadelphia, a bookish young lady.
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The king of rejection letters?
Upon the publication of my first book, other authors asked me how I accomplished this feat. As it turns out, many writers see getting published as a herculean, almost insurmountable goal. But as with any major undertaking, breaking it down into manageable steps makes the process far less daunting.
For this reason, I drew up a step by step plan for authors who are wondering how to get published. Although these steps are based on my own experience, they are applicable for most authors. So without further ado, here is my seven step plan for getting published:
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The Hantaa Series
The Haanta Series is the longest ongoing fantasy series on the internet. As of September 2011, the series covers twenty-nine books and over nine-hundred short stories. I recently had the pleasure of chatting with its author, Michelle Franklin, about the joys and challenges of writing an online series.
How did the Haanta series get its start?
It was 2010 and the winter holidays. The recession came around and I was laid off at Christmas. By that point, I had given up on a previous series I was writing and hadn’t published a short story or article in six months. When I was laid off, my friend and editor said to me, “You know, you haven’t written in a while because work has been killing you. Why don’t you take this time to write something new?” I felt that she was right.
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The Trees of Valinor
This article is by Frank LaVoie, author of Firesoul.
Don’t be mistaken. Writing in the fantasy genre is not the same as working in other types of literature. They each have their complexities, and I’m sure you could argue for the inclusion of some of my points below in one kind of writing or another. But, the overall depth and scope of fantasy in terms of writing has all the intricacies of playing God.
World-Building
You are now the master of your own continent, world, universe, or even something so grand that you have a hard time comprehending it yourself.
So what?
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For every first time author, finding the right publisher for your novel can seem like an impossible feat. I recently had the opportunity to chat with fantasy and science fiction author Terry W. Ervin II, whose debut novel Flank Hawk has received impressive reviews. Terry was kind enough to share his own journey to publication with us.
How did you first become interested in writing fantasy, and at what point did you decide to write a novel and see it through to completion?
I became interested in fantasy around the 7th grade. My sister brought home The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. I read it twice and was hooked on fantasy. A second novel that impacted me was The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson. It captured my imagination and made me wonder if I could write something like that. It never went much further than that, although I continued reading and playing fantasy RPGs.
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