Normally, I just link to useful articles. But this post is from February 2010, and I didn't want the link to disappear before you could read it. Thanks to Donna Gambale and Frankie Diane Mallis, critique partners who blog at www.FirstNovelsClub.com, for distilling uber-agent Janet Reid's talk at the Greater Lehigh Valley Writer's Group. Anything Janet says or writes is worth paying attention to. Just check out her blog if you don't believe me.

Here you go: How to Trim Your Query to 250 Words (or Fewer)

Your ability to write a query that does your novel justice can make or break your chances of landing an agent. Reid recommends spending two months perfecting this 250-word marvel.

Your query encompasses three sections:
1. 100 words answering the question “What is the book about?”
2. A brief summary of your writing credits, if you have them.
3. Miscellaneous information on how you found the agent or why you chose him/her.

THINGS TO CUT FROM EACH SECTION

Section One:
1. Back story.
2. World building.
3. Character roll call.
4. Telling.
5. A synopsis.

Section Two:
1. Academia – classes, teachers, degrees, dissertations.
2. Conferences you’ve attended.
3. Self-published novels, or traditionally published novels with poor sales.
4. Personal information.

Section Three:
1. Begging, flattery.
2. Arrogance or self-deprecation.
3. Offer of an exclusive.
4. Your marketing plan.
5. Quotes from rejection letters, paid editors, critique groups, your mom.

TWO THINGS TO KEEP

Section One:
1. Title, genre, word count.
2. The essentials of your novel. (Every time you think you know, ask yourself “So what? And then?” until you’re left with your main character, conflict, and consequences.)

Section Two:
1. Published short stories or novels.
2. Published magazine or newspaper articles.

Section Three:
1. Why you chose this agent.
2. A connection you have from a conference/workshop.

Start from the bare bones and build from there. Infuse each section with your book’s personality. Consider every word. Don’t forget your contact information. And close with “Thank you for your time and consideration.” Now get trimming!

Before I started writing my book, Who Says Bullies Rule?: Common Sense Tips to Help Your Kids Cope, I knew that I wanted to provide a book for parents with tips that were both practical and easily implemented. Moreover, I wanted to offer ideas that would prove helpful to parents who are striving to help their kids deal with the physical and psychological effects of bullying.

After thinking about my experiences as an educator who witnessed bullying daily, I remembered how common sense could help bring about a resolution to most problems, whether the child was a preschooler or an older student.  

I also thought about how important it was to forge strong ties between the child, parent, and school system so that each important player working to prevent and stop bullying would keep the other informed of the problems the child faced. I believed that if children, parents, and the school system worked together closely, they would have a better chance of ending the child’s bullying dilemma. I also remembered the importance of parents knowing how to navigate the channels in their school systems in order to help their children with their bullying issues.

I’ve found that before beginning to write your proposal, you’ll need to be sure about the main points you want to stress in your book. If you have narrowed down the topics you want to deal with before you begin to write, you can structure your proposal around these important points.

Keeping all this in mind, I outlined sample chapters for the book, did a review of the related literature (what was out there already and what gaps needed to be filled), and sent the proposal out to the same editor who had published my teacher resource book about bullying.

Before you flesh out your proposal, first think about some new angles for a subject that interests you. Then write out a tentative table of contents. Summarize each chapter in a few words. Make it conversational and practical. Once you have a working table of contents with chapter summaries, rearrange it into what you think is the best order, and the book will easily take shape from these brief chapter summaries.

After the editor accepts your proposal and you begin to write your nonfiction book, you’ll find that you have to make many decisions. One is what tone you plan to use to get your information across. I’ve found that a one-on-one conversational tone (the same one used in the proposal) works for me. I like to pretend I’m talking to my audience (in this case, parents) in a relaxed manner, offering my best advice as I would at a parent/teacher conference.

If you plan to present case studies or opt for fictitious examples, you’ll have to decide whether you want to use real life situations or fictitious examples based loosely upon your personal experiences with the subject matter.

If you decide to use actual examples, you’ll need to obtain permission from your sources, which may prove time-consuming, and possibly, expensive. However, if you use fictitious examples, you’ll have to make them sound realistic enough that readers will be able to apply the information to their unique situations.

It’s also important to represent a variety of ethnic groups and lifestyles in your examples. Offering this variety gives more people the chance to identify with the people and situations in your examples. (In my book, for example, not all of the children come from two-parent families. Some parents are divorced, a grandparent is raising a child, one child lives in a group home, and a father is the custodial parent in another anecdote.)

The last part of writing your book, and one of the most important, involves editing. For tips about editing by using self-talk, see my upcoming article in the September issue of Children's Book Insider.

Remember to make writing decisions about subject matter and style before you begin your proposal and you’ll be one step ahead in writing a best-selling book.

Dr. Catherine DePino, the author of Who Says Bullies Rule?: Common Sense Tips to Help Your Child Cope, has written many books for children, teachers, and parents. Her chapter book, Blue Cheese Breath and Stinky Feet: How to Deal with Bullies, is widely used in bully prevention programs. For many years she served as an English teacher, department head, and disciplinarian in the Philadelphia Schools and as a student teaching supervisor for Temple University. Access her website at www.catherinedepino.com.

Very often, finding an agent to represent your work feels like a cross between luck, fate, and flipping a coin. But first-time author Allan Woodrow decided to use with a slightly more scientific method. Beginning with a strong manuscript (that's really the most important thing, after all), a stand-out query, and a system for researching, ranking and submitting to agents, he landed an agent within a month and sold his first middle grade novel, The Rotten Adventures of Zachary Ruthless, to HarperCollins two months later.

Read all about his secret here, and then put it to work for yourself.

Publishing can be a dog-eat-dog world (or, as one editor once said, bunny-eat-bunny). It's not a place for the fainthearted–if you want a spot on a publisher's list, you have to be willing to stand up and fight.

I'm exaggerating, of course (just a bit, anyway). But young adult writer Frankie Diane Mallis took this attitude to heart when she went after landing her dream agent. She outlines her attack in four stages (Training, Weapons, Battle Plan, Winning the War) in her article on the Guide to Literary Agents blog. No, she's not dangerous, just very determined. And her plan worked, so maybe it will work for you too.

"Anything cliché such as ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ will turn me off.  I hate when a narrator or author addresses the reader (e.g., 'Gentle reader')."
        - Jennie Dunham, Dunham Literary

"I don't like an opening line that's 'My name is…,' introducing the narrator to the reader so blatantly. I might be prompted to groan before reading on a bit further to see if the narration gets any less stale. There are far better ways in Chapter 1 to establish an instant connection between narrator and reader. I’m also usually not a fan of prologues, preferring to find myself in the midst of a moving plot on page 1 rather than being kept outside of it, or eased into it."
        – Michelle Andelman, Lynn C. Franklin Associates

"1. Squinting into the sunlight with a hangover in a crime novel. Good grief — been done a million times. 2. A sci-fi novel that spends the first two pages describing the strange landscape. 3. A trite statement ("Get with the program" or "Houston, we have a problem" or "You go girl" or "Earth to Michael" or "Are we all on the same page?"), said by a weenie sales guy, usually in the opening paragraph. 4. A rape scene in a Christian novel, especially in the first chapter. 5. 'Years later, Monica would look back and laugh…' 6. "The [adjective] [adjective] sun rose in the [adjective] [adjective] sky, shedding its [adjective] light across the [adjective] [adjective] [adjective] land."
       - Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary

"Here are things I can't stand: Cliché openings in Fantasy can include an opening scene set in a battle (and my peeve is that I don't know any of the characters yet so why should I care about this battle) or with a pastoral scene where the protagonist is gathering herbs (I didn't realize how common this is).  Opening chapters where a main protagonist is in the middle of a bodily function (jerking off, vomiting, peeing, or what have you) is usually a firm NO right from the get-go. Gross.  Long prologues that often don't have anything to do with the story. So common in Fantasy again.  Opening scenes that are all dialogue without any context. I could probably go on…"
       - Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary

"I know this may sound obvious, but too much 'telling' vs. 'showing' in the first chapter is a definite warning sign for me – the first chapter should present a compelling scene, not a road map for the rest of the book. The goal is to make the reader curious about your characters, fill their heads with questions that must be answered, not fill them in on exactly where, when, who and how.  Don’t ever describe eye color either…"
        – Emily Sylvan Kim, Prospect Agency

"Characters that are moving around doing little things, but essentially nothing. Washing dishes & thinking, staring out the window & thinking, tying shoes, thinking … Authors often do this to transmit information, but the result is action in a literal sense but no real energy in a narrative sense. The best rule of thumb is always to start the story where the story starts."
        – Dan Lazar, Writers House

Most authors dread the task of writing a query letter. They're rather rewrite their entire novel than try to convey the essence of their story in a few paragraphs that convince an editor or agent to read the whole thing. It sure would be easier if you could see some actual examples of query letters, wouldn't it?

Never fear, help's here. Check out these links:

♦ YA author Corrine Jackson's blog post Query Me Crazy gives readers before and after versions of the query letter that helped her writing career turn the corner.

♦ See another terrific example of a query letter for Helene Boudreau's YA novel Real Mermaids Don't Wear Toe Rings, along with commentary from her agent on how she reacted upon reading the query.

♦ Author to Editor: Query Letter Secrets of the Pros by Linda Arms White, published by Children's Book Insider, offers examples of over 30 query letters for fiction, nonfiction, picture books, novels, magazine articles, book proposals, and letters to agents. The authors also discuss why each letter sold the project mentioned in the query. You can instantly download this e-book for $19.95.

When you read successful query letters, one thing that stands out is voice. If the query has a distinctive voice, chance are the manuscript will too. Query letters need to capture the unique tone and perspective of the work. Remember that you're selling with your query, so make your pitch convincing. Dry, leaden prose will only bring a rejection letter.

As you might imagine, we get many press releases and review copies of "how to" books for children's writers.  Most are "just OK", but once in a rare while we see a real winner and decide to add it to our product line.  And this is most certainly one of them.

Write a Marketable Children's Book in 7 Weeks does exactly what the title promises: it breaks down the daunting task of crafting a children's book into seven thoughtfully designed chunks.  It's so wonderfully simple and well-planned our first reaction was "Why didn't we think of this?" 

The link to get this essential book is: http://www.mybookorders.com/order/default.aspx?SiteID=518

But first, check out our exclusive interview with the book's authors, Shirley Raye Redmond and Jennifer McKerley. Shirley and Jennifer have used this approach themselves to write over 30 published books, and say it works for all manuscripts from picture books through middle grade, fiction and nonfiction.

Your book takes a very straightforward, step-by-step approach to writing  fiction. Does this leave room for inspiration and creativity?

Shirley Raye: I think the creativity and inspiration are already there before someone would even be interested in or have need of our workbook. We’re just helping the writer with the production and packaging of her creative idea so that it can be brought to complete fruition and appeal to an editor.

Jennifer: Jane Yolen, the famous author, said, “To write 30 books or 300 books or 3 books? BIC. Butt in chair. Every day.” Creativity and inspiration play a big part in writing, but not as big a part as just doing it. We want those who dream of writing to bite the bullet and get a complete manuscript finished. We know it is an empowering feeling, and if they keep writing, they’ll learn that the writing habit itself triggers inspiration and creativity. Read more

Dear Editor:

In the past I’ve explained in Children’s Book Insider why many publishers are now closed to unsolicited submissions, and why it often takes several months to get a form rejection from those who aren’t. I’ve pointed out that writers are largely responsible for these situations, because they’ve used the convenience of computers and the Internet to submit to every publisher imaginable, without first researching whether it was even an appropriate market for their work. I’ve also suggested that if every writer carefully target every submission, the slush piles you editors have to wade through will shrink, and each writer will be competing against far fewer manuscripts from other aspiring authors.

It’s really a no-brainer.

Part of the reason I regularly cover this topic is because I have great respect for the job editors do. You spend many, many hours on administrative duties outside of the time you get to work with authors. You can take a manuscript with promise and coach the author into turning it into a literary work of art. And you don’t even get your name on the book.

The author/editor relationship is a symbiotic one, and now I’m asking for help from your end.

Having reminded writers how important market research is in the submission process, I’d like to point out that it’s not always easy to tell children’s book publishers apart these days, especially as more houses merge into huge book-publishing machines. It seems the big companies are all publishing the same types of books. Can you understand how it’s tempting for writers to simply submit to all of them? So, when you speak about the identity of your particular house or imprint, it would help if you could be specific. Please don’t give us generalities, such as, “We publish thought-provoking books.” That really doesn’t offer any direction. Or, “We seek timeless fiction that will entrance children.” Well, so does every children’s fiction publisher. Or at least one hopes.

If you can’t articulate exactly what you like, please tell us what you hate. No more rhyming, talking frog-who-can’t-jump-but-discovers-his-special-talent stories? Gotcha. Then any writer who reads that and still submits such a story (or similar tale featuring another animal who’s supposed to jump but can’t) deserves to be rejected.

Please frequently update your web sites with current guidelines. If your guidelines change too often for the web site to keep up, please make it easy for authors to call and find out current practices. Some publishers put their guidelines on voicemail recordings, which works well and doesn’t bother the receptionist or your assistant.

I understand that postal regulations force you to hand-deliver larger manuscripts at the post office, and you can’t waste time standing in line to return rejected submissions. I’m also aware of the time and staff hours it takes to print out rejection letters, seal the envelopes, and send them to the mailroom. But is it really fair to tell authors it will take at least six months to read their submission, and then contact them only if you’re interested in publishing their work? If a publisher requests exclusive submissions, but won’t send the author a rejection letter, how long should an author wait before submitting elsewhere? Suppose the first publisher is simply running behind, and is actually still considering the manuscript. If the author submits to another house in a few months, it’s no longer an exclusive submission. Will this create bad feelings if the first editor ultimately offers the author a contract? If the second publisher also requires exclusive submissions, now the author has to contact that editor and say, “Sorry, someone bought this out from under you.” Will the author be blackballed at that publishing house in the future?

Authors have agreed to invest in the paper, printer ink, and postage of mailing their manuscripts, because most publishers don’t accept electronic submissions. Couldn’t the publisher invest in an intern or assistant to spend, say, two or three hours a week sending mass form rejection emails so authors know what’s happened to their manuscript? It’s unsettling to send your life’s work into the world and never know what comes of it.

That said, I’d like to thank those of you who attend conferences and explain to eager, passionate writers what you’re looking for, even if it means you’ll get a load of submissions soon after. Thank you for sending personal rejections to those who have promise, even if it means you have to type out a letter and put it in an envelope. Your efforts make a huge difference in the lives of aspiring authors. And, hopefully, they also help match you up with writers whose work you love and can’t wait to publish.

Sincerely,

Laura Backes

P.S. to Agents: A special thank-you to all the agents out there who tirelessly present at writing conferences, maintain helpful blogs, and continue to read submissions from new authors. I personally appreciate that most of you accept email queries, and I hope this practice streamlines your workday rather than crashing your servers under the sheer volume of emails you might be getting. Many of you are specific on your likes and dislikes, but if you’re not (saying you’re looking for “a captivating read that keeps me up until dawn”) then please consider revising your guidelines. It will only help weed out those queries you should never have gotten in the first place.

And finally, authors, treat email submissions with the same discretion you would mailing hard copy queries. Be honest about what you’ve written, and try to match it to an agent who actually is looking for that type of book. Remember, we’re all in this together.

Interested in learning how to write a book and send it to children’s book publishers? Come on over to The CBI Clubhouse for audios, videos, insider writing tips and much, much more!