Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I think you have to pick one and go with it. What is the main plot of your book? Look at other books that have similar stories and go from there. My book is clearly a fantasy, with a decent romance element between the two main characters yet If you bought it thinking I was selling a romance, you wou...

I hope with this exercise I can help new query writers see an evolution of sorts. I'm by no means saying that my latest query is anything special but I think it shows that I understand the goal a little better. Notice my first attempt, though making perfect sense to me, is full of information that d...

I sent my first round of queries (3-5) when I believed my query was ready back in Oct. or so. Then, with the help of being rejected and forums such as this, I realized that my query was highly flawed. Countless hours of revising and I was ready again. This time, confident in my query, I sent out 7 m...

KappaP, I am thrilled that you liked my query. I appreciate yours and everyone's advice. I tried to use that advice to put it into my own words (OK, some of them were yours). I changed inevitable to almost certain as Epertase hasn't yet fallen but without Alina's rise to power and Rasi's return, it ...

Cool idea- Alien vampires. I agree with the previous posters. The only thing I can add is when you say "This novel..." One of the things I've learned is that you aren't suppose to say this book or novel but instead describe what it's about. Like Tzaralan said. Also, the aliens are differen...

Thank you Tzaralan. I'll work on the run-on sentence(one of my many flaws). My wife is always screaming, "Break up that sentence!" The reason the king has her kidnapped is because he needs to mask his own involvement. Though he is the tyrannical king, he doesn't want to stoke flames of a p...

Everyone here is great and I appreciate all of your advice. I agree with the general consensus that the first paragraph comes across as back story though I like the information and am trying to incorporate it into the rest of the query. Taymalin, Thanks for the comments. I've tried to keep some of t...

Yeah, I've been there. I had to query agents for JACOB WONDERBAR and the waiting is really, really hard. Just rest assured that the speed of the rejection doesn't have anything to do with whether it was an easy or difficult decision for the agent to make. The only variable is when the agent happens ...

Fantasy seems to be almost impossible to query, if you ask me. Some of the most unique concepts are too elaborate to fit into a short query. Everyone knows what a lion is but how many people know what a ferocious ochrid is? So if some elaborate concept is central to your story, how do you tell about...

Does everyone get that same lump in their throat when the see a new email message with an agents name? I almost hate to open it because prior to that moment, I still had hope. I constantly work at my query letter but have been unable to get any positive responses. But I replied here to tell you how ...