Ask Nathan Bransford!

[jamesjones]

Hi Nathan, and thanks for your time!

I was reading your blog and noticed that the query you pulled out as a specifically good one was one in which the writer mentioned having a website.

I've recently set up a website, but for two reasons, I never mention this on query letters. The first is that my web design skills aren't that great, so it's not a brilliant website - it has samples of a novel and some published short stories, but not much else. The second is just that, as an unpublished novelist, I feel kind of pretentious having a website. Given that you seemed to like this though, should I be mentioning it and perhaps putting more work into getting it better?

What is it about a writer having a website that an agent might like, and what would you be looking for in one? (I'm in Britain, by the way, where it's more common to send the first three chapters along with the query, so telling them they could read the first three chapters there wouldn't be a big addition in most cases.)

[Nathan Bransford]

Here's a post on that, hope it helps! https://nathanbransford.com/blog/2018/0 ... or-website