Thursday, January 22, 2009

Claudia’s Journey – Part 2

This morning Claudia and I received our first request to step onto the dance floor. If we are to be swept across the floor in an elegant waltz or if, once standing, our partner will be distracted away is yet to be seen, BUT the request has been made. If you remember from Part 1, I sent a query letter out to one publisher and four agents. This morning the publisher asked to see the whole book. Serious happy dance time!

Now I’m giving it one last run through. (Can a book be edited too much? I’ve found the answer is no) And I’m going to send it off. Yes or no, we’ve already made a big step, and I’m deliriously happy about that.

As I see this whole process as a learning curve for me and my readers, I wanted to let you know about a comment I received about the query letter. A writing friend of mine who has been very successful in her own career says I must sell myself more. I was surprised as I was even a bit embarrassed by going on about myself. She says I have it all wrong. I must put the paragraph about me first, especially for agents, as that will be a long term relationship with numerous projects (if we’re lucky) and they need to know who they’re getting. So, my friends, sell, sell, sell yourself. If nothing comes from this round of send outs, I will indeed implement that advice.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

big congrats on this first step!! and once again thanks so very much for sharing the advice about your query letter and for keeping us posted on how it is going - it is great to see this evolve, and quite insightful to see your process