Everyone's back from the London Book Fair now, and I'm pleased to hear about the overseas interest in our clients' foreign rights. Some subrights you may not have even thought about before: non-retail audio rights, German audio rights, complex Chinese language rights, even Hebrew rights for Israel... these smaller subrights can add up, and we're always staying sharp to find new markets.

Lately I've been heavy into reading and prepping projects for submission since I recently took on a few new clients (not to mention spending a lot of off-hours time finding and moving into a new apartment--yes, agents do have lives outside the office once in a while) so I haven't had my evenings and weekends for blog posts lately. Jumping back into it, I want to share some more query advice from what I've noticed in my mail:

1. If you're writing fiction that you hope will appeal to both men and women, spend time reading a book outside your usual readership. If you write for women, read a book by a male reader that targets men. If you write for men, read some women's fiction. This is going to help your perspective on what a readership outside your usual mindset will be looking for. (I suggest this because I've read a number of action / thriller queries that have female characters I either don't like or can't believe in. And yes, I've seen women's fiction with a guy who's so unbelievably perfect or unbelievably vile, and it's your job as a novelist to make us believe all your characters are real, antogonists as well as heroes.)

2. Eliminate the slow start. Your opening is crucial, so if you have a hero or heroine staring out to sea, staring out a window, staring off into space... stop that. I know, it's easy for establishing a setting, getting inside your character's head, filling readers in on backstory... but don't do it. Take a long, hard look at your opening and see if you can chop some of it off. Very often the real opening is buried on page 10 or so. Begin the story during a moment of tension (not restlessness) and action (not inner musings.)

3. I got a query that had some cool elements in it, so I read the opening pages. I was disappointed that this "thriller" began with a guy getting a reply from a publisher for his writing, but he postpones opening it. (You may be surprised how often I see similar openings... semi-autobiographical? You think?) So he goes out with some friends, etc. and the story just isn't... thrilling. What I haven't seen? Someone gets a letter and they know who it's from, so they send it back or forward it to someone else and think, "Okay, this changes everything." Then I want to know why. It could be life or death... whether or not someone gets published from a last round of queries... well. This is a common suspense in my life, so I don't find it especially exciting and new in fiction. I know it's tempting to write about a writer, since it's a world you all know. Stephen King is allowed because he knows the rules enough to break them creatively, and who's going to tell him no?

4. Avoid the informal letter. I just got one that was a full page that told me nothing about the story. A lot of newer writers come across as nervously babbling about how much they love to write, how long they've been writing, why they haven't published before, how much they long to be a professional writer, that they'll do whatever it takes to be published, etc. Don't do that.

5. Get someone else to proofread your query letter. Ask them if it makes sense, if they have to re-read any sentences for clarity, and if they could catch any spelling / grammatical errors for you. You'd be surprised how often writers misspell "lose" by typing "loose." Do this for your first five pages and synopsis too. They'll help you catch what a spell check can't.