Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing
Helping authors achieve their dreams
Chances are you absolutely, positively did not enjoy writing your query letter. Writing a query is among the things writers hate the most about their profession, up there with paper cuts and no host open bars. But once you’ve scarred your soul whittling down your wondrously complicated creation into 350 words or less of glorified […]
A while back I outlined the general necessity of whittling down your plot to one sentence, one paragraph, and two paragraph pitches in order to give yourself a head start on the literally thousands of times you are going to need to summarize your work over the course of a book’s lifetime. Today I want […]
Do not worry about spoilers in a query letter. “But wait, I saw an agent say in an interview that they don’t want spoilers in a query letter! It’s right there on their website!” Do not believe them. I repeat: Do not worry about spoilers in a query letter. “But I want them to be […]
I’ve been hard at work on some new ways to deliver you the information you need to achieve your writing goals. First up: a sixteen minute video on how to write a query letter! I share my top tips on writing a killer plot description, the personalization and nuts and bolts you need to include, […]
Authors often gnash their teeth at the nearly-universal advice that you should personalize your query letters. It’s time consuming to research agents individually, people don’t know what to say, and there’s something about it that just rubs people the wrong way. It pays to personalize. Just do it. In this post I’ll explain why and […]
Last week I went to the movies for the first time since the pandemic started, and I encountered a curiosity I’d largely forgotten existed: movie trailers. And while I was coaching a writer on how to improve their query letter, I had an epiphany: lots of authors are writing their query letters like the “voice […]
Helping authors achieve their dreams
