Looking for a Literary Agent for your new novel? Need some advice on fine-tuning your pesky query letter? Query Roulette is the place for you. With the big day only two weeks away, there’s no better way to prepare than by learning what the agents are looking for.
And you can start with some Q&A from agents Laura Usselman and Latoya C. Smith.
Laura Usselman (Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, Inc.)
Laura not only has an MFA from Virginia Tech but she also studied film at the University of Georgia. She’s interested in Literary Fiction, Upmarket Fiction, Memoir, Travel, and Food Writings. Her clients include Robin Page (The Before).
Can you name some travel writing books that you enjoy?
I like books that look at landscape and place while also thinking hard about something else — books like Confederates in the Attic,which is both travelogue andexploration of the South’s persistent
fascination with and re-litigation of the Civil War, or Great Plains, which is about the great plains but also about America and about Ian Frazier’s discursive mind. I am less interested in travel books that don’t have something else on their mind.
When you receive upmarket fiction queries, what do you wish you saw more of in the letter or in the project?
I am often wary of books that seem as though they were written to capitalize on a particular fascination of our current publishing moment — psychological thrillers with unreliable female narrators, for instance J I love to see that a writer came to a book through their own organic fascination with a topic or obsession with a character, and I think that kind of unique fascination is often evident in the writing samples I read. For letters, I often wish for brevity above all — a few introductory sentences (including comparable titles if you have them in mind), a paragraph about the book, and a paragraph about the writer. Then I can get straight to the good stuff, which is the pages. Full plot synopses are hard to read and easy to glaze over.
Is there any advice you can give on writing query letters for memoirs?
Again, I would keep things brief — a little bit about yourself and your story and some comparable titles. A platform and a link to your social media is appropriate if you have an impressive and well-establish platform; if you are just starting out, it can be more of a distraction for me. Memoir is an incredibly voice-dependent form, especially if you are not a celebrity with a massive platform — it’s all about how a reader will connect to and hear you on the page. So I want a brief sense of thesortof memoir you’re writing, and then I want to get to your prose.
Latoya C. Smith (Lori Perkins Agency)
Latoya has 13 years of publishing house experience and is an award-winning editor. She is looking for Commercial Fiction, Nonfiction, Romance, and Erotica queries. For more information, you can follow her on Twitter @GlamEditor_Girl.
Would you explain what drew you to one of the titles you recently signed?
I loved the concept which I felt was marketable and worked with the current marketplace. Not to mention, the author has a platform (strong social media presence and connections to bestselling authors.)
What type of commercial fiction do you wish you saw more?
Women’s fiction with a nice hook that makes it stand out from the rest.
What’s your favorite aspect of being an agent?
Helping writers take their careers to the next level.
When romance and/or erotica writers put together a query letter, what advice would you give them about what to and not to include?
Be sure to include word count, romance subgenre, and comparable titles (who do you write like? What audience are you trying to capture with your book?).
Is there anything you would recommend for writers attending Query Roulette do to prepare?
Don’t be afraid to bring written materials or anything you feel you need to make your best pitch.
More participating agents will give their takes on Thursday!
To register for Query Roulette, clickhere.
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Did you miss last week’s post? Agents Tess Callero and Christina Morgan shared their preferences and some great tips on writing queries!
By Rina Mody
Rina’s a marketing assistant at a publishing company in NY. She’s an avid traveler and loves to go to new places – both real and fictional.
