agents - again

Fergal - have you got a friend who's read it already? Could they pick out the selling points for you? Or try and think why it would break your heart if your story remained unread in the bottom of a drawer - might come up with some reasons as to why people should be given a chance to read it...

I don't think you need to sell it. My advice would be just to mention that you've just finished the UEA MA (it's cynical I know, but it opens doors...) and that this is your novel. Very short, very succinct letter. I'm not sure you'd even need a synopsis. They'll read it just because you said you went to UEA. It's an automatic ticket to the top of the sluch pile. Sad but true. But you've got to do it! In my limited experience of reading submissions, there can be something quite refreshing when a letter is not full of self-promotion. Let your first three chapters do the speaking. And because you are a fab writer, they will speak very well. Go Fergal go!

a friend of mine once told me that he gave up trying to sell his books, and instead pretended that the agents were really just people who liked reading books. the fear can't get you if you live in a fantasy world. best of luck

I have always felt myself to be a poor salesman but feel a lot more confident now as a direct result of the things I have sudied these past 6 months, which have well, changed my life. The chief thing is this: you truly have to believe that you are passing something of real value, something that has the potential to make a positive difference to the life of the person you are selling to, even if in some small way. And we all know that small things can lead to bigger things... The way to arrive at this sort of confidence is counterintuively to separate yourself emotionally from the thing you are trying to sell. We all make decisions based on what we perceive to be in our direct interests, so why should it be different for the Agent or anyone else? Put yourself firmly in his/her place then list out the direct benefits of your book to them (in bullet form if that helps).... remember it is Benefits (tangible and intangible and usually allied to an emotional hook) that you are looking out for and not the features of your work and certainly less about you. For benefits, try to bring out the uniqueness of your offering in preference to any comparative type judgements e.g to books of a similar genre. What to do with this list? Have it as early in your covering letter as possible, even as a set of bullet points. Leave the stuff about You till the end and keep that bit short and sweet. In other words, start feeding him/her marketing ideas for your book from the outset. After all, If the angle and the distilled ideas catch on, there is always a tacit understanding that a book could always be tailored to be 'got right'. The other thing you could include to make the letter more persuasive are some peer review comments (at least 2-3, possibly more). If you can get some from friends, published writers, tutors or even your fellow UEA gradutates, then do so. If you look at reviews, listen to word of mouth when it comes to trying out new books, then it works for others too (when we lack information and time is at a premium we always look for decision shortcuts. That works for Agenst too). A final idea is to remember is that people are also more motivated by the fear of loss than what they hope to gain so you need to incorporate that concept however subtly into the text of your letter. You are a good writer and one worth reading. Many that you like and respect on here have told you so, however that is not enough to know. You have to truly believe that of your work, and the way to communicate that effortlessly is to firmly identify and then repeatedly sell the benefits of the work to the recipient - which can stand apart from yourself. Selling the book should be easier than trying to sell yourself. Good luck. Hope this helps.

'In other words, start feeding him/her marketing ideas for your book from the outset. After all, If the angle and the distilled ideas catch on, there is always a tacit understanding that a book could always be tailored to be 'got right'...' 1leg - all I can say is: worst. advice. ever. You might as well write the letter on toilet paper in green crayon. This is your own pet theory that you've just cooked up, without ever testing it against reality, right? There's no point in getting a dog and then barking yourself. It's not a writer's place to suggest angles for marketing their novel at such an early stage, beyond - at the very most - something like 'Billy Bumstain And The Giant Genitals Affair is a horror story in the tradition of Stephen King' or whatever. Just send the first three chapters, and a short covering letter saying 'hi, I'm Joe Bloggs, this is my story, Kris Krinklehorn And The Curse Of The Mulatto Lovechildren, I did the UEA MA, let me know what you think.'The writing will either stand up for itself or it won't. No amount of sales pitch is going to bamboozle an agent into taking on something they don't like. And remember people - every time 1leg gives someone publication advice, God kills a kitten.

Different agents ask for different proposals. I've seen some that ask specifically for authors to give information as to the potential market for their work etc. Others want CVs and plans for the future. Some simply want a brief introduction. I don't believe there is a universally correct template you can work from, so unless you can glean from their information what type of cover letter they want, play it safe and don't go to extremes either way. I've copied this from an article by Helen Corner, who used to work for Penguin. i reckon this is as sound advice as you're likely to get. 'The key to a confident submission is research. Every agent has different preferences. One agent said the best letter they received had one sentence, ‘I hope you enjoy reading my manuscript.’ Another agent likes to know what inspired the author to write their story. If in doubt keep it simple. It should have one paragraph of biography written in the first persona and a short paragraph description of the manuscript with contact details: address, email and phone number. Try not to preach about the market although anything pertinent is worth mentioning and definitely don’t say that your mum loved reading it. However, anything that makes you slightly different is good. If you’ve been in the circus say so. If you’ve sailed around the world, brought up 15 children single-handedly, was inspired to write the story after picking up a postcard found in your grandmother’s attic, say so. This brings life and colour to you and may offer a publicity angle if your story goes on to get published. Don’t ever say this is your one and only story.’

p.s. the typos in the article are all mine - i had to type it out quickly...

I work for Helen, 2Lou, and I largely agree with what she says, although I'd still stick to two or three sentences. After all, the publicity stuff can come later. I kept my TV commission to myself when approaching agents, because I wanted their decision to be based purely on the quality of the writing, not whether they thought I was a good punt publicity-wise. If you keep it short and sweet and they say yes, you know it's all about the writing, and nothing else.

When you have two competing ideas, a good marketeer would.... Test it. In the scenario above, it would make sense to compile two letters with the different approaches, then send to say a dozen agents each. Monitor the results, then use the statistically more sucessful one in future communications. In Market speak, this is called Split Testing. If you have hangups about Marketing as I used to, just think of it as 'Communicating Effectively'. Marketing is about statistical science as well as Art I have come to learn. We are all net consumers of it whether we like it or not. It makes sense to try and find out how and why it works because it increasingly impinges upon every facet of modern life.... and knowing and using it more effectivel would make life easier. Rokkit it would seem, disagrees. I would urge caution on following the 'advice' of Agents. Fairly frequently what people say they want and what they react to are quite different. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and the result of when you have the time and luxury to think things through. That is not the the scenario when you have say 10 manuscripts on your desk and you have to make an instant decision on which ones to set aside. They could all be equally brilliant, but that is not the point. That is when Marketing comes into its own and where you could have an edge over others.

Umm... except 12 agents is both a vanishingly small sample in statistical terms, yet enough to mean that the total agencies polled (24) would cover a significant chunk of all those available in the UK. I disagree because you're just wrong, 1leg. Launching into a sales spiel is a great way to alienate an agent. Most of them aren't total imbeciles who can't recognise saleable writing without a bullet-pointed covering letter. In the case of non-fiction, I concede that maybe what you're proposing would be more appropriate. In the case of fiction, absolutely not. However, you did manage to only use one instance of ellipsis (...) in that last post, so on that front, I praise you.

Without wishing to get all Bill Hicks on your ass, 1leg, I have to agree with Rokkit, this is not a question of "communicating effectively". Agents get a shed load of people sending manuscripts. In fact, the group of people they get the most manuscripts from are people who are better at selling themselves than they are at writing. So, after time, selling yourself becomes equated with being shit at writing. And with good reason. So unless your novel is a searing satirical attack on the way that marketing language has seeped not just into everyday usage but into the everyday psyche so that people start to see their lives and mistakes through Split Testing and other pop solutions, I would keep the more obscure formatting wizards and clip art from Microsoft Word under wraps and just keep it simple. Joe

Keep it short and simple seems to be the way to go then (or in marketing speak, KISS). However, I'm not sure about: 'In fact, the group of people they get the most manuscripts from are people who are better at selling themselves than they are at writing. So, after time, selling yourself becomes equated with being shit at writing. And with good reason. ' Is there really a direct correlation? Does that mean that to attempt to outline the merits of your proposal in a covering letter, automatically reveals you as a bad writer? Wouldn't that in turn make you very bad at 'selling yourself'? I don't think that the act of writing a covering letter designed to spark an interest has to be lumped in with rampant, in-your-face, I'm-a-genius style self-promotion. Mind you, I've only tried to ‘sell’ (she says, revealing herself as one of those horrid self-publicists) non-fiction, which as Rokkit said, is slightly different.

You don't have to be any good at 'selling youself' - an agent's job is to sell your work. If you want to spend more time on making yourself more marketable, work on the MS, not the covering letter. Spack's right, I feel - self-promoting letters tend to preface honkingly bad manuscripts. No elaborate sales pitch can save a crappy MS, and no simple, to-the-point letter will stop an agent from reading your first page - which, if it's brilliant, will speak for itself.

I would just like to say a thank you to all parties, as I have very little experience in writing these letters, and hope that one day something I write will be worthy of publication. So, short and bland is the way to go?

it's not about being bland. it's about clarity and purpose. keep it simple. refer directly to the genre and market (if you have one in mind) in as few words as possible. if your manuscript lands on the wrong desk they need to know quickly, and they'll resent having to plough through flaff and puff to find out what is in the envelope. in fact they probably won't bother. but if, on the other hand, your epic on the world of canary breeding is rejected, six months later when canary breeding is the new rock and roll, they're more likely to go oooh there's that one we were sent. they won't remember how fancy and over-engineered the letter was. then let the manuscript itself do the selling.

Yes, short and straight-forward letters are best, I reckon. Confident writers are the writers who don't need to couch their writing in pre-emptory praise or explanation. Agents have lots of hard learnt knee-jerk reactions to certain types of covering letters - don't let them judge you before they've read your writing. Joe

a good letter to write to an agent might be something like this. Dear XXXXXX Please find and enjoy the manuscript for my novel " Waste Strange ", a heartwarming story of Hoxton Square media folk and their struggle to reconcile being trendy with the ageing process. I hope you enoy reading it. If you don't like i hope you die. yours etc.

The sad thing is, I bet agents have to read freako letters like that all the time.

have you got an agent 1leg?

No, but I have learnt a few things from following the 'real world' consensus on this thread. Marketing is cac, doesna work. Googles billions are all illusory, the millions spent every day on ppc campaigns are by complete speculative idiots with more money than sense. Everyone knows Ads don't work, after all no one 'actually admits' to being influenced by them. Agents are a superhuman species, impervious to all forms of marketing unlike the rest of us humans. Moreover, being experts at Marketing themselves (one hopes) they especially resent if something come across as well marketed to them. Oh yes, their working lives are a total joy. Every Morning they proclaim 'Oh Yeay' as another 100 manuscripts drop through the door. Each one, they will be able to give their fullest attention to asess its 'worth ' before the next 100 arrives at lunchtime (they are superhuman after all). What else, oh yes Alex Trew of Million Dollar Fame did not in fact make a Million Dollars in 5 months by combining a good idea with some textbook marketing principles (his idea was simply worth a Million Dollars all the time). And the novelist (Tom Corven or suchlike) who is featured prominently on the site has not had his work seen by hundreds of thousands if not millions because he recognised the potential of marketing on Trews site early one.... It is simply because his work is Brilliant and its worth shone through.... ... I bet he has many Agents, Fishy one.... and from my brief read of his work, IT IS cac. If someone is serious about their work, they will take the time to try and learn this Marketing lark.... it really is more science than art. Here is another bit of speculative controversy... Good Marketeers probably understand the human condition better than your average novelist... They could probably reel off more compelling stories with lesser effort if inclined to do so. (evil grin) Oh and finally, Tim comes across as someone who is pretty poor at promoting his work. He sorts of shyly plops it on a wooden beanch somewhere in the middle of the night and hides around the corner waiting for it to be 'discovered'... (I did particularly enjoy those elipsis)

For someone who places so much faith in marketing, you seem rather bum at promoting even your own point of view, 1leg, which leads me to believe your 'epiphany' has come in the form of reading a few pop-psych books on salesmanship. You are joking about the 'poor at promoting his own work' bit, right? Because your judgement on this thread has been so wonky thus far that I'm not sure when you're being serious and when you're just baiting me.

i will ask my agent if she is superhuman ... i think that any letter you send must have integrity ... i mean your own ... it is no good trumpeting yourself 1leg style with all kinds of flowery overblown guff ... if actually you are down to earth, gentle and humourous (which you are fergs) ... the right agent for you will be someone who responds to who you actually ARE ... not who you are pretending to be ... my letter was me ... admittedly i restrained myself from apologising for my work (with your help ferg!) ... i just told the truth ... i had a book and i thought she would like it ... i will leave the marketing stuff to her - it's her job ... and to the marketing folk who know what they are doing through experience not just reading a few self help marketing bibles ...

So you're not going to mention it?

No, it's true - I didn't get on with most of the agents who came to court the MA. When I said my novel was set in Wales, one of them asked me if it was about sheep shagging. Clever. I wasn't suggesting that you just put a fat UEA MA stamp on your manuscript and leave your personality at the door (of the post office). I just think mentioning it does take the pressure of the selling yourself bit. Yes, all agents, the nice and the nasty, will take notice of it. Only the more dodgy ones will see it as a label within which to sell you. Which I think you are right to be wary of. Joe

I forgot about the 'sheep shagging' comment. What a flipwit.

i agree with what ivoryfish said. my agent said " I only work with people i like and whose work catches my eye " the interesting thing is the order within that statement. how on earth are they supposed to know if they like you, if you all give them is some marketing powerpoint representation of yourself and your work?

From my original post: "Put yourself firmly in his/her place (the Agent) then list out the direct benefits of your book to them (in bullet form if that helps).... " "Leave the stuff about You till the end and keep that bit short and sweet." All this translates by Fishy to: ... it is no good trumpeting yourself 1leg style with all kinds of flowery overblown guff .. I suppose one needs a good imagination to be a novelist. From Faithless: my agent said " I only work with people i like and whose work catches my eye " I agree, but thats what effective marketing does.... makes you stand out from the crowd. What makes a person like you? What catches peoples eyes? What factors influence people into making decisions? What structures of infomation appear more convincing than others?. There are statistical/scientific studies that prove that certain approaches work better than others. The scary thing is, most of these work subconciously so people cannot then explain conciously how they come to their decisions... though some are pretty adept at justifying themselves retrospectively, despite the evidence. The 'pop science' book is a scientific study by a renowned academician in the field, first printed in 1980 and now in its 4th edition. It is one of the 'must reads' on a Marketing course. In this day and age the ideas contained therein are accessible to marketing fodder like you and me.... if you can be bothered that is.... I just wished I had come across it earlier. I think the problem here is people have pre-concieved notions about what 'Marketing' is based upon preceived experience at being at the receiving end of it. (I admit I did, until fairly recently, and I have lots more to learn, especially after this 12 week course advanced course that I have just completed). Anyway, one may conjecture and speculate all one likes but it is results hat count, right? I have a perfect testbed for testing some of these ideas out. A website that sells something. I am in a position to serve up e.g two pages of the same product, with the same information structured in different ways. I can then monitor the number of 'conversions' or outcomes that I get for each over a period of time. Guess what, I am already astounded at the power of some of these 'Marketing principles' and I am still very much a novice at it. If I can, then anyone can. For those interested, here is the book I recommend which will serve as a powerful introduction to these ideas. At the end of day you owe it to yourself to try all the avenues you can to get your work published... what do you have to lose? It is just another book to read, after all. ABCTales book link: http://associatesshop.filzhut.de/shop/product.php?ID=d01d5816a05b7559f0b... Enuff said by me on this subject.

is it true that you are called 1leg because you haven't got another to stand on?

" I only work with people i like and whose work catches my eye." That sounds alarmingly like the agent in question ignores everything sent to him and instead relies on occasionally proferring his services to strangers he runs into. Which isn't very hard to believe,

It just amazes me how some writers get totally caught up in the pursuit of style over substance. Any time you spend cooking up complex marketing strategies would be much better spent working on improving your MS. Presentation is all very well, but in 99% of cases worrying about the covering letter is like straightening deckchairs on the Titanic. The biggest problem with work sent to agents is not 'This is poorly pitched', it's 'This is inappropriate, unsaleable tosh'. 'Anyway, one may conjecture and speculate all one likes but it is results hat count, right?' Ah - as I suspected, 1leg is relying on the old 'results hat' method. I myself favour the less famous 'success y-fronts' technique, and it has held me in good stead for many a year.

yayyyy ... i'll drink to that ....

"It just amazes me how some writers get totally caught up in the pursuit of style over substance. Any time you spend cooking up complex marketing strategies would be much better spent working on improving your MS." It shouldn't amaze you. Any writer with a vague sense of strategy would conclude - from a quick rifle through the contents of a library or bookshop - that agents and publishers will accept any old crap these days, and that the difference between those who are published and the thousands rejected *must* be something other than the quality of their MS. Surely, Tim, when you read G. P. Taylor, or Dan Brown, or countless other authors, you cannot possibly conclude that the agent or publisher reading the MS for the first time said to themselves, "Good Lord - this is quite the outstanding novel!" More likely they have thunk something along the lines of, "This is the kind of stuff that people will lap up if it's pitched right." They *think* that, of course, but they're evaluations are not particularly good, considering the number of books that fail outright. I think what you might mean is that it *disgusts* you how many writers are trying to weasle their way into the publishing world (and, indeed, how many may be succeeding,) when every writer worth his salt should, romantically speaking, be spending time making his writing better.

I was under the illusion that one sent off CDs rather than a hundredwieght of paper.

This bloomin' titchy script here combined with my failing eyesight led me to mis-spelling hundredweight.