Your first book is the very best, tailored-to-you, hands-on class you can possibly take for your second book.
Didn't get an agent for your first book? That's completely normal.
It's progress, not a failure. 🌱
#WritingCommunity #AmWriting
We loved this week's Queries & Pages Panel with senior agent Ismita Hussain!
There always seems to be a theme to our panels (we didn't plan it! It's random) and this week, it was too much beauty per square sentence (a great problem to have!).
But readability matters. Replay live for members!
You pulled a thread and now the whole book feels like it's unraveling.
That's not failure. That's revision.
Agent Amy Bishop-Wycisk looks for manuscripts where the framework stays solid even as threads get reworked.
It's painful--but doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.
Keep going. 🧵
Members--big day! Meetings go live at 3pm ET and we ALSO are debuting our brand new, totally searchable, super awesome...
Member Classroom 2.0!
Search 9.75 years (10 in September!) of agent + editor classes + events by genre, age group, faculty + more
We're psyched! Try it out!
If you're writing memoir, here's a gentle reframe:
You don't have to tell your whole life. You have to tell the part that changed you.
Tighter timeline. One theme. One transformation.
The rest can live in the acknowledgments. 📖
Support a writer friend today.
Read their pages. Bring them a coffee. Tell them about a book they could use as a comp.
Agent Amy Bishop-Wycisk called it being "a good literary citizen"--we're all in this together.
Your goal is great voice.
Great voice means being as human as you possibly can.
Consider what makes you feel more yourself. Perhaps slowing down, better coffee, better light, paper books, eccentric art, seeking out beauty, finding quiet, long-lost hobbies?
It's all an investment in your craft.
Yes, you can use a movie or TV show as a comp title. We've heard faint rumblings of this being completely off-limits, but our agents and editors do this all the time.
The point of a comp is to give someone an image quickly.
Like with books, try for films + TV within 3-5 years.
#QueryTip 🎬
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Manuscript Academy by #MSWL
Every writer thinks they're being specific in their query letter.
Julia Alexandra wasn't--until she made one change.
Then an agent responded in five minutes.
And she's now published by Macmillan.
Here's what she fixed 🧵
manuscriptacademy.com/query-letter...
The query letter mistake almost every writer makes — and how debut author Julia Alexandra fixed it to land an agent and a book deal with Macmillan.
