The Chopping Blog

Be absolutely certain the work is ready before you submit. Most people query before they’re truly ready. Before you hit “send” on the query, ask yourself how you’d feel if the agent immediately requested the full. Would you feel confident? Or panicked?

Our agency receives hundreds of query letters a year.  I ask to read about 50% of them and of that percentage I might reach out to three or four people to ask them to come with us.

What draws me in is tone, language, a brilliant simile. Command of the page. Again, intangibles. What makes any reader stick with any book? Intelligence and literary chops. Humor.

Q: What's a typical warning sign that a manuscript isn't ready for representation?

A: In terms of the actual writing, the story might not start in the right place, the pacing can be too slow with too much info dumping in the opening pages, and there are grammatical errors. 

Research, research, research and choose agents thoughtfully! Better to query ten to twenty agents with queries customized to them, following their submission guidelines, reflecting why you’d love to work with that agent (but don’t be creepy…) than sending a hundred “Dear Agent” copy/paste queries to the whole industry.

Every book is different – sometimes it's timely and you go out to everyone at once, trying to get a competition going, and sometimes there's just a handful of appropriate options. But I never give up. Recently I sold something that took five years.

A good manuscript catches my attention right away and does not let it go. I am most drawn to voice-driven narratives, where I find something relatable about the protagonist right away, and I find myself invested in their journey from the start. I am also most interested in stories that feel fresh, where I am learning as I read, whether what I am learning is something about the protagonist and their perspective on the world or some new world in itself.

Keep things simple and to the point. Authors are trying to attract my attention, so a simple, straight-forward email is the best way to approach me.  I don’t need bells and whistles, just simple prose with a well-considered email and a well-presented synopsis and opening three chapters.

Learn to read. Read to enjoy, but learn also to think. Thinking as you read—about what and how the author is doing to craft the story and the experience—is the most essential lesson in storytelling.

Beyond the very basics of genre/market – hook me in with something about the story; I care much more about that than I do about you at this point (sorry, but I need to fall in love with your book first). A useful sentence to keep in mind is: When A (inciting incident) happens, B (character) must do C (action) otherwise/before D (catastrophe).

When you’re reading a great submission, it feels as if you’re in a bookshop. You’ve read a cracking blurb, opened the book, read the first couple of pages, and instantly taken it to the till to buy. 

Publishing moves in cycles and an area that’s struggling this year will probably be hot next year or the year after, when the wheel of fortune turns. In any case, for me, the most successful and commercial writing doesn’t come out of following trends, but out of authors digging deep inside and producing work that has the stamp of authenticity. I would say that is the connecting thread between all the most successful books I’ve represented.