Mike C

Barbara Rogan is an ex-agent and published author of several novels, so she's seen the process from both sides. She also runs workshops and does manuscript evaluations, and is an all-round nice lady.

Visit the Writers Lounge on her website and there's a really useful article on writing your Query letter. There's also a link there to her article 'Writers and Agents" which dispels a lot of the myths about agents. If it's useful to you, drop into her guestbook and tell her.

From the desk of Barbara Rogan...

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terrib

mike, just checked out the site and i liked it. very good advice thanks for recommending it. I left Barbara feedback.

strangedaze

Interesting she cautions against using the label 'literary fiction.'

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Swamp Thing

Mike -

Do you have any experiences with her courses or her editing services?

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Mike C

No Swamp, no personal experience, she's a client of mine. She does list some testimonials on her site, and if you have any questions I'm sure she'd welcome an email from you.

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HarryG

Barbara Rogan's advice is of the timeless variety and very useful. It may be slightly tilted towards the American market, but why shouldn't it be, if you write in the English language, then that is the biggest market, by a multiple of five, and that's even without considering film rights.


She stresses the point often made on this forum: the query letter must be as perfect as you can make it and I'm glad that she concedes that a small amount of 'fudging' doesn't do any harm, within reason – something that's been discussed before and generally dismissed by posters here.


The most difficult advice for the younger writers to follow is the absolute necessity to submit a perfectly edited manuscript; editing is hard and boring, and the next idea is already knocking on the door.

Jeff Tompkins

Thanks for that link. After a quick browse, the site looks to be very helpful.

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dwellerofthedeep

Thanks Mike.

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Words of Ivory

That is a part of the process that's always buggered me, and that link is extremely helpful.

Thanks for providing it! *bookmarks*

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BradW

Not surprising considering literary fiction rarely sells wells compared to, say, John Grisham. Yet so many writers want to peddle their glorified memoirs that nobody other than themselves would want to labor through for way too many pages.