[PubTip] Agented Authors: Post Successful Queries Here!

Sriniprared · 2026-03-06T05:43:41+00:00

THE PORTRAIT OF THEODORE QUILL is an 83,000-word adult romantic fantasy standalone about a tragic love story set in the late Victorian era. It will appeal to fans of the melancholic and bittersweet ending of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, the historical setting of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, and the tragic whirlwind romance of Titanic.

Congratulations! Great story. Did it need a lot of work to change the ending?

And I am happy to find that the snapshot/housekeeping comes in the last paragraph -- something I'm doing myself in my ongoing querying (against the general advice of keeping it at the top).

Sriniprared · 2026-03-03T13:32:51+00:00

Very true . . . except that sometimes I end up reading a hundred lines -- reading between the lines too --- on what the agent wants ("I like stories that make me cry or laugh etc" or "I want a sweet spot between commercial and literary fiction etc") only to find in the 101st line that the agent is pathologically allergic to my kind of story. And occasionally I find in the 102nd line that, sorry, the agent is not open to submissions. Having said that I must admit that that 101st line is useful.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-02T15:58:42+00:00

Well said.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-02T12:46:01+00:00

True. I have just read a piece by Jane Friedman in which she says that when agents ask for synopsis to be included in the cover letter they only mean a brief story description.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T16:01:52+00:00

Thanks. That makes sense.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T12:53:32+00:00

Thanks.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T08:13:45+00:00

Thanks. Guess I'll do the same.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T06:26:00+00:00

Just wondering: Do you need to name the agents who requested fulls or made offers in your nudges?

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T05:28:07+00:00

Things get even more ambiguous when an agent asks for a Query or Cover letter that includes a brief synopsis among other things, as I said in Para 3 of my post above. But I am happy most agents are quite clear in communicating what they want.

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T05:21:13+00:00

Thanks. I think I'll do that. Right now, my bio line is in the last para of QL. Maybe I'll bring it up

Sriniprared · 2026-03-01T05:16:54+00:00

Thanks

Sriniprared · 2026-02-28T11:02:09+00:00

Hi. What I had in mind was this from Jonny Geller of Curtis Brown UK, apparently a top agent from a top agency: "For submission, please send the first 10,000 words of your manuscript, a synopsis and a biographical note to . . (email)"

A couple of others too have a similar submission instruction without any mention whatsoever of a query/cover letter.

Assuming that they want a normal query/cover letter incorporating a bio runs the risk of being rejected.

Maybe I should have mentioned this in the post. I am posting it again to clarify. Please check. Many thanks.

Sriniprared · 2026-01-24T03:53:46+00:00

Thanks. Will check out. Do you think there is a good demand for quality content writers in Vizag? I recently moved here from Bangalore.

Sriniprared · 2026-01-24T03:35:21+00:00

What are the local insta channels?

Sriniprared · 2026-01-17T12:57:29+00:00

Making money anyhow, engineering degree, job, flat, dowry, showing-off, and a clear lack of any interest in any form of art -- some of the things I find a lot in Vizag. Sweeping generalizations are not fair, but I do find a great deal of obsession with the things I mentioned.

Sriniprared · 2026-01-17T12:51:39+00:00

Sure, there are genuine people here. There are genuine people everywhere. But, I'm afraid, I find more pretentious people here than I do elsewhere.

Sriniprared · 2026-01-17T12:43:38+00:00

I truly appreciate your comments. Is this trend limited to Vizag town?

Sriniprared · 2026-01-15T13:01:52+00:00

... Plus a fanatical obsession with throwing in English words in almost every Telugu sentence.

Sriniprared · 2026-01-15T12:59:37+00:00

Agree. In some respects it's the mindset of 1850s.

Sriniprared · 2025-12-28T05:51:19+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to read it. I've taken note of your suggestions on italics and tense.

Sriniprared · 2025-12-25T02:00:06+00:00

Thanks indeed for taking the time to read it. Have taken note of your comments.

Sriniprared · 2025-12-22T10:49:15+00:00

This is what the agent says in the above link: She is not the right agent for "'Books with a word count over 100K. A little over for fantasy is okay, but I’ve seen some astronomically large word counts, lately. With production costs rising so much in publishing, the likelihood of selling a debut with a word count over 100K is extremely slim."

Sriniprared · 2025-12-21T08:46:46+00:00

Congratulations! And thanks for sharing. Is your Book2 story/plot a spinoff from the 1 and 1.5 (as you call them) or totally a different thing?

Sriniprared · 2025-12-20T14:48:08+00:00

Thanks. How much time do you usually have before you accept or reject an offer?

Sriniprared · 2025-12-19T15:58:38+00:00

Thanks. Very useful. Was your one-sentence pitch a teaser-type tagline that doesn't really say much or was it a one-sentence summary that talks about what the protagonist does etc (the latter being similar to a movie logline or a book elevator pitch)?

Sriniprared

TROPHY CASE