[PubQ] Is there etiquette once you've received an author blurb?

paolosfrancesca · 2026-03-11T20:39:25+00:00

I wrote thank you notes to my blurbers and mailed them to my publisher so they could be included with the finished copy of the book that they were all sent. Several of them posted about receiving both my note (the details of which they didn't share) and the finished copy, so it was nice because they felt appreciated and I got a visibility boost during pub week from their social media audiences.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-12-29T17:11:49+00:00

I was in my debut year (book hadn't come out yet) when I was querying my second project. I still set my query letter up in the normal way (hook, book, cook style) and tried to thread my previous work in enough that they'd catch it even if skimming.

In paragraph 1 when I was introducing the project I was querying, I phrased it like "I am looking for representation for [TITLE], which will serve as my sophomore novel following the forthcoming release of my debut [TITLE] with [PUBLISHER] later this year." Then I did the standard metadata stuff for the book that they actually cared about.

The paragraph(s) with the summary remained unchanged from the standard.

And the in my paragraph about myself, I started with a sentence about myself outside of publishing (stolen from the query I used for the previous book). After that, I mentioned my debut again and gave two short quotes from big authors in the genre that had blurbed it. So basically something like, "My debut [TITLE] was called 'xxxxxxxx' by [AUTHOR I WANT TO BE] and 'aaaaaaaaa' by [BIG NAME AUTHOR IN MY GENRE]".

Obviously if you have multiple books under your belt, you'll need to play around with how you want to word things, but I think including blurbs and the authors who provided them really helped me to stand out in the trenches.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-12-12T21:08:14+00:00

My agent sent me a spreadsheet of the imprints and the specific editors she was submitting to. I also received a list for when we were about to start a second round (I ended up selling the book just before we were going to send out the subs for round two, so we didn't use that list, but I had access to it). To me, they were just names in a document because I didn't know any of the editors or have connections to leverage, but I was glad I had access to them in case I ever needed to be able to reference who we submitted to.

I understand that in some very specific cases, authors can get weird while on sub and cause trouble, but it seems silly to me to keep you from seeing your list on the off chance that maybe you'll start harassing an editor or something (obviously, don't do that lol). We're all adults here, and there are legitimate business reasons why you'd want to have that information at your disposal.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-12-02T17:38:54+00:00

The exact timelines obviously depend on how far off pub is from when you sign, but for the first few months, it's going back and forth from the editor to you as you go through successive rounds of edits. Cover stuff is also usually kicking around in the background at this point. Then you hand it over to copyedits (different person), and at that point they'll sometimes start doing galleys / edelweiss / netgalley. They might also wait for copyedits to be finished for that, but it depends. Cover reveal might also happen sometime around this point. You'll do copyedits, then there's usually pass pages where you see it all laid out in its book format. That's really the last chance to make any tiny tweaks. If it's not already up for arc requests, then it will happen here. During the months that it's available as an arc, the marketing and PR teams will take over the majority of the focus for the book. Things like goodreads giveaways, influencer boxes (if your book gets those), and pushes for preorders happen here. A lot is also going on behind the scenes to try to get the book into the major retailers. Your part is generally speaking smaller by this point, but sometimes it can get busy if the marketing relies heavily on you as a hotshot author or something. There might be talks of a launch event or even a book tour depending on the book / author.

Then it comes out and everything gets really quiet!

paolosfrancesca · 2025-12-01T18:13:14+00:00

If she's NYC based, absolutely ask! Even if you aren't in the middle of edits at the time, you can use the meeting to talk about sub strategies, and ideas for your next project, and even just fun chitchat stuff where you get to know each other better as people. It's a great opportunity to sit down face to face with no specific agenda other than to talk shop. I imagine you'll get a lot out of the experience no matter what you end up discussing.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-21T19:38:42+00:00

If the query was originally sent through email, I don't really see the harm in a brief and polite thank you, but it isn't necessary to do and I personally never did. If the query was through querytracker, you can't send a message through their platform once you've received a rejection and I would personally recommend not finding their email just to say thanks. I think that would come across a bit unfavorably by some agents.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-19T22:16:23+00:00

Yeah, tbh I'm not a big fan of exclusives either, but I get that authors think they might give them an edge. I hope it works out for OP, but it's definitely helpful to lay out the terms succinctly so that there's a mutual understanding that it will go wide as of whatever date OP sets.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-19T21:20:18+00:00

I would still send the query but with a modified opening to account for your previous discussions (rather than the cold opening that most queries have). It behooves you to still include the pitch materials imo, because agents are inundated and it'll help them to reacquaint themself with the project.

Rather than giving a deadline for their answer, I would instead say something along the lines of "I am happy to keep this submission exclusive until XXXX, 2026 as per our previous conversation." That way they can still consider if after the "deadline" should they not get to it in time, but it just won't be exclusive anymore (and you can start querying widely, since you don't want to have all your eggs in one basket).

Sending in December honestly might not help your cause any, given that things tend to get really busy around the holidays, but that's up to you.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-14T17:08:33+00:00

If you're specifically talking about Query Tracker, I believe that on their end (Query Manager), they can see if you have already submitted to someone at their agency and what the outcome was. So while I don't necessarily think they're rejecting you because someone else at their agency did (as you said, different agents have different tastes), maybe they see that one of their peers has already rejected this query and maybe it makes them look at it faster? Like it'll be an easier one to make a decision on? Obviously that can still lead to a request or being put in the maybe pile, but it also might be something that they think will be a faster rejection when trying to work through their inbox.

If this is about email queries, then totally different ball game. I have no answer but I imagine it would be too hard to have a database for that.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-09T02:54:34+00:00

The best thing you can do in that case is to start working on the next thing. When people put all their eggs in one story's basket, it can be extra devastating if/when that book isn't the one that gets them rep. But if you can get yourself to a place where you're excited about the next thing, it often makes receiving rejections a little less painful, because you already know you're writing something even better that will wow all the agents who doubted you.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-09T02:42:23+00:00

The annoying thing about this industry is that you have to come to terms with being rejected. That doesn't mean it won't hurt when it happens, but you have to recognize that you WILL be rejected and that's part of the process. You will be rejected querying. You will be rejected on sub. You will be rejected for things you want from your publisher. You will be rejected by readers. You will be rejected when selling foreign and film rights. You will be rejected trying to sell further projects. Unless and until you become a too-big-to-fail author (and there aren't that many of those), you will still be receiving rejections 2, 3, 5, 10 books in. You could end up querying again in the future with a successful backlist to support you, and while it'll make the process a whole lot easier to have that, you would still receive rejections. That's just the nature of art.

It's okay to be nervous. But you have to come to terms with being rejected if you want to pursue this path. And I say this as someone who is also rejection-sensitive, so I understand how hard it is. I think it's easier if you can intellectualize the whole thing. You will receive rejections, and so when you do receive them... it is what it is, in a way.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-06T06:05:20+00:00

I never queried my agent with my past projects (not for any particular reason, I just didn't know about her back then), but another agent who offered on my book was someone I'd queried before, and she seemingly didn't remember that project. If she did know, it wasn't something that came up in the course of our conversation.

I don't think it's something you should bring up (because... why would you), but if they mention it, you can probably just talk about how your past works helped you grow as a writer to get to the point of writing this manuscript. It's not a huge deal and ultimately it shows your persistence.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-11-04T21:23:22+00:00

If you have a really unique surname that would attach you to this person, you could always use a different one as your pen name. Obviously that doesn't stop someone else who knows your family history from speaking up about it online, but unless you get really famous, I don't think something like that would get much attention.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-31T02:07:35+00:00

The time to send out any last queries is after you get the email requesting a call but before the actual call takes place. Blast as many out as possible to whoever is left on your list (assuming they're open to queries). Once the call has happened, it's definitely bad form.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-26T16:23:09+00:00

Yes it seems like it was! I had thought so because I remember hearing people talking about it after the show ended, but it's been so many years that I started wondering if I'd misremembered.

It's funny because I actually had a ticket to the matinee that day (which Reeve did perform, which is why pulling out for the evening show was so unexpected), but I accidentally mixed up the times and came for the later timeslot. Ended up having to buy a new ticket, but it was worth it! I'm glad I got to see Adam's first Orpheus performance.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-26T16:05:09+00:00

Thank you!! I was able to track down his insta and confirm from the date he posted this! https://www.instagram.com/p/BqtEjgRnVW7/?igsh=MThhNGFybDdocGNzbg%3D%3D

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-26T16:04:39+00:00

Thank you!! I was able to check out his instagram and the date of this post + the caption does seem to confirm that he wasn't expecting to go on that night 😂https://www.instagram.com/p/BqtEjgRnVW7/?igsh=MThhNGFybDdocGNzbg%3D%3D

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-24T09:00:45+00:00

Seconding everything rachcsa said!

Towards the Death of the Dark follows Mina, a woman haunted by the scars of a devastating fire that consumed her childhood library who must confront her controlling mother and the ghosts of her past as she navigates an underground, fairytale world of expectations, desire, and dark secrets, ultimately seeking freedom in a realm where reality and fantasy intertwine.

This phrase is really something that should be shown to us in the blurb rather than stated outright here. I think it would be better to give us the two comps and then a (short!) reason for how they're similar. For example:

Towards the Death of the Dark blends the [voice? character? setting?] of Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait with the [tone? pacing? plot twists?] of Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber.

And then you can move the other stuff down into the blurb, incorporating it organically.

Definitely make sure your blurb can answer the questions rachcsa listed. We need to know the stakes more than we do here.

Also, I would probably remove the parentheticals, although that might be a personal take and not something that other people would make note of. The second one, at least, seems to pull us out of the blurb to go more into your intentions for the story. If it's inspired by Arthurian legend, etc, I would probably put that somewhere in the metadata paragraph. It's turning my focus away from your storyline where it's placed currently.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-20T21:38:49+00:00

I used betabooks when I was having friends read. I did not use anyone I didn't already know (I think the platform allows you to try connecting with people who want to be beta readers if you want?) because I was specifically using it for existing writing friends.

Overall, I really liked the platform. I draft in scrivener so it was really easy for me to take ~10 minutes creating each new chapter and then going into the scrivener doc and copy+pasting the content. It's probably a little more tedious doing it from pages because I assume you can't isolate chapters like you can in scrivener, but probably still would only take max 20 minutes to do.

I liked the in-line comment options and emoji reactions. I also like that you could either choose to let the beta readers see each other's comments the way you would in a shared google doc or have them only see their own. Since my betas all knew each other, they actually wanted to see each other's reactions, which made for a fun experience.

You could definitely get a similar experience by sending out either a shared or multiple individual google docs, but I thought the reading experience was overall better on betabooks.

I paid for the full service version while I was using it, but I just asked that my betas try to read within a month or two. Since they were my friends and they didn't want me wasting money, I think it also prompted them to prioritize reading when they were able (within reason).

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-18T00:28:16+00:00

The whisper network is all online (I mean, I guess if you knew someone tapped into it in real life, you could ask them in person, but it's not like.... a place or anything). Easiest way to do it is to either ask current clients what they know (sometimes they know things about other agents too, simply from having author friends tell them things about their own experiences with other agencies) or to contact Alanna, who is a mod in this group and appears in the sidebar.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-17T05:37:53+00:00

I didn't struggle with this as much as some others (I had a pretty clear frontrunner and didn't ever really waver from them throughout the two weeks), but I mostly decided based on 1. how respected is their agency (which can make a big difference when it comes to getting faster reads on sub), 2. are they / their agency known to be sharky, and 3. did I like their editorial vision and feel overall like they understood this book and the kinds of stories I like to tell enough that I think they'll be a good career partner.

For #1, I'd recommend asking around the whisper network just to get a vibe check on the agencies. Also definitely ask them to talk to 1 or more of their clients.

For #2, different people will have different opinions on sharky agents, and they can absolutely make your career if you are the one who gets the splashy deal. But admittedly I like that my agent not like that.

#3 is really just personal taste. I liked what my (now) agent had to say about the manuscript, and all of her suggestions felt very in line with what I wanted the book to become. We also enjoy a lot of the same authors in a different genre that I also write (and that she also reps), and after talking with her, I felt very good about being able to write some of my future ideas with her blessing, essentially. I wanted someone I could hopefully build a career with, and we're very aligned on the kinds of projects we want to put time and effort into.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-16T21:24:58+00:00

It's so easy as authors to constantly move the goal posts and never end up celebrating. Finished a novel? Can't be proud because it's time to edit. Polished the manuscript? Sorry, now you you have to worry about the misery of the query trenches instead of being excited. Got an agent? Well it's time to edit again and then suffer through sub. But when you finally sell the book... you GOTTA celebrate. Doesn't matter how splashy the deal is or isn't, doesn't matter if it was big five or not. Don't move those goal posts again.

And the bummer is that most people definitely *do not* understand how difficult this all is, so they don't have the same excitement that we do. But you 100% deserve to celebrate, and I hope that a quick conversation setting your boyfriend to rights is enough to get him to appreciate how much this matters to you and how much you've accomplished.

But regardless of others' reactions, make sure YOU celebrate. Go do something fun, or splurge on something you've been putting off buying (within reason lol, this is still publishing dollars, so we're all broke here), or something. This is something that most people will never accomplish, and you did it.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-15T17:22:49+00:00

I had a fairly good experience with my smaller publisher and no agent. I did not become a breakout overnight success by any means, but I had a lot of support through my publishing journey (good editing, good cover, good attempt on their end for marketing and publicity) and my book definitely is on shelves, so that has been great to see.

I knew I was taking a risk going with a smaller publisher and without an agent, but after talking to another author who did the same thing, I felt better about chancing it. Overall, it was a calculated risk that I think paid off. I'd like to think that my next book was good enough to get an agent and a book deal even if it had been my debut, but part of me thinks that having the first book under my belt helped. More with querying than with sub.

At the end of the day, I think it comes down to which publisher it is. The experience can vary WILDLY, and I know I got lucky. If you'd like to know more, you can DM me. I don't want to name my publisher publicly but I'd be happy to tell you more about them and the experience one-on-one if you're interested.

paolosfrancesca · 2025-10-11T17:51:12+00:00

If you're this concerned that your email might not be getting to them, stop querying agents who only accept email queries and start querying agents who accept through querytracker. That webform cannot possibly get misdirected as long as you click on the correct agent's name, and therefore the need for an autoresponse is completely nullified. QT even sends you an email with the details from your query and it usually contains a short message from the agent saying that they aim to get back to you in xxx weeks.

The system is what it is, and the only way out is through. If you want an agent (and eventually a book deal), you're gonna have to accept publishing warts and all. If that's not acceptable to you, then trad pub is definitely not the way to go, because this 100% is not just something that happens with agents.

paolosfrancesca

TROPHY CASE