Submitting for Publication

Last Saturday, I attended a course about submitting for publishing at the Big Smoke Writing Factory www.bigsmokewritingfactory.com  It was led by Vanessa O’Loughlin www.writing.ie and it was really informative. I thought I had perfected my cover/query letter but I was totally surprised by what I needed to add to mine. Do not start with a question! Address it to the correct person, if you dont know , make a phone call or google the agency/publisher. get the essence of the novel in your letter. It is not meant to be too formal, some of your personality should show through.

A synopsis is difficult to write but worth practicing and keep to a max of two pages, no more. Remember it is what the story is, an overview of your book. Also one shoud be able to write a 50 word and a 100 word biography.

When sending in the first 3 chapters, it is important that your story starts where the action is. So therefore it needs a hook, a hook that draws in an agent, publisher and importantly the reader.

On leaving we were asked to consider ten interesting things about ourselves and write these down. We all smiled and smirked thinking what would be so interesting about us everyday mortals? Yet once home I sat and thought about it. So I made my list and surprised myself with what I came up with. So far I’m on number 5. Now I shall link them to my writing and fill you in on how it works in the next blog posts that I shall put up.

So watch this blog for how my interesting life list will inspire my writing.