Questions for the Blog?
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Feb 19 2019
My goal with this blog has always been to teach writers everything they need to know about publishing, literary agents, writing queries, and anything else that will help you succeed with a publishing career. In doing that, I’ve always found that the best resource for blog posts are always the readers themselves.
Over the summer I answered a number of questions that came from you, both here and on our YouTube channel, but I’m almost out. If you have a question you’d like to have answered on the blog or you’d like James and me to create a video around, something you’d like us to talk more about, do not hesitate to leave a comment here or email us at bookends@199.250.201.124
And to ensure that you don’t miss our answer, I encourage you to subscribe to BookEnds on all of our platforms.
on the blog (in the sidebar): https://bookendsliterary.com/category/blog/
on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BookEndsLiteraryAgency?sub_confirmation=1
on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bookendslit
on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookends_literary/
Thank you for reading. I look forward to hearing from you.
Hi! I found you through YouTube because it is the easiest, most accessible way for me to learn about the industry because, I can listen and learn faster and less painfully than when I make the efforts to read with my eyes. (Lucky me, your blogs aren’t an endless read) This is my question:
I queried my manuscript to some agents and small publishers, but I feel that no matter how much I try to edit, it will never be enough. I have a severe visual impairment (magnifier glass and roboreader are my best friends) and I’m terrified whenever I hear fellow writers say that our manuscripts should be as pristine as we can get them to be. I’m afraid that agents will reject me for having too many errors. Have you ever heard of blind and visually impaired writers working with literary agents? How much would the process change if a blind writer gets representation?
I know that a blind writer, or even partially blind writer sounds farfetched but, here I am, writing sci-fi…
Thank you in advance. I appreciate your work and dedicated time to answering our questions.
Hi Jessica!
I write in multiple genres and am getting ready to query. At this point, I plan on sticking with only one of the genres, but some day in future years, I want to branch out. Do I look for an agent who represents just the one genre and save the other genre(s) discussion/decision for the future since it is so far down the road? Or do I try to find someone who represents the other genres as well?
Jessica would know more than me about this, having said that most agents I’ve heard about are interest in the content of a manuscript. I’ve had similar worries being dyslexic.
My suggestion would be to include your disability as a positive attribute in your bio.
Any agent worth their title will take that knowledge with them into your ms.
What do you think of charging steep fees at conferences for dedicated time with an agent?
Isn’t that dangerously close to the maligned practice of ‘bad’ agents charging for reading queries?
Also: is there really value there for the writer — in terms of getting an agent—?? if as you have suggested, that conferences don’t really pay off for writers –
I have written two novels, one is literary with magical realism, the other is literary. Which one would you suggest I query to agents first? Also, should I mention both in my submission?
I would query the one you think is strongest.
Jessica, curious, what if you’d rather keep writing one genre over the other, would you still query the strongest or the one you really wanted to write?
Should I also take into consideration which novel might be more marketable?