Dark, Weird, and Powerful

by Ben Grange, L. Perkins Agency In my “I’d like the next” section of my MSWL page, I list three stories that to me, represent something impactful in human nature. And yeah, those three stories are in visual format, not the printed word, but if I had found their equivalent in books, those books would … Read more

Jade City: a MSWL Success Story

by editor Sarah Guan (Orbit/Hachette Book Group), Jim McCarthy (agent, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management), and Fonda Lee, author of Jade City  Sarah: I joined the Orbit editorial team toward the end of 2016, and immediately set about hunting for that perfect first acquisition as I began to build my list here. I wanted a … Read more

Our First #TenQueries Podcast!

Our first #TenQueries episode is now live! John Cusick, agent at Folio Literary, was kind enough to let us record him reacting to his inbox in real time. Just like #TenQueries on Twitter, he described what he was seeing–but you can hear in his voice when he gets surprising mistakes (and great queries!). If you’ve … Read more

Join A Live Query Discussion Group!

We’re so excited about next week’s Query Workshop! This is a new program brought to you by The Manuscript Academy, #MSWL’s educational sister project. We’re adding a new feature that we’re super excited about–small groups for live, face-to-face feedback in an educational setting. We’ll go over each query in a group up to ten, and … Read more

Persevering Through the Process

by Jennifer March Soloway, agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc Writing is hard; publishing is even harder. There is a lot of rejection in this business at every level, and agents get rejected all the time too. It takes guts, thick skin, and sheer tenacity to keep going. However, I don’t get discouraged; in … Read more

The Making of a Bestseller: How an #MSWL Tweet Connected a Singapore-based Aspiring Writer with a Chicago-based Literary Agent and a #1 Best-Seller was Born

Jo Furniss is the author of All the Little Children, a suspense novel about a frazzled working-mum whose family gets caught up in a disaster. Danielle Egan-Miller is a literary agent and president of Browne & Miller Literary Associates. This is their story. JF: I’m a former BBC journalist, but I’ve been an ex-patriate for … Read more

Hooking An Agent

by Julie Dinneen, Agent @ D4EO Literary Literary agents get a lot of query letters – some as many as hundreds a day. They have to make quick decisions about you and your book based purely on that one-page letter and the first few pages of your novel. So how can you make yours stand out … Read more

Want to e-meet our agents and editors?

You can now book ten-minute e-consultations to go over your work (either your query or first page) with many of our agents and editors. This is a great opportunity to ask the following: Why do I keep getting form rejections? What can I do to get a better request rate? What insider feedback can help … Read more