Comments on: It happens every year

By: azbmaacsvmw

azbmaacsvmw — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 10:36:20 +0000

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By: rwzwivmpao

rwzwivmpao — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:34:09 +0000

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By: Maril Hazlett

Maril Hazlett — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:39:27 +0000

Yes, it did no one size fits all answers for that sort of question. Thank you.

By: Julie Nilson

Julie Nilson — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 16:09:21 +0000

Thanks so much, Michael!

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 23:07:20 +0000

That’s tricky. It somewhat depends on how many projects you have. If it’s ten, I wouldn’t say so! You don’t want the agent to feel overwhelmed. I’d suggest you mention two or three. No need to send an entire query. Rather, I’d send a one or two sentence description of each, so the agent understand the category and general idea. He can ask for more information if he needs it.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 22:49:03 +0000

I don’t mind a follow-up, at all! I don’t think you’re complicating things at all. Many writers use their maiden name for one type of writing and their married name for another. And since the writing is so different, I think it’s probably good that a search won’t bring up both your new blog and tons of technical writing.

By: Julie Nilson

Julie Nilson — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 17:38:13 +0000

Thank you! I hope you don’t mind that I have a follow-up question: The bulk of my corporate writing is under my married name. If you Google it, you’ll get pages and pages of results for the various press releases and hospital management articles I’ve written over the years.

For this reason (and because my married last name is hard to pronounce), I’ve been using my maiden name for my fiction work. My newly started blog is under this name, since I wanted that to come up near the top of the Google results if any agents or other publishing professionals looked me up. I’m just getting started–I’ve submitted short stories to a few contests and my novel manuscript is still a work in progress–so my maiden name isn’t exactly well-established in the fiction-writing world yet.

So my question is: Am I complicating things by using separate names for my corporate writing and my fiction writing? Would it be smarter to just use the same name for both?

By: Rowan

Rowan — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 08:10:13 +0000

If an agent asks what other projects you have on the go — and assuming that you do have a couple because you’ve been writing a while — how many would you send in the reply? Would you do a full query for each of them (without the introductory and closing bits) or is it better to summarize each of them down to a single paragraph?

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:39:10 +0000

Julie,

I’d absolutely like to know about any relevant writing work. And co-authoring published books is most definitely relevant!

By: Julie Nilson

Julie Nilson — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:23:54 +0000

I’ve been a corporate writer for almost 20 years, and in that time I’ve written a few nonfiction books for clients–mostly healthcare management-related. I’m listed in the credits inside, but the organization is listed on the cover as the “author.”

So my question is: Do agents care about these types of books? Should I mention this experience in my queries or is it irrelevant?