Hi! I have a question that sparked when it was mentioned that money from advances will never be expected to be paid back. I have been hearing that the new and awful trend where people read books through Kindle and then return them has been leading publishers to ask for money back from authors to cover those Kindle returns. Is that true, and something to make sure is protected against in contracts now? Thanks so much for the time you all put into sharing such helpful information and answers to our questions! I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week, and I look forward to watching next week's video!
Was I always supposed to add the blurb to my query letters? Some agents don’t ask for it as part of their guidelines. Some agents don’t even want to read the synopsis.
Hi! The most successful query letters (for fiction) will pretty much always have an intro (telling the agent the genre, word count, title, etc.), a blurb, and a short author bio. The blurb should essentially serve the same purpose as a published book's back cover copy-you want to convince the agent that they have to read the book so they can find out what happens. We have lots of videos about query letters and query blurbs!
You guys are awesome and I’m so thankful I found your channel. I have a question: I have five previously published books (Indie Publisher). My publisher closed their doors and reverted all rights back to me. As these are no longer available for retail, I’ve taken this opportunity to revise them. I’m currently working on three new books, these are sequels to three of my previously published books. My question is, should I query off my previously published books, or query off the new books even those these are sequels? Thanks so much. 😊
Hi! I would probably say that if the sequel books aren't able to be read as standalones, you may not want to query with them (unless the first books had really great track records-if you have a large audience waiting on the next book(s) in the series, then those books will look more desirable to agents). You always want to query with your best foot forward, and it can be hard to really get a good feel for your writing and skill if being dropped into the world and the middle of the plot is going to be disorienting for the agent. You can try querying with the first books of the series if you have all of the rights again, but I will admit that a lot of agents are going to probably be hesitant to take on books that have already been published-while we are seeing more and more self-pub authors (for example) go on to get agents and sell their books to publishers, they're usually the exception and not the rule. A previously published book has already tapped into its audience market, so it's usually not perceived to be as profitable for a publisher unless it's REALLY successful, which makes agents hesitant, too. If you have any books outside of your series that are queryable, you might want to consider querying with those-they will be the most straightforward pitch to an agent, and once you've found someone who's excited to work with you and your career, they can help you figure out what to do with the series. Hope this helps!
Hi! I have a question that sparked when it was mentioned that money from advances will never be expected to be paid back. I have been hearing that the new and awful trend where people read books through Kindle and then return them has been leading publishers to ask for money back from authors to cover those Kindle returns. Is that true, and something to make sure is protected against in contracts now? Thanks so much for the time you all put into sharing such helpful information and answers to our questions! I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week, and I look forward to watching next week's video!
Was I always supposed to add the blurb to my query letters? Some agents don’t ask for it as part of their guidelines. Some agents don’t even want to read the synopsis.
Hi! The most successful query letters (for fiction) will pretty much always have an intro (telling the agent the genre, word count, title, etc.), a blurb, and a short author bio. The blurb should essentially serve the same purpose as a published book's back cover copy-you want to convince the agent that they have to read the book so they can find out what happens. We have lots of videos about query letters and query blurbs!
@@BookEndsLiterary Thanks for responding. Now I know to not forget the blurb in my query.
You guys are awesome and I’m so thankful I found your channel. I have a question: I have five previously published books (Indie Publisher). My publisher closed their doors and reverted all rights back to me. As these are no longer available for retail, I’ve taken this opportunity to revise them. I’m currently working on three new books, these are sequels to three of my previously published books. My question is, should I query off my previously published books, or query off the new books even those these are sequels? Thanks so much. 😊
Hi! I would probably say that if the sequel books aren't able to be read as standalones, you may not want to query with them (unless the first books had really great track records-if you have a large audience waiting on the next book(s) in the series, then those books will look more desirable to agents). You always want to query with your best foot forward, and it can be hard to really get a good feel for your writing and skill if being dropped into the world and the middle of the plot is going to be disorienting for the agent.
You can try querying with the first books of the series if you have all of the rights again, but I will admit that a lot of agents are going to probably be hesitant to take on books that have already been published-while we are seeing more and more self-pub authors (for example) go on to get agents and sell their books to publishers, they're usually the exception and not the rule. A previously published book has already tapped into its audience market, so it's usually not perceived to be as profitable for a publisher unless it's REALLY successful, which makes agents hesitant, too.
If you have any books outside of your series that are queryable, you might want to consider querying with those-they will be the most straightforward pitch to an agent, and once you've found someone who's excited to work with you and your career, they can help you figure out what to do with the series.
Hope this helps!
@@BookEndsLiterary This gives me lots to consider. Thank you!
'promosm' 💥