Writing Advice Update: Learning the Business
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As promised — and a whole day early! Amazing for a fantasy author to beat a deadline! — here is my monthly update to the ginormous Writing Advice post that I started last month. Lucky for you, February was a short month!
This month, I take on the writing business and give you my two cents. (Which, after inflation, is worth roughly one cent.) I’ve also incorporated one of the questions asked in the comments about world-building and addressed it at length. Please keep your questions coming!
Hi Brent,
Since you mentioned agents and querying this month, is there any chance you could post the query letter you sent to Mr Maass? Examples of fantasy queries are sparse on the web and it would be good to see what worked about yours.
If you don’t want to post your query, do you know any sites that have a bunch of successful fantasy queries? The reason I’m asking is because (I feel) fantasy queries need more set up than non-fantasy. Most agents will say that set up is a no-no in a query, but fantasy writers make up a whole world and the query gets confusing if you don’t explain it.
Thanks for the articles. I’m looking forward to the rest of them.
Um… Can I ask what a fantasy query is?
Hi Brent,
I have a question, more of a query on your opinion really, about the state of the business. It seems that Borders is on it’s way down, which has been predicted for some time now, with stores closing all over the states. Many authors are self-publishing these days, which it even seems that you are doing with your new novella, I could be wrong.
Since you don’t need a publisher for ebooks, and since those seem to be the way the business is heading right now (in my uneducated opinion), do you see self-publishing being a viable option for future authors to begin working on instead of querying agents and spending years to sell a single mss to a portion of the business that may find itself in the minority within that time?
Again, I’m only asking for your opinion as an author in the business.
Thanks,
Ryan