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Nathan Bransford

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Query Letters

How to personalize a query letter

June 8, 2017 by Nathan Bransford 6 Comments

Nathan here! My friend Rachel Stout used to be a literary agent at Dystel & Goderich, and now she teaches a course on querying called Query Mastery, which provides live sessions, modules, resources, and community to help you hone your pitch. I asked Rachel to write a guest post on the best approach to personalizing a […]

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Filed Under: Query Letters Tagged With: How to Write a Query Letter, literary agents

Query mastery! Hone your research and pitch

May 4, 2017 by Nathan Bransford 2 Comments

In my post on Monday, I mentioned a service called Query Mastery but wanted to do a full post to make sure you knew about it. Query Mastery is an awesome service created by my friends Natasa Lekic (former editor and founder of NY Book Editors) and Rachel Stout (former agent at Dystel, Goderich & […]

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Filed Under: Book Marketing, Query Letters Tagged With: How to Write a Query Letter

The key to a good query letter: Summarizing through specificity

March 30, 2017 by Nathan Bransford 7 Comments

Listen up all you query letter writers because this is the most important post on queries I’ve written in years. I’ve recently been devoting much more time to freelance editing and working with authors on their queries (need personalized help? Contact me!). This means that instead of just evaluating queries for a “yes” or “no”, like I […]

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In defense of personalized queries (and five tips!)

November 1, 2016 by Nathan Bransford 8 Comments

Agent Janet Reid recently posted a rant about one of the frequent flash points in the “This process is too freaking hard” camp of agent-seekers: the personalized query. Essentially, Janet believes personalized queries are pointless. In one sense I do agree with Janet. Is a personalized query, by itself, proof that the author has written […]

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Filed Under: Query Letters Tagged With: How to Find a Literary Agent

Blog Directory

May 17, 2011 by Nathan Bransford 28 Comments

In an effort to make the blog more navigable and to help newcomers discover old posts, I’ve categorized all the posts into categories (except for those that are hopelessly out of date). Just click on the category to move down to that section. I’ll keep updating this directory with new posts, so please bookmark it […]

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Filed Under: Book Marketing, Genres, How to Write a Novel, How to Write a Query Letter, Literary Agents, Nathan's Books, Nonfiction, Publishing Industry, Query Letters, Self-publishing, Social Media, This Week in Books, Uncategorized, Writing Advice

How to Deal With Contradictory Query Advice

September 7, 2010 by Nathan Bransford 88 Comments

Just this morning out in the Literary Agentosphere there are two great posts that have wonderful advice. Rachelle Gardner delves into pen names and whether you need one, and Janet Reid’s Query Shark offers feedback on a query. There’s just one problem for the compulsive reader of agent blogs: Rachelle thinks you should query as […]

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Filed Under: Query Letters Tagged With: How to Find a Literary Agent, How to Write a Query Letter, literary agents

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About Nathan

Hi, I’m Nathan. I’m the author of How to Write a Novel and the Jacob Wonderbar series, which was published by Penguin. I used to be a literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. and I’m dedicated to helping authors chase their dreams.

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