Kelly Peterson

Professionally edited is preferred, as agents aren’t there to professionally edit your manuscripts, but we also can’t tell you what to do. :)

I can’t tell you what to do, but agents aren’t here to do the work of editors. We simply try to give you the best chances of selling to an editor/publishing house. :)

I’d just try to stay under 90-95k! Once you get above that, it’s way too high!

When I have a vision for a manuscript! If I know how to make it stronger, what to fix, what needs work, etc., and generally have a vision for where I can take it, I know it’s a good fit for me! Especially if I get excited and get along with the author too!

You could do either! If the genetics like genre, word count, etc., aren’t at the top, then they should be after the query and easily distinguishable so that we can pick it out. :)

Have questions or would like clarity, then they can ask you and you only need to tell them what you’re comfortable with. If it feels like an own voices story to you for one reason rather than three, then you have a right to say that it’s an own voices story.

Khadijah, you don’t need to justify anything about yourself to anyone. If you know it and believe you can say it’s an own voices story, then call it an own voices story. State what you’re comfortable with on why it’s an own voices story, and let your writing do the rest. If they

End up loving it, then they’ll contact you. They wouldn’t be able to contact you if you withdraw it. So it sucks, but I’d just let it go and move on. 😕

I’d just let it go, in all honesty. I do know sometimes it takes that long to get back to full requests of agents are buried because we have to actually read through all of our submissions, which takes time. But if they do end up going through your manuscript in a few weeks and

Just make sure that if you want an agent, they’re the right fit for you and what you need for your career. Communication, editing, equality, and connections are the big arguments for agents, and are the biggest things to assess when finding the right one.

Enables writing to not be such a lonely process too. You have someone in your corner! But you need to make sure you do your research and actually get a good feeling/get along with your agent. Make sure they rep all of the genres and age ranges you write, or are open to it. And

Oof, this is a large question. The biggest benefits is that agents are needed for the most part in order to be traditionally published. They’re your biggest champions and if you find the right one, will fight for you and negotiate for you so that you can focus on writing. And it

Fiction proposals would probably be rare and only by certain agents. Usually nonfiction requires proposals, and fiction utilizes queries in order to acquire agents. I sometimes utilize fiction proposals to help sell my current clients, though. :)

I actually think sci-fi and historical are making a comeback. I’m expecting western to phase out in romance, and am seeing an uptick in witches, paranormal, and creatures in fantasies.

Oh wow, okay. What type of genres are you looking for? Right off the top of my head, Laini Taylor, Victoria Schwab, Jenny Han. I’m actually going to put this out to the Twitter-verse and let them help!

They’re slightly different, but the basis of them is the same. I usually write the pitches to editors, rather than my authors. I do have them help me edit it though. 😉

Learning the traditional industry, agents will be open to it.

It can help to change your pen name if you had some really poor sales before, but usually if you appeal to the agents you’re querying just saying that you realized it wasn’t the best way to go into the industry and are hoping to change into traditional publishing and are open to

Can include voice into your synopsis, it’s golden! I use @JaneFriedman, @WritersDigest, and @stdennard as my favorite people for all things writing advice. :) Check then out!

Haha, boring, simple, and repetitive sentences! Most people think they can just “tell” their entire synopsis, and that’s not the case. The best advice I can give is to write it as if you’re still writing it from your MC’s POV so that you’re showing more than telling! And if you