Write an Agent Query

Yes, expanding the free articles list on the Writing Help page is going slowly, but I have good news. Yesterday I added both versions of About Agents. This piece answers some of those nagging questions like: "Who needs an agent?" and "How can I get one?" On the latter, I ran across a gem of a find in active agent Nathan Bransford's blog, Anatomy of a Good Query Letter. Bransford, who works for the Curtis Brown agency in San Francisco, appears to like a very personalized query letter which reveals the writer has researched the agent. If I were to design a Do and Don't list for querying agents, one item would certainly be: Don't create a generic letter and try to make it fit all the agents you query. The same applies to addressing editors at publishers if you are skipping the agent process.