Advice to a New Writer

One of my former interns had taken on a new horror writer, whose work has been under submission for 8 months. Most of the houses have rejected him, but he writes in periodically to ask "what's happening?"

I just wrote back to him today, and thought my note to him might be useful to other writers who have recently started the submission process.

"Print publishing is in turmoil right now. Leisure Books has effectively gone out of the print business, and B&N and Borders are having extreme financial difficulties. Mass market sales are suffering during the recession and horror is mass market. It's also summer. So, in all likelihood nothing is happening and nothing will be happening soon. I think it's almost impossible to place a first horror novel right now in print.

I can refer you to one of the other agents in house (go to our website) after Labor Day, but I do think epub is probably the way to go for horror right now.

Just because you are new is no reason for you to fail to follow publishing news. You should be reading the Writer's Digest blogs, Publisher's Weekly and Publisher's Marketplace, as well as Galleycat."

Interview with Agent Louise Fury

We are all back from RWA, but I thought you might enjoy reading this recent interview with agent Louse Fury that ran on the NYRWA Blog.

http://rwanycblogginginthebigapple.blogspot.com/2010/07/q-with-agent-louise-fury.html

L. Perkins Agency Website is Live!

It's taken years, but our website is now up and running! Please visit.

www.lperkinsagency.com

You'll find our history, bios of all five agents, as well as what we're looking for and how to get in touch with us directly.

More Queries Sorted

Sandy Lu just announced that she has finished query submission until May 9th. She sorted through 300 today. Ten or 15 requests and she sent a few on to the other agents here.

I think we may actually be up to date in my lifetime!

Louise Fury says to add that if anyone is working on Steampunk romance, she wants to see it! And anything about South Africa, or by a South African author. Please include ATT: Louise in the subject line.

Queries update

Sandy just left at 10 p.m. after a full day of query-hunting. She came in and there were 843 queries as of this morning, and she left with 485 to go, the last of which was dated 3/29/10. Many partials were requested from this batch, but if you haven't heard from us, I'm afraid we've passed on your material.