Rachelle Gardner

Jill asked: Say I’ve been doing the research, investing an agent’s website and following the blog for a while and I’ve decided I want to query that agent. Would it be better to do a cold query (following all the submission guidelines, of course) or wait for the possibility of an appointment at a conference,…

On the Way to my Query Box Last week, as you know, I was away at a conference. I was responding to email the best I could on my Blackberry. I have my email structured so that queries won’t appear in the regular inbox; instead, they get filtered into the query box. They receive auto-replies…

I just returned from four days at a writers conference. I had something like 30 one-on-one meetings with writers, taught four 1-hour workshops, ran two late-night critique groups, had a few lunches/dinners/coffees with editors, and still managed to get out each morning for a 2-mile jog to and from Starbucks. Phew! I really enjoyed this…

Remember a couple weeks ago when we had Help Your Fellow Writers Day? Well, you stepped up to the plate and it was a rousing success. Since you all did such a great job of offering advice, I decided to let you do it again. This time, the theme is “Help your local literary agent.”…

Alexis Grant asked: Would you consider a post on memoir guidelines, since memoir falls somewhere between fiction and nonfiction in many ways? For my travel memoir, should I query when I have a proposal and several sample chapters, like nonfiction, or wait until the manuscript is complete, like fiction? What’s the usual word-count window for…

Rachel asked: Do you have any tips for managing your time? I know you have kids and other responsibilities. I’m always interested in how other people manage to keep being productive with those competing interests in play. Well, Rachel, I wish I had some great advice based on my own fabulously successful time management skills.…

A whole bunch of people have asked me this question recently. I can’t figure out if it’s because they are interested in becoming an agent… or because they can’t figure out how the heck I became one. I suppose it could just be curiosity, and I think it’s valid. It makes sense that, as a…

It’s Friday and I’ve declared it Help Your Fellow Writers Day. Everyone did such a terrific job earlier this week, sharing their advice on “How do you learn to write?” that I decided to keep it going. I’ve received several questions on the blog lately that YOU might be more qualified to answer than I…

Oh my gosh, wasn’t that the BEST.IDOL.FINALE.EVER???? Congratulations Kris Allen! Now for today’s post. We’re now fully into spring and that means… writers’ conferences! Many of you are probably planning to attend at least one conference in the next few months. There’s quite a bit of information available online about preparing for conferences, but I…

or… Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse If you’re a writer, here’s what I want to ask you today: Are you getting ahead of yourself? There are seasons in a writer’s life: Seasons for focusing on the art and craft of writing, and seasons for focusing on the business of writing. And seasons where…

I just had to take a moment to tell everyone how much I’ve enjoyed reading your 100-word bios. If you haven’t read them, click on the comments for the post below. I’m impressed by the quality of writing overall, and amazed at some of the fascinating details shared. I’m so lucky to have such an…

Let’s have a little fun today, shall we? And by fun I mean word fun, of course. A little writing exercise to start the weekend right. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Write about yourself in the third person. Tell us something we wouldn’t guess simply from the fact that you read this…

A lot of people think it’s a chicken-or-egg question: Do I pitch to agents or editors first? But it’s really not that hard. The truth is, if you want to sell your book to a commercial royalty-paying publisher, you’re going to need either an agent, or some kind of personal contact with editors. Since it’s…

Okay, first up: Allison went home. Awwww. Hard to believe, but I think we’ll be hearing that girl on the radio in a year. So that leaves us with Adam, Danny, and Kris. Remember when we made our predictions on the top three? (This post.) I was wrong on Kris—I had Allison instead. How did…