With 15 years in book publishing, from starting as an assistant at a literary agency to the current gig as an Executive Editor at Chronicle Books, Emma has seen a lot of pitches—the good, the bad, and, occasionally, the perfumed. As a writer hoping to sell your first project, being able to query editors and agents in their own language is the most important tool in your arsenal.

This seminar will teach you how to describe your work in terms that will catch the interest of publishing professionals, using strong sales positioning and the right kind of details: the ones that will make insiders sit up and listen.

The first half of the seminar will be a detailed class on query craft, including key information on the life-cycle of querying and a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of what makes a great pitch, with an emphasis on market positioning. The second half of the seminar will be a discussion designed to help you shape your query and practice pitching your work.

Students will walk away from this course with the skills to craft a query letter from scratch, and enough knowledge about the industry to pitch editors and agents with confidence.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

– A strong understanding of the ways a single pitch letter can influence the trajectory of your project from acquisition to publication

– An in-depth look at the key ingredients of a good pitch and intimate coaching on how to best showcase your project in a commercial light (yes, even you literary folk!)

– The skills to craft a kick-ass query from scratch

– A heads-up about the most common pitfalls that get great writers overlooked and tips on how to avoid them

– Resources on finding the right agent(s) for you and how to wield your query once you’ve created it