Why do I call it “the dreaded Synopsis?” Because for many writers, it’s more of a chore than writing the whole damn book. People generally hate writing them, but with the practice you’ve had writing the logline and the mini-synopsis for the query letter, this should feel easier. Right?  

Not necessarily.  

If one of your New Year’s goals was to send your book out to agents, I’ve got you covered this month! It occurred to me that it’s been a while since I discussed the submission process in depth, so this month I’m going to review:

Agent research and how to organize your submission process

Writing pitches and loglines

Writing your query

Writing your synopsis

Last week I focused on traditional publishing with the “Big 5” or independent presses, as well as 10 questions to ask yourself when you’re considering what paths to take. If you missed it, you can find it here.

This week, I want to focus on the more “indie” side of the continuum: Hybrid, and Self-Publishing.

I recently returned from giving a couple of seminars for the Lesley MFA program at their January residency. In my seminar on choosing a publishing path, I always say two things:

One, if your dream is to be traditionally published, go for it. Two, there is a lot of overlap between “traditional and indie” - it’s more of a spectrum – and what path you choose may depend on several factors, including where you are in your career, and whether this particular book can find its best home with a major publisher, a small independent press, or through self-publishing.  

Now that you have your query and your various synopses ready to go, the next step is to actually send your stuff out to a real live agent, standing by.

Actually, no, agents are not standing by just waiting for queries to drop in like manna from heaven. That is a real misconception writers have.

Writing a novel synopsis is hard, but it can help you before and after the pitching process. Here's a breakdown of how to do it right.

Querying a book is both a lot simpler and a lot harder than it may appear. Simple, because there are very specific things you need to include, and there is a very simple outline you can follow to make sure those elements are present. Hard, because holy cow – creating a compelling short synopsis of your book in one or two paragraphs is a major challenge!

Now that most agents have re-opened to queries, and #PitMad is in full swing, it’s time to talk about the right way to prepare your pitch to sell your book. In this March series, I’ll be focused on selling your novel or memoir, because selling other kinds of nonfiction requires a different process. However, in terms of selling your book, memoir works more like fiction, so we can treat them together.