{"id":145,"date":"2008-03-14T11:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-14T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/14\/pay-it-forward-contest-query-consultation\/"},"modified":"2012-02-18T08:26:17","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T14:26:17","slug":"pay-it-forward-contest-query-consultation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/14\/pay-it-forward-contest-query-consultation\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay-it-forward Contest: Query Consultation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Fine Print:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nobody ever sold a novel on a query letter.  (Yeah, I know somebody must have somewhere, but most of us don&#8217;t get struck by lightning.)<\/li>\n<li>Since I could write a seductive query letter long before I could write a book worth reading, I always encourage people to obsess more about their manuscripts than their query letters.<\/li>\n<li>A query letter need not be perfect, only effective.<\/li>\n<li>However, in the process of crafting an effective query letter, we might hit on certain major deficiencies in your manuscript.  For example, if we can&#8217;t synthesize a good hook, it might mean you do not have good hook for us to synthesize.<\/li>\n<li>Eventual success on any level not guaranteed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Okay, that said, a query letter is important.  I hereby offer a snark-free e-mail consultation.  You must have a query letter already written for me to critique&#8211;I won&#8217;t write it from scratch.   I don&#8217;t need to read your manuscript or even a partial to help you, but chances are I will need you to fill out a questionnaire after I&#8217;m done reading your query letter to help me hone in on the set-up and the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>If you only have half a book, but want to enter in the hope that you might be able to use a consultation later, that&#8217;s fine with me.  Just be aware that right now I have a bit of time, later I might be on deadline again.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">Notice: I don&#8217;t go easy on my critiques.  Sometimes it&#8217;s important to hear that you are doing fine.  Other times it&#8217;s more important to get it right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This contest runs until March 25.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">Totally unrelated but have to share: I just got <\/span><a style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theromancereader.com\/thomas-private.html\">an awesome review<\/a><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"> from <\/span><a style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theromancereader.com\/\">The Romance Reader<\/a><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">, one of the most venerable romance review sites around.  I think my jaw is still bouncing around on my kitchen floor somewhere.  Get this, Camden, my male protagonist from <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\">Private Arrangements<\/span><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"> is said to rank &#8220;right up there with Jamie Fraser as a hero for the ages.&#8221;  I don&#8217;t know about you, but for me that was a &#8220;Holy @#$%!&#8221; moment.  Jamie Fraser?  Holy @#$%!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\">ETA: Let me know in the comments if you are interested in the query consultation.  One <strike>victim<\/strike> winner drawn on the 25th.<\/span><\/span>  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><span style=\"color: rgb(255, 0, 0);\"> <\/span><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Fine Print: Nobody ever sold a novel on a query letter. (Yeah, I know somebody must have somewhere, but most of us don&#8217;t get struck by lightning.) Since I could write a seductive query letter long before I could write a book worth reading, I always encourage people to obsess more about their manuscripts &#8230; <a title=\"Pay-it-forward Contest: Query Consultation\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/14\/pay-it-forward-contest-query-consultation\/\" aria-label=\"More on Pay-it-forward Contest: Query Consultation\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30],"tags":[23,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1367,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/1367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sherrythomas.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}