The Surefire Way to Make People Read Your Novel 

So a movie or television show can be used as a comp? That's a relief.

The reassurance about book comps is a great inclusion. Love the details you insert that aren't readily available elsewhere👍

Bless you for this. The story I'm working on is a cross between the fast and the furious meets The breakfast club.

Your adorable dog is such a perfect ad in this video! 😂 Excellent video, btw...distilling a book down to a pitch is insanely difficult. Thanks for the guidelines, they really are helpful!

Always appreciative of the info you present and the way in which you present it 👍

Good video. Still have to think about a solid pitch for my WIP. Thankfully I have some people who can help me if it sounds good. The pitch for my previous work (and hopefully may get an agent) is this: She was assigned to kill the prince. Now she is on the run with him.

Have a great week

This was super helpful. I plan to start pitching to agents next year after I finish my current draft. Thank you.

Thank you so much for all of your content! You have inspired and empowered me more than words can describe! I have a quick question about something I haven't been able to get a solid answer about through some personal research. If you write and traditionally publish a novel, how do the rights work when converting the work into Film/TV format? Would the original author be allowed to write the screenplay/s? Would they retain ownership of their characters and world of story? Could they write a new novel or screenplay taking place in the same universe as their published novel without it being a direct sequel? Thank you again! You are so amazing, and I am so grateful to have found your videos! Each one makes me a better, more informed, and more optimistic author! 😄💕

Mine is already a published book, but I'll share the Twitter pitch in case it's useful for others. A medium who wears the dead on her skin returns to her childhood home to find a woman floating face down in her pool. The police call it suicide. The tattoo on her chest says otherwise.

You're right. We need training in this area. It can feel contrived and false but we must learn how to do it. Because our book to others is nothing without it. Yes, what is different - and enticing? Character focus. Conflict? Focus on what plays out. And if women don't see emotion they're much less likely to bite. Think of your reaction to a good song the first time you hear it - what was it that grabbed you? It could well be something totally unacademic but you got it. Try to figure out what your book hits first when you picture it. Then articulate that hit. I'm trying to figure out that now for my book!

Way I do this is talk to anyone after querying what they read for general public. However you can't do this with literary agents. You have to hook them by showing them you did your research and also what other books and authors that the book is comparable to.

I definitely struggle with this. The best I can do so far: Mata Hari, infamous exotic dancer turned WWI spy, never worked for any one country. Trained since childhood by an elite Society of time-travelling sex-worker historians, she has a destiny to fulfil, and information to bring back to a future humanity obsessed with its past. But how do you find meaning in a life where everything is predetermined? Is the leader of the Society she works for harbouring a dark secret about the very nature of time itself? And as the clock ticks down toward Mata Hari's inevitable execution, is there anything she can do to save herself? Gigi x The Alice Network x The Time-Traveller's Wife

I'm totally new to this literary thing. This video made me realize I've been querying with a book blurb instead of a pitch so I just wrote one: 'In a post-apocalyptic future, a young scientist relies on her ideals, cunning, and prowess to save humanity from extinction.'

Hi Alyssa! This kind of made me think about book blurbs. What if the nature of the book (let's say paranormal/ghosts) is part of the mystery of the book. Would it spoil the mystery and intrigue by mentioning it on the blurb (and subsequently revealing the mystery)? But then I would think you would have to mention if it is paranormal themed, because there are those readers who may not be interested in it and on the other side, those that would love to read a paranormal. Have you ever come across this before and if so how did you handle it?

The key is to fit into whatever categories an agent wants to represent at the moment.

Alyssa, thanks for your videos. They are always helpful. I have a question. Why don't publishers list their out of print authors/novels with print on demand printing companies like kdp? That would seem an easy way to keep the under the radar work still available for readers who would like to get physical copies of them or a library looking for a replacement copy.

I’ve listened to a ton of your videos but know that there’s still quite a few I haven’t made it to yet. Is there a video that goes over when it’s the right time for a writer to reach out to a developmental editor? I’m curious whether it’s best at the end of the outline, first draft, or when the author has completed several drafts and can’t see any more ways to improve the work.

Alyssa, I'm curious what your advice is about this. The wording of my pitch (when pitching live to agents) is the EXACT same wording as my query. During live pitches I get great feedback on my "excellent pitch" and request for pages. However cold email queries using the EXACT same wording has resulted in zero interest. Any ideas why?

Hi Alyssa. You might have answered this in a previous video, but what happens if you get multiple positive responses to queries? Obviously you can only go with one. How does that work?

Does anyone know as far as query letters for memoir- do we share the ending or do we still leave a cliff hanger when querying to agents?

Hi! I have one question. Is it possible to be an editor even though you are not a native speaker?

can i query my novel in usa even tho im not based in us?

How much does it cost for editing service ?

Oh, I just live for these sorts of challenges. Just like discarded drafts, they make great exercise if nothing else. My novel is inspired by the old Soviet television miniseries "The Place Of Meeting can not be changed". I would describe it as a mix of this and Mass Effect, maybe a bit of Gulliver's Travels. _Penal soldier _*_Sergeant Adem Moretti_*_ earns his freedom from punitive military service after an act of valour costs him the use of his legs, but struggles to weather the transition from military to civilian life. His morals are put to the test when he is coerced into joining a savage state-sponsored paramilitary group to protect his family. Has he truly been rehabilitated, or will his criminal inclination lead him down a dark path?_ I'm very much a soft sci-fi worldbuilding person. I'll craft these intricate worlds that are just too good not to write a book about. In this case, we are in a galaxy of oligarchs, dynasts and despots, all vying for regional power. I was inspired to reject the traditional macroscopic approach to most science fiction works out there. In this story, there are no heroes, no world-ending threats, no mustache-twirling villains in frock coats. Just regular people trying to get by, each with their own vividly complex lives and experiences.

I'm not even close to being able to pitch my stuff to anyone, but I tried writing a few hundred word query as a writing practice. It was very illuminating and I was happy I tried it. It helped me to identify for myself what I want to come through the most. What was especially difficult for me was to catch the tone of the work. Several versions were ... true, and in a sense described the character and conflict. (Sometimes even in interesting manner, imo :D) But. And that was a big but. They did not catch the tone, for example sounding more like YA adventure rather than adult fantasy romance.

My pitch for my steampunk cold war fantasy? A boy, stuck between two nations, finds a mysterious girl and a magical item on a dead and derelict warship. Would that be a good pitch?

Here’s my pitch. Would love some feedback… An orphan boy, who no one knows what happened to his parents, comes to find that they were part of a mythical world and somehow went missing. Here’s the full synopsis… still a WIP…. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you have lived your entire life offending every fairy that has ever lived. Yes you read that correctly, fairies are real and they don't like the history of magical creatures being solely attributed to them under the guise of "Fairy Tales." Don't worry, you're not the only disbeliever who has done this. To Finley Maxwell, believing in anything happy and magical was something he gave up on a long time ago. Finley's life is as miserable as a twelve-year-old's can get. His parents died the day he was born, leaving him an orphan. To make things worse, Finley can’t seem to find or keep friends, his birthdays always end in disaster, and the strangest things always seem to happen at the worst moments! Like that one time he sneezed and Isaac Murphy's eyebrows fell out, or the other when Isabelle Filly uncontrollably burped bubbles after giving Finley a fright. Some might say that Finley Maxwell was the unluckiest 12-year-old to have ever lived… All Finley wanted for his twelfth birthday was peace and quiet. He should have known that it wasn't possible after he was transferred to his twenty-third orphanage because a tree tried to swallow him whole (yes you read that correctly) and he mysteriously grew pointed ears. Finley tries to find a way to salvage his birthday into something enjoyable, however, the director of Hathaway's Orphanage, Morgue, and Funeral Home has different plans. Thinking Finley is troubled, the director instructs the orphanage bully and her posse to punish Finley in order to beat the weird out of him. The universe had different plans for Finley, leaving the girl and her cronies' hair on fire and Finley the one to blame. Thinking that he will have to spend the rest of his youth cleaning kilns and scrubbing soot out of the tri-vocational orphanage home, Finley is visited by a pair of mysteriously and unseasonably dressed men named Barry and Burley, who know who his parents are. They tell Finley the truth about why strange things keep happening to him: magic, myth, folklore and legends are all real, and Finley is a part of them. Burley and Barry surprise Finley with the revelation that he is an elf, and that they have special orders to bring him to a world where all magical beings live together. This world, called Ethel, was created for magical creatures to hide from the disbelieving humans, or as elves call them, round-ears. After a lifetime of being a stranger on his own, Finley feels like he has finally found a place he can call home in the magic world of Ethel. Finley learns all about Ethel's different creatures and why mythical beings had to create the world in order to prevent their extinction. He also discovers why he was brought to Ethel; to learn how to harness his magical essence, as all elves do, within himself. To do so he’ll need to be trained by a Magister (a master mage) at the esteemed elven school known as Woodworths’ Academy of Magic. But Finley learns quickly that even in a world full of whimsical creatures and fantastical things, evil can still exist. Creatures from all over Ethel have mysteriously begun to disappear, with their abductions always seeming to coincide with Finley dreaming of a mysterious wooden door and his parents pleading for help against the monster guarding it. Burley and Barry tell Finley that the same strange kidnappings were happening when Finley's parents went missing twelve years ago, leading Finley to believe that his dreams are real and his parents could still be alive. Driven by a desire to uncover the truth about his mother and father's abrupt departure, Finley believes it is up to him to unravel the mystery of the missing magical beings. Finley is aided in his quest by his elven classmates and friends, Alfie PIke (the anxiety-riddled youngest boy of an elven shoe cobbler, with three older sisters who act like his mother) and Wilhelmina Laurel (a girl whose mother has also gone missing and is having the same dreams as Finley). In between their magical course work - learning about the language of creation, which is used to imbue spoken words into magical spells, botanicals to grow ingredients for their instruction on alchemy and its many brews, and creature cultural studies - the three strive to find the location of the mysterious door and determine what creature could possibly be guarding it. By piecing together clues, the three friends believe that the very school they are being taught at is holding the magical creatures hostage and that the Prime Minister, Balshazar Mudilav, is trying to use the magical essence of the kidnapped beings to create a weapon of unspeakable power. But there is more than meets the eye, and by unraveling these threads, Finley and his friends come face to face with a reawakened evil, more terrible than anyone in the magical world has ever faced before, and the very threat that caused Finley's parents to disappear. A story full of empathetic characters, imaginative and creative spins on classic fairy tale creatures, and countless exciting story beats; the first installment in the Finley Maxwell series, Finley Maxwell and the Shadow Stalker, pulls together a thrilling new world and kicks off the journey of the many adventures to come for Finley and his friends in the marvelous world of Ethel.

So I have, in the last two weeks, begun the query process with my first manuscript ever. Below appears on all my query letters. DAIMYO-THE DISCOVERY OF REAL MAGIC, 88,000 words, Science Fiction/Fantasy Rachel loves science and intends to devote her life to scientific research. She plans a childless, single life, but her community has chosen her husband with the expectations of four offspring. She’s determined to prove herself too valuable as a scientist to be bogged down with motherhood. Rachel’s community is the last remnant of humanity, fighting for survival after their spaceship, Daimyo, crash lands on an unfriendly planet inhabited by a fierce warrior species called triads. Symmetrical, with three arms, three legs, and three genders, these long-lived creatures are physically superior but technologically inferior to humans. Hours before the dreaded wedding, the triads attack. Rachel, her fiance, Jacob, and her pet squirrel, Hazel, go AWOL on a self-appointed mission to save the life of a friend wounded in the encounter. Deep into triad territory and battling for their lives, they uncover knowledge of magic, an artifact that could mean the end of humanity and each other. Through chance, Rachel finds herself with the life of a triad child in her hands. Keeping the child alive may cost humanity dearly, but she sees an opportunity for peace. Will a young woman’s ideals, cunning, and prowess be enough to save the child and humanity?

May I present The Fantastic Tales of Lost and Broken Things; a Gothically Steampunk Horror, wherein our not so typical ensemble of "monsters" make rather queer heroes indeed. This shit be like queer Full Metal Alchemist visits Interview With a Vampire to go have a baby with Dark Souls... until Star Trek comes to break them up. (Still needs some touching up, but I'm still only on my first draft 😅)

the X meets Y for me is the most lazy and unoriginal thing an author can ever do