Agent Query Now or Head to Author Salon? Authors-In-Progress Decide.
Nearly All Writers Send The Agent Query Too Early!
What to do? So much conflicting advice you want to scream.
Fiction writers aspiring to the novel should take a first and second look at Author Salon. Structured and manned by experienced New York editors and agents, writers who teach in MFA programs, as well as accomplished professionals like Salon.Com’s Cary Tennis, Pulitzer winner Jane Smiley, and hard tack LA film producer Ken Atchity, Author Salon presents itself as a viable post-MFA choice for writers looking for new community, a way to network with agents , as well as an opportunity to acquire new knowledge and literary skills.
The aim is to work towards becoming published–whatever it takes. The work is rigorous and methodical, but the rewards are real. Writers at Author Salon are already getting contracts and requests for their work from major literary agents and publishers.
Also interesting is the “film crew concept”:
Writers on Author Salon never have to go it alone. It’s always a group effort, and in a sense, analogous to the production and direction of a film. The writer is the director, while Author Salon is the producer, and it’s mods, admins, fellow writers and faculty editors play roles as assistant producers, gaffers and key grips, film editors and assistant directors, and so forth, based on each writer’s needs and each project’s strengths and weaknesses.
This takes the MFA-type approach a few steps further, expanding and refining, but also adding in the reality of balancing a writer’s literary inclinations with market realities. In other words, if a writer desires commercial publication, he or she needs to consider perhaps applying the art of great storytelling to telling a story readers will want to buy. But this does not, in any way, downplay a focus on style, voice, and advanced literary technique. Just the opposite.
More on the Author Salon About page.
