A query letter is a one-page document sent by a writer to his or her literary agent. Its primary purpose is to lure the agent’s interest in the manuscript. Since many writers are engaged in the same goal, a successful query letter makes for an outstanding pitch.

Each query does not have much time, or space, to capture the interest of the literary agent. Experienced agents get thousands of queries every year. This is why novice writers sweat over the challenge of writing a captivating query letter.

Creating a List of Prospective Agents

There are several resources that help writers locate agents that specialize in their genre. These include databases like the publishersmarketplace.com, literarymarketplace.com, the Association of Author Representatives, agentyuery.com, querytracker.net, and writersmarket.com. After finding potential agents, writers need to visit the agents’ websites to obtain submission guidelines, find out what types of books they are looking for; and whether they are still accepting submissions.

Following Submission Guidelines

Submission guidelines specify the acceptable method of submission, as well as what should be included in the query letter’s contents and/or attachments. Some elements do not change even when the contents vary according to the agent’s specifications, the work being pitched by the writer, and its genre.

Printed/Email Formats and Content

If the agent wants the material submitted by mail, then the letter should have the writer’s address, right justified, at the top of the page followed by the left justified agent’s name and address. If the letter is being submitted by email, the subject line should indicate it is a query and the signature should have the writer’s name, address and other contact information.

The agent should be addressed courteously; and, the main portion of a posted letter should not exceed five or 6 paragraphs. Emailed queries should not exceed 300 words because agents read and discard emails quickly.

The first paragraph should capture the agent’s interest. This is the paragraph where connection with the agent maybe personalized by for example mentioning authors represented by the agent, or any meeting with the agent, or knowing someone who knows the agent. It can include the word count of the book, its genre and title.

The following paragraphs should capture the agent’s interest by giving a vivid sense of the book. If query is about a nonfiction work, the writer should explain why the writer is qualified to write the book. If the book is a novel, then following agents on social media may provide useful information about whether the agent is the right fit for the book being pitched. Only requested attachments should be provided. The signature can include links to a personal website or blog.

Bottom line: agents want projects that publishers will accept. If you want to feel comfortable about your task, check online for examples that have worked. You can also improve the odds of being accepted by sending queries to many agents.

Everyone thinks they want to be a freelance writer. You make your own hours, you set your own rates—what could be better? Getting paid, that’s what. Finding paying work online is like tracking down that pesky cricket in your bathroom at four in the morning. You know it’s there, but you just can’t find it. And just like catching that cricket, finding freelance writing work takes some skill and out-of-the-box thinking. Here are some great places to start your search.

Craigslist is Your Friend

Yes, you can find a lot of writing work on Craigslist! You just have to know how. If you only look in your particular city, there might be three or four listings a week (if you’re lucky), but there is a better way. Google’s advanced search option lets you rummage through Craigslist posts all over the country (and world) and find remote work everywhere.

Facebook: Not Just for Photos Anymore

Facebook can be used for a lot more than just gossiping about media celebrities and sharing pictures of cats. There are pages and groups galore, and a few moments’ searching will uncover dozens of writers’ groups, pages, sites, and blogs. Facebook is a great place to share tips with other writers too.

LinkedIn Will Keep you LinkedUp

For more professional writers—or those who want to be pros—the professional networking site LinkedIn is a great place to be seen and noticed. Businesses, companies, and sole proprietors prowl the forums on LinkedIn, looking for people who are bright, savvy, and able to write coherent sentences. Technical or scholarly writers do well on this site for pros.

Meetup Makes Meeting Up Merry

Not all writing can be done remotely. Sometimes you have to get out and hustle. Where to start? That amazing site Meetup finds networking groups, writing critique groups, business organizations, and social clubs—all great places to seek work. A talented writer with a little moxie can make connections, and more importantly, get assignments at these get-togethers.

The Art of Bidding Wars

Bid sites abound online these days, and they are good places for writers to hone their other skills—negotiation and price setting. Thumbtack, Fiverr, and Freelancer.com are all sites where, for a small fee, you can post your profile and then bid on projects others post. Bidding sites are not necessarily places to earn a living, but they are great for developing a portfolio, earning a little pocket money, and most importantly, getting your name and reputation out among people.

Freelancing is not a job to be taken lightly. There is money in it, but like that midnight cricket, it is elusive and takes patience to find. But the rewards of working for yourself are great and worth all that time spent hunting around cold dark tiles in the middle of the night.

Figurative language is any literary device used by a writer to communicate something beyond the literal meaning of the words being used. That might sound complicated, but it just means that a writer can use words to paint a word picture to help their readers more accurately visualize what they are reading, or imagine the emotions and the feelings of the characters. You may find the following literary devices helpful to make your own writing more interesting and meaningful, both for your readers and for yourself.

Simile

A simile is comparing two very different things, using the words “like” or “as.” In order to be a simile, one of those two words must be used.

An example of a simile is the sentence, “He is as sweet as pie.” A person is not really like a pie, but the idea conveys to a reader that the boy in question has a sweet nature and is very amenable.

Metaphor

A metaphor is very similar to a simile in many ways. However, a metaphor compares two very different things without using the words “like” or as.”

An example of a metaphor would be the sentence, “He’s a real tiger in the courtroom.” A comparison is made between a person and a tiger; however, because the words “like” or “as” are never used, it is a metaphor rather than a simile.

Hyperbole

Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration that is made for a specific effect. For example, if a mother tells her children that she has “told them a thousand times not to climb on the curtain,” the reader understands this is not to be taken literally. Rather, the mother simply means she has told her children repeatedly. The exaggeration is clear, and its intended effect of illustrating the parent’s frustration is accomplished.

Onomatopoeia

While difficult to spell and fun to pronounce, the concept is quite simple. Onomatopoeia refers to words that make the sound they are emulating. In other words, they sound like what you are saying. An example of this is the word “creak.” As you say it, you can hear the creaking of a door or rusty hinge.

Alliteration

Alliteration repeats the initial sound in a group of words and is usually used in poetry or in prose with a specific rhythm. The effect emphasizes the sound through the repetition. An example would be, “Sally saw Simon selling seashells.”

Personification 

Personification is attributing human characteristics, thoughts, and feelings to objects and animals that are not human. In some cases, they may not even be living. An example would be talking animals in stories, such as the popular Aesop Fables.

All of these types of figurative language add color and personality to your writing. The next time you read a book, take the time to notice how the author uses these techniques to draw you into the story.

Being a freelance writer comes with it a set of perks. You can work from home, meaning you don’t have to spend any money on gas. You can work in your pajamas, so you don’t have to get dressed up in uncomfortable clothes. There are all sorts of benefits to working for yourself.

But what about the drawbacks? The stress of keeping a client and, in turn, bread on the table? If you work it right, you can keep clients coming back for as long as they have the budget to do so. The key is to run your freelance business like exactly what it is: a company. Here are five tips for keeping your business, and head, above water.

1. Turn Down What You Cannot Take On

Never take more work than you can handle, no matter how tempting it may be. Yes, you may need to make an extra $50 to pay the electric bill this month. Perhaps a new client is offering you double what an old, stead client is. None of that matters if you can’t deliver what you promise. Be a write your clients can rely on. If you cannot accept more work, be honest with your requestor and tell them when you can get to work for them.

2. Always Meet Deadlines

Emergencies happen and are understandable. However, consistently turning in work late is no different than punching a time clock five minutes past the start of your shift every day. Never fail to meet your deadlines. If an emergency does occur, be honest with your client. Most people are understanding once. Some are even understanding twice. You will rarely find someone who is willing to accept your excuses a third time.

3. Charge What You Are Worth

There are people out there who pay poorly for freelance work. There are others who pay fantastically. Do a bit of research and charge your customers accordingly. You should always charge what you are worth. Never try to gouge your clients for money simply because you believe you can. If you decide you are going to charge 10 cents per word, you better be able to explain why.

4. Be Consistent

Ask any freelance writer and they will tell you that they have had a day when the words didn’t flow. They made typo after type and constructed entire articles out of run-on sentences. If you find this happening to you, walk away, take a break, and return to your writing later. Your clients deserve your commitment to consistently accurate writing. If you want to experiment with your writing style or voice, discuss it with your client. Not all are open to having fun or witty articles on their site.

5. Communicate

Stay in communication with your clients. If you fall ill, you are cutting back on your output, or even if you are thinking of taking a vacation, alert your clients. Advanced warning will give your clients time to find another writer. If you really want to impress them, suggest a writer that you know so they don’t have to spend time and energy hunting one down.

Do not rest on your laurels once you have found and began to write for clients. Clients who enjoy working with you will stick around. Clients who stick around put money in your pocket. It only makes sense that you would want to keep your customers coming back for more.

Writers might love writing, but editing is another story. Good editing can elevate a piece of writing from acceptable to outstanding. However, many writers cannot necessarily afford to pay a qualified editor and resort to self-editing instead. Follow these four tips for more effectively editing your own writing to transform it from mediocre to exceptional.

Set Your Writing Down

Give yourself some time away from your finished piece before attempting to edit. Tucking away your newly completed short story, blog post, or other work for a few days allows you to return to the piece with fresh eyes. You will then be more likely to notice mistakes or areas for improvement after taking some time off versus trying to edit immediately after you’ve finished writing.

Avoid Editing While Writing

Writers can get hung up on a word, sentence, or even paragraph at times. Rather than constantly stopping to change words and rewrite sentences in the middle of a piece you are working on, try to keep moving forward. Save the editing for the end. Editing tends to be more effective when there is a complete draft to work from.

Change the Format

Reading a finished piece of work in a different format than it was written in can make it easier to identify errors. For instance, a work that was typed in a Word document can be converted to PDF format for editing. Reading the piece as a PDF document gives it a different look. The new format can be enough to help you spot problems that might be overlooked if trying to self-edit from the original file the work was created in.

Read Backwards

An almost guaranteed method for seeing your finished work from a fresh perspective is to read it backwards. Start at the end of your piece and read to the beginning. Reading anything backwards is certainly challenging. If you can make it work, though, you will likely catch spelling errors, typos, and other mishaps that can be easily missed when reading through something you are overly familiar with.

The works of even the most accomplished writers can always benefit from a bit of editing. Such writers tend to have access to skilled editors who assist them in putting the finishing touches on their writing. Not everyone can afford the cost of a professional editor. For all the other writers in the world, the self-editing tips above can be an effective (and free!) method for polishing and perfecting one’s own writing.

If you are an avid fiction writer, then you have probably run into the problem of writer’s block once or twice. Lack of inspiration is the most potent enemy to a writer of any kind, but especially to one who relies on original tales and stories of fiction. Still, there are a number of ways you can get your creative juices flowing again, no matter how tapped out you feel.

Writers have a tendency to become stagnant in their work. They feel that the assignment at hand must be done as soon as possible, as many face impending deadlines for their work, but the fact remains that sitting behind your desk in your office is actually counter-productive to the creative process. To get the creative juices flowing, it is always a good place to start to get your actual, physical juices flowing: your blood. Try taking a short brake and going for a half an hour walk. We do some of our best thinking when we are walking, because we are getting more oxygen to our brains than by sitting behind a desk writing or typing.

Keep in mind that being sedentary is the enemy of creativity. Another thing you could do to combat mental and physical lethargy is to change your setting. Your desk and office may be the most congenial place for you to write logistically, but it may be stifling your imagination and creative capacities. If at all possible, set up shop in your backyard, on your deck, or at a nearby park. Try writing outdoors or simply change your work scenery to gain a different perspective.

This next pointer may be the most powerful yet: tap into your dreams. Even if, in your waking life, you are finding it hard to think creatively or come up with something new, chances are your subconscious mind is not having the same problem. It can be difficult, with your schedule, to record your dreams when you wake up in the morning, but give it a try. You can start by keeping a small notebook and a pen near your bed, perhaps on your nightstand every night. Wake up 15 minutes early every morning to give yourself time to simply lie in bed and think about your dreams. Close your eyes and try to recall every detail as best you can, no matter how seemingly inconsequential. Write everything down in the notebook—everything! This is the time where you should be a free-form recounting your dreams, and you can sift through the details and what is incomprehensible later.

You may get an idea for a new story form your dreams or maybe some valuable insight into a story you are already writing, as our dreams are often cryptic messages to us about things that are going on in our waking lives.

The characters in a story should be generally consistent, but to make them interesting, they must also be able to surprise readers. When developing the characters in your fiction story, apply the following tips to make them more memorable.

Drives and Desires

Characters that are driven toward satisfying some desire or achieving a particular goal tend to be intriguing to readers. There are bound to be obstacles and conflict on the journey to fulfillment, and readers enjoy having a front row seat from which to witness the turmoil likely to ensue. When a character is compelled by a driving need and will do anything to meet that need, despite challenges along the way, readers also feel compelled to tag along for the ride.

Be Vulnerable

While a character with huge ambition and an uncanny ability to easily overstep any obstacle might be impressive, he or she is not nearly as interesting as one with vulnerabilities. When a character’s vulnerable side is exposed, readers perk up. Some will identify with that weakness; perhaps even empathize with that character. Readers will likely want to know how much of an impact that vulnerability will have on the character throughout the story. They’ll also want to see if your character overcomes the challenges associated with it.

Keep Secrets

To make things interesting, let your main characters keep a few secrets. Having a big secret often means that a primary character stands to lose something big should that secret ever get out. The secret could be something from the past. Maybe it turns out that your main character, new in town and still trying to be accepted, served time for a felony years ago and will do anything to keep others from finding out. Perhaps you have a character hiding an addiction. Whatever the secret, it should provide your character with a motive for behaving a particular way. 

Introduce Contradictions

Just as secrets can be interesting, so can contradictions. One-dimensional characters will leave readers bored, but introduce a contradiction in their personality and things get interesting. Suppose you have a cranky character. Try showing his compassionate side in an unexpected moment. Perhaps you’ve created an intense introvert who keeps to herself, but is later discovered to be a stripper. See? Contradictions make things memorable.

When your characters are memorable, readers will become invested in finding out what happens to them. When that happens, readers will feel compelled to follow your characters to the end of the story.

We all have stories to tell, from an awkward first kiss to overcoming a devastating illness. Memoirs are an excellent means of sharing the intriguing bits and pieces of our lives that have shaped who we are today. If you are ready to begin your own memoir, here are some tips to get you writing in the right direction.

Be Specific

A memoir is not an autobiography, which means that it should not cover your entire life. The objective of a memoir is to highlight a specific time period in your life or a specific event you experienced. Your memoir represents a single morsel or slice of your life.

Be Honest

Be truthful about the events you are describing. It might be tempting to write yourself in a more flattering light, but the memoir is not a work of fiction. Stick to the facts. It is perfectly okay to tell your story in an interesting way. Just be sure to avoid rewriting history. Telling tall tales is for fiction and readers will be skeptical anyway if you always have the right comeback at the right time.

Draw on Fiction

While it is important to be truthful in memoir writing, you still want the story to be interesting to readers. Try applying elements of fiction writing to your story without actually fictionalizing it. This can help you achieve a memoir that is both readable and memorable.

One place to start is with the people in your memoir, including yourself. Write about the individuals in your story as if they were characters in a novel. What are their struggles? Do they have any distinct characteristics? Draw on those aspects of the people in your story to help readers get to know them.

It Isn’t About You

It might be your memoir, but it should not necessarily be about you. Readers want to know what’s in it for them. What lessons can they learn from your story? What can they take away from it? Even though you are sharing an event or situation from your life, you do not want to sound like you’re just talking about yourself. Readers will quickly lose interest. Writer and instructor Marion Roach Smith says it best. “The best memoir is about something, and that something is not me.” Illustrate a universal theme, such as spirituality, through your memoir.

When composing your own memoir, remember to focus on a specific event or time period, stick to what really happened, utilize elements of fiction for interest, and emphasize a theme or lesson rather than yourself. Employing these tips in your memoir will make it one people want to read.

Becoming a published author is the dream of many writers, but one that often goes unrealized. In the world of a writer, rejection is everywhere. If the thought of securing a literary agent to represent your work leaves you feeling woozy and you fear never landing a contract with a traditional publisher, you might consider self-publishing. Years ago, publishing your own book was not a possibility, but it is now and there are several advantages to doing so.

Greater Royalties

There is the potential to earn a lot more money on each book sale with self-publishing. Traditional publishing companies typically pay authors about 15-20% of net earnings for a published title. The publisher takes a bigger cut for providing a host of services, including editing, layout and design, printing, and marketing. There are always fees for self-publishing, but authors keep more of the profits for themselves than with traditional publishing.

Complete Control

Publishing your book yourself allows you to retain complete control. As the author and publisher, you have the final say regarding every aspect of the book. You decide which edits to implement and what the design layout will look like. You select the title and book cover and you even set the price at which you want to sell your book. The marketing strategy is also yours to decide.

Instant Publication

Once an author has done his or her part writing and revising a book for a traditional publisher, it will still be several months before the final book is available for sale. Time is needed to design a cover, finalize the interior layout, and set the book for printing or digital format. Additionally, the publisher might already have several books in line to be completed before even beginning the design and layout process for your book. Self-publishing eliminates the long wait. Writers can practically publish their books as soon as they are written when they self-publish.

Guaranteed Publication

When you choose to self-publish you are guaranteed to be a published author. You can purchase an ISBN for your title so that your book can be sold in bookstores and through marketplaces like Amazon. It is even possible to publish digital books directly through Amazon and have them available for sale almost immediately. Once that happens, you are officially a published author.

For writers dreaming of seeing their books in print, in either hardcopy or digital format, self-publishing is a realistic way of achieving this. In addition to guaranteed publication, self-publishing offers several other benefits. In the case of earning greater royalties, for instance, self-publishing can even be considered advantageous over traditional publishing.