Got your attention, didn't I?
Silly as that joke sentence sounds, it's easy to write that kind of prose when describing your work in a pitch letter--but a sentence like that can be the kiss of death in an agent query.
We spent a lot of time talking about promoting yourself this week. Today, the excellent Slushpile blog reminded us of the dangers of OVER-PROMOTING.
We have to learn the fine art of talking about ourselves without over-promoting, and the blogging literary agent Nathan Bransford has some spot-on advice. Sift through his comments section as well--it's a helpful site with plenty of community spirit. Check it out:
"Bragging honestly about your personal qualifications and publishing credits is not only appropriate, it is appreciated. If you are the world's foremost expert on alien monkey encounters, well, then I would like you to be upfront with me that you are the world's foremost expert on alien monkey encounters. But when it comes to describing the actual work in a query, we really don't want to be told how great it is."
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