Top 10 Reasons Your Novel Is Rejected and How to Avoid Them
By Lois Winston
Over the years Lois Winston has given workshops and talks to several thousand aspiring authors. As a literary agent, she’s listened to hundreds of pitches and read through tens of thousands of query letters and manuscript submissions. Being both a published author and a literary agent gives her a unique perspective on publishing. She knows what it’s like to be the writer whose only desire is to sell a novel, and she knows what it’s like to have to crush someone’s hopes with a rejection letter. It wasn’t until she started sending out those rejection letters that she began to have a better understanding of why so many writers receive them.
What she’s come to realize is that most manuscripts are rejected by agents and editors for one or more of ten basic reasons. Writers have control over some of these reasons but not all of them. Often after she’d speak on this topic to writing groups, attendees would suggest she put the information into a book. So that’s what she did, writing Top Ten Reasons Your Novel Is Rejected and How to Avoid Them, the topic of her talk at the May meeting.
About Lois Winston: USA Today bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Visit Lois/Emma at www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Follow everyone on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/anasleuth and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Anasleuth. Sign up for her newsletter at https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/z1z1u5.
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