It’s kinda like getting ready for the first day of school. You know it’s coming. It could be a week or a month away. Or maybe even a day. But you are super nervous.

Do you have the right outfit?(Aka:Is your query letter up to par?)

Do your shoes match and will anyone have the same pair? (Does the story match the tone of your letter and OMG is it original enough. The last thing we want to do is be Cliche’)

Will the hot popular kids like you? (Can we say Nathan Bransford? And every other agent on your FAVORITES list!)

What if nobody likes you? (Le Sigh…rejections…)

The list goes on and on. But really they are no different. It’s nerve wrecking. It’s terrifying. And more often than not the negative things DO happen.

So what is a writer to do when they are so nervous they are thinking about doing an entire extra round of edits just to postpone the scary hairy rejection scene?

STOP!

You’ve gotten this far have you not?

Have you not worked and toiled and edited and pulled your hair out and cried and laughed and written till your fingers bled and cramped and made everyone you know and their mother read and reread your manuscript and and and and and!?

Take the chance already!!!

If you are worried about agents rejecting, pick a hand full of your not so super duperlicious favorites and query them first. See what happens.

Do they love it? Do they hate it?

Do they all request a full? If so, start querying the big dogs. If not rework your query. Enlist some help!  Purchase Elana Johnson’s From the Query to he Call. Do everything you can to make your letter shine.

THEN query a second handful of agents.

Repeat the process until it cannot be repeated. If it gets to the point where you are getting no where then maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy. But don’t give up. And don’t hold back out of fear.

Get your book out there already! And good luck!!!

(Says the pot calling the kettle black! Wait…I kinda want to be the kettle. You can be the pot today!)

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Marybeth is an aspiring novelist currently working on her second novel. For more information visit her website www.marybethsmith.com. She also has a blog Desperately Searching for my Inner Mary Poppins where you can keep up on her moments as mother, wife and writer..

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You can still send us your hooks and or pitches and we will put them up on Sundays.

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Sarah is writer looking for an agent. She is currently working on novel # 4, editing novels 2 and 3, and querying novel # 1. For more insight to her work, visit: http://legendoftheprotectors.wordpress.com/ or http://legendoftheprotectors.blogspot.com/

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When FBI Agent, Drew Sidorova, takes a man over a cliff with her, saving her life temporally from the men who killed her partner, she hopes surviving the jungle of the Amazon will be the least of her problems.

She finds herself attracted to the mysterious man, praying that he is not one of the bad guys she’s worked the last year to bring down. But as it turns out, he’s DEA, and possibly responsible for her partner’s death.

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Samantha’s vivid dreams of killing people are happening while she dreams them. She discovers she comes from an ancient line of Cherokee Protectors who defend the world from Flesh Eating monsters. She falls in love with another protector and one of the monsters falls for her.

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Hook::
Visions of another dimension usher a young woman through an adventure of immorality, virtue, and self-discovery.

Pitch::Intense visionary dreams transport Alexis to Avalon, the unseen world of faeries.
Until recently, she believed the stories that Night told her of these magnificent creatures were simply her overactive imagination. The tales are now entering a darker, depraved realm, and are creeping into her days.

She finds her visions are real—intended to prepare her for the truth.
The reason she’s felt so different since she was a child….
She was born into Avalon, yet raised by unknowing humans.
But now it’s time to venture back with her own kind.

A horrible evil has been brewing—waiting just for her.
Something is killing people and Alexis is the only one who can stop it.

While attempting to do so, and learn her new place in the universe, she discovers more than she wishes to know of her true self. The nature of faeries is to test the limits and mess with the balance.
Will she be able to stay strong and save the humans?
And what will she do when she finds the way to protect them means subjecting some of her own to a horrible death? She must choose between her two worlds. Which is the right choice?

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Two 13-year old girls (one a diabetic) embark on an unsupervised horseback ride in the mountains. When they are forced off their trail and a thunderstorm strikes, they’re confronted by wild animals, nightfall, and an insulin pump running on empty. They must find their way home in a situation where failure is not an option.

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