You’re in the bookstore or library and you have a screaming kid wanting to leave. You have about 15 seconds to read the blurb on the back of the book. What hooks you into picking it up and buy it or checking it out?

Can you hook your readers? An agent?

We want the hooks for your book. This is not a contest, it is to see if you have what it takes, in 3 paragraphs or less, to hook us. Email them to us and we will give you a post. You can get comments on the perfection of your ability to hook a reader or how to improve it.

I’ll put up some of mine as well.

Let’s see if we can’t come up with those first lines of the query. A great hook.

And if you need help with your hook, check out Querytracker’s blog. Elana Johnson has great helps with your query. Here’s the link to the hook.

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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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The best way to get objective, honest feedback no doubt comes from a professional editor. But let me tell ya, I checked into that. Editors are expensive!

Sometimes we are blessed to find a great critique group or friend to help us edit. If we are REALLY lucky we get someone who will tell us how it is, without having to pay for it! But let’s be honest, not all of us are lucky enough to find someone in the industry that gives the right kind of feedback.

Although friends and family are GREAT to boost your ego and tell you how wonderful your book is and how every little edit has made the book a sure fire seller, they aren’t the best people to take advice from.

So what’s a writer to do? How can we tell if our book is really ready or worthy to get published?

Here are some good indicators that your book may need some help…

1. You’ve found a few beta readers who are also writers. They were super excited to read your novel, but two chapters in…they stop reading and suddenly you aren’t hearing from them. It’s possible your book may need some help. If they aren’t begging for more, chances are, you’re not hooking them enough.

2. You’ve broken down and sent out tons of query letters. You’ve been reassured that your query is flawless, but you are still getting form rejections. It’s a good indication that your book may need some help. If your first chapters are not able to get you any type of feedback, chances are, you’re not hooking them enough.

3. Your friends and family aren’t too excited to keep up with your changes, updates and edits. In short, they are bored. Friends and family are usually our BEST critics, if we can’t hook them our book DEFINITELY needs help!

If you have experienced any of these my best advice is to work on the beginning of your story. Make it full of hooks and impossible to set down. Just like Julie Andrews said, “Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start!” (Oh how I love The Sound of Music!)

Have you ran into any other signs that make you sit back and think, “Maybe my book needs a little more help?”

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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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Please continue to critique the queries and first five hundred words. If you have any rewrites from the critiques, authors, feel free to post them in your comments.

Here are the links.

Query + 500 # 1

Query + 500 # 2

Query + 500 # 3

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photo credit: h.koppdelaney

So here is what I now beleive are the most important things to have when we attempt a career in the writing industry.

1.  Patience:  Patience with the writing process.  Patience with the revising process.  Patience with the query process. Patience with the submissions process.  Patience with the submissions process after we get an agent, because it starts all over again.

2. Professionalism:  Professionalism in our query letter.  Professionalism in dealing with rejections. Professionalism when dealing with multiple submissions. Professionalism when speaking to agents and/or editors on the phone. Professionalism when critiquing the work of our colleagues.

3. Persistence:  Press on!  Keep writing.  Keep making it better.  Keep up the query.  Keep up the WIP to query if the first four novels fail to get attention.  Persist in the love of the void that you fill when you write the words that have never been strung together the way you are stringing them.  Persist inside the dream.

What about you?  What are you own personal p’s (or c’s or s’s or whatever you need to get by?)

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When looking for an agent, how many rejections does it take to make you shelf a novel? To call it quits? Well, hopefully this will help you remember that its a number game and encourage you to press on.

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this story when he started his own business, and thought it held true to everything we do in life. I am taking a few liberties at the end, replacing the word “people” with “AGENTS”. I hope this helps anyone who is struggling. The author is UNKNOWN.

GO THROUGH THE NUMBERS

Let me tell you a story. Mark Yarnell, minister in a small town in Texas, was headed for bankruptcy and just about to lose his car and home. He looked for a way out and discovered Network Marketing. Luckily, he had a wise sponsor.

The sponsor gave Mark “THE PROMISE”:

THIS BUSINESS CAN SET YOU FREE FINANCIALLY IN ONE TO THREE YEARS.

But he also gave him “THE PRICE”: TO SUCCEED, YOU WILL HAVE TO FACE AND CONQUER 4 MAJOR ENEMIES.

Mark said, “It’s a deal.”

Mark then invited 200 friends over to his house to watch a video. 80 said, “No, not interested.” Mark had encountered:

ENEMY #1: REJECTION. My sponsor warned me about that. But I’ve still got 120 people coming over.”

Guess what? 50 didn’t show up. He had just met

ENEMY #2: DECEPTION. Mark thought, “No problem, my sponsor warned me about that. I’ve got 70 people who watched the tape.”

57 said, “Not interested.” He had just encountered

ENEMY #3: APATHY. Undaunted, Mark thought, “No problem. 13 people signed up.”

Guess what? 12 of them dropped out of the business shortly thereafter.

ENEMY #4: ATTRITION had left Mark with just one serious associate. To this day, that single distributor earns Mark over $50,000 per month.

You may have heard of Bill Britt, one of the most successful distributors in Amway. Some years ago, 20/20 did a feature story on Amway. They spent 19 minutes interviewing whiners and complainers—several distributors who had failed and showed the garages full of products they couldn’t sell. During the last minute of the show, Mr. Britt was interviewed in front of his palatial home. He was asked, “Mr. Britt, this business has obviously worked for you. What’s your secret?”

He replied, “There is no secret. I simply showed the plan to 1200 people. 900 said ‘No.’ and only 300 signed up. Out of those 300, only 85 did anything at all. Out of those 85, only 35 were serious, and out of those 35, 11 made me a millionaire.” Like Mark Yarnell, Bill worked through the numbers.

Jason Boreyko, now president of New Vision, told this story. When he was a distributor in Matol, he signed up 50 people. He heard a lot of “Nos” on the way to those 50. Jason took one man, who he knew would be terrific in the business, to lunch, told him about the business and the man said “No.” Jason took the man to lunch again the next month and told him the updates. Once again the man said, “No.” That went on for six months. The seventh month, something had changed for the man, and he said, “Yes.” That man made Jason over one million dollars. Jason also worked through his numbers.

According to Richard Poe in “Wave Three”, while starting Amway, Rich DeVos and Jay Van Andel, America’s eleventh richest people, recruited 500 people. 495 dropped out. The five that didn’t quit built Amway. All $7 BILLION of Amway’s business was built under those 5 people. Jay and Rich had to work through their numbers.

HERE’S THE LESSON: You success is directly related to the degree to which you are willing to work to find an AGENT.

Mark Yarnell’s odds were 1 out of 200.

Bill Britt’s were 11 out of 1200.

Jason Boreyko’s were 1 in 50. (After many Nos.)

Would you be willing to go through 200 AGENTS to find the 1 who will get you published?

Here’s the catch: YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SET OF ODDS AND YOU WON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE UNTIL AFTER YOU’VE SUCCEEDED. So if you’ve gone through 50 or 100 AGENTS and you haven’t found THE ONE, either you can give up and assume they don’t exist, or you can recognize that you are working through your own numbers.

THE TRUTH ABOUT REACHING GOALS:

Be faithful to your dreams!

Get really CLEAR on what YOU want!

Hang around successful and motivational people! Forget about the one’s who put you down!

Identify YOUR dreams.

Let no one or any challenge stand in the way of accomplishing your dreams!

Learn from others who are successful.

Set priorities. Do not let anything or anyone permit you to become sidetracked.

Your goals must be pursued EVERY DAY! This can be full-time or part-time, but never sometimes.

WRITE down your goals, and READ them every day.

Review your goals regularly and update them if needed.

HOW TO SET HIGHER GOALS

Answer this question for yourself: “WHY NOT ME, AND WHY NOT NOW?”

Become TEACHABLE! Become a sincere student of those who HAVE DONE IT. Be willing to pay the price.

Know that big goals come with bigger price tags.

Make a clear decision that you are going to do it. Be splecific!

Make your plan, plan your work, and them work, work, work your plan!

YOUR SUCCESS IS UP TO YOU!

We really can do this! All of us. I believe it.

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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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Anica Lewis

And here is the winning query:

Dear Mr. or Mrs. Agent,

I’m writing to you about my novel, THE GLOBAL WARMING NIGHTMARE.  In this story, global warming makes it too hot for ice to stay frozen, so the polar bears can’t live up north anymore and they come down and start eating people.  (I know that if all the ice really melted, there would probably be floods and stuff, but the book is for kids, and they don’t know stuff like that.  I babysit a lot so I think I know something about kids LOL.)  The main character of THE GLOBAL WARMING NIGHTMARE is a kid, like maybe 11 or 12, so kids should be able to relate to her.  She lives in Canada, and that’s where the polar bears go first because it’s still kind of cold.  So people are fighting the polar bears, and this girl, who’s name is Sarah, rescues this one polar bear cub and names it Snowy.  Then Sarah figures out about the whole global warming thing, and she takes Snowy down to Washington D.C. and calls a conference to tell all the world leaders how they have to be more careful of the environment.

THE GLOBAL WARMING NIGHTMARE is probably going to be at least a hundred pages when I finish it.  I’m about halfway through now.  If it needs to be longer, I can put more stuff in.  Maybe there could be snow leopards too or something.

Here are the first 6 chapters, plus the 11th chapter which I skipped ahead to write because I was really excited about the scene where Snowy runs away in the Pentagon.  Isn’t it awesome?  This book would probably make a great movie, too, especially if it used that girl who was in INKHEART.  Anyway, I did spell check but there might still be some mistakes.  But that’s what editors are for, right?

Can’t wait to hear what you think!

- Nicole (but everybody calls me Nikki) Smith

P.S.  Snowy is my cat’s name.  I think he would like to be a polar bear!!!

Thanks to everyone who participated! I had fun reading them.

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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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