Friday, August 2, 2013

An Email I Wrote to Cynthia Hand

While digging through some old stuff on my computer I found an email I wrote to Cynthia Hand, author of the Unearthly series. This was soon after I had read Unearthly (my review is here), and before she even wrote Hallowed. It's apparently dated February 3rd, 1011. I waited for a whole year, before giving up, but here it is, a letter from The Little Writer That Wanted To:


Mrs. Cynthia Hand,

I would like to start by saying your book is one of the best impulse-buy books I've bought in a long time. I had gone into Barnes and Noble to get a different book when I saw yours too (I'm attracted to shiny things). I had decided to buy it, good or bad, because I wanted to support a local author. I myself live a stone's throw away. The copies there looked a little roughed up from shipping, but had it not been for that, I would not have dug through the selection and found an autographed copy, something of which I've never had before. I finished your book in four days and can't wait for more.

I already have a novel I've been wanting to publish too, with the sequel quickly on its way and several other stories that, with some polish, might be presentable too and I was wondering if you could answer a couple of writing-related questions for me?

I read through your blog about the whole process of you being published, but I noticed it started out with you already having an agent. How did you get one? Did you do research, pick someone out, and then send a query letter? Or was it by means of a previous acquaintance? Or just happenstance?

Do you think an agent is practically required to be published? I've heard of people just sending their manuscripts to editors at publishers so that it might happen to catch someone's eye, but I'm not sure how effective that would be.

Were you able to get anyone else to review your manuscript before you sent it off? My dad's reviewed my manuscript, which was actually quite helpful and full of critique, but no one else seems to want to. They keep saying they're worried they'll offend me.

I've been passionate about writing for a long time, and have been writing seriously for seven years now. I was hoping you could help me because you've recently been through it yourself.

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