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To: dylan murphy who wrote (2025)	10/16/2009 3:16:51 PM
From: SmoothSail	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 9624

Hard to say what she did wrong without seeing anything she wrote or how she approach selling her book. Never too old to start. Some say you don't have anything to say until you're lived and had experiences behind you. But, there are those who start writing early in life and become quite successful. Generally speaking (because there are exceptions) you can't get to a publisher without an agent. Publishers will not even open an unsolicited submission. There's many reasons for this but the biggest is the claims of plagiarism and actual theft of a MS. The agent culls out the best from all the submissions. The agent has a reputation to maintain with the publishers. So they will only submit MSS that they believe in. When I worked for a literary agency, we got between 50-100 submissions a day. Finding the gem among all those is rare. Every agency has their own discrete rules for how submissions are to be made. The author has to follow the rules of that particular agency or their MS will be immediately rejected. A good reader knows almost immediately whether a MS has possibilities. There are so many people who think that just because they sit down and put sentences together that they're automatically a good writer. Writers must be dedicated to their craft and devote themselves full time. It also helps to have a talent for writing. Most of the successful writers I know have had a professional editor's help: First, to make their MS work and to get rid of the obvious red flags that draw rejections; and secondly, to help them through the process of submissions and finding an agent. Some submission letters attract more attention than others. One such was only 2 paragraphs: a brief synopsis of the book and the second saying he used to cut Stephen King's lawn. I thought it clever enough to ask him to send a copy of his MS. It was a good subject but lacked the polish needed to qualify for sending it on to a publisher. All the editors we suggested turned him down because they felt it couldn't be rescued. Editors can be expensive so some writers join a writer's workshop in their community where they can get a critique for their work in exchange for doing critiques. It's a good place to pick up some good tips. The trick is finding a good workshop. Sometimes all the members are bad writers. San Francisco has a great one that has produced several bestsellers.

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