As Writing Day Workshops kicks off 2025, we look forward to lots of success stories about agents and writers making a perfect match. 

Writers, we know attending a conference and pitching your work to agents can be nerve-wracking. You've worked hard on your book, and now you're going to put it in front of people who will judge it. One thing that can help calm your jitters is being prepared, not just to pitch, but to get the most out of your conference experience.

Read on for some dos and don'ts of attending a writers conference.

Comp (comparative) titles are books you can point to as an example of what an agent or editor can expect when reading your manuscript. Listing two or three comp titles in your query letter or during your pitch gives an agent a quick idea of where your book fits in the marketplace.

When you want to convince an agent to take a chance on your novel, the immediate temptation is to compare your book to whatever's at the top of the bestseller list, but this could hurt your chance with an agent more than helping it. You should use...
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​The Three R's of Picking a Comp Title:

At writers conferences, I frequently get the question “Is it OK to sign with a new agent?” This is an interesting question, so let me try to delve into it here.

First of all, let’s look at the CONS:

• They are likely less experienced in contract and money negotiations.
• They likely know fewer editors at this point than an agent who’s been in business a while, meaning there is a smaller chance they can help you get published.
• They are likely in a weaker position to demand a high advance.
• New literary agents come and go. This means if your agent is in business for a year or two and doesn’t find the success for which they hoped, they could bail on the biz altogether. That leaves you without a home. If you sign with an agent who’s been in business for 14 years, however, chances are they won’t quit tomorrow.

If you’re writing a novel or memoir, the most important part of the query letter is the pitch—a brief basic description of your story designed to pique the agent’s interest. This will be the longest and most difficult section to compose. It’s tough to boil down an entire book into a few condensed paragraphs, but here are 7 tips for how to lay out a compelling pitch that draws an agent or editor in. 

1. Control your length. Pitches are 3-10 sentences, and most run 6-9. Concise is a very good thing. If you write more than ten sentences, your letter runs the risk of going over one page and also simply rambling.

2. Do not reveal the ending. If, when describing my latest novel, I told you that the good guy wins in the end, but his wife dies when failing to disarm a bomb at the end … would you still want to read the book? Probably not. A query pitch reads like back cover copy from a novel or DVD in that you don’t explain how the story ends, but rather retain intrigue and suspense. 

When I’m instructing at a writers’ conference, occasionally someone will raise their hand and try to point out flaws in my instruction. Here are some common examples regarding fiction:

• “Wait a minute, Chuck—what do you mean a novel can’t take time to warm up and get going? Did you ever read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? It started slow, and it only sold, oh, 10 million copies! Last I checked, 10 million was quite a lot…”
• “Wait a minute, Chuck—what do you mean my book can’t be 230,000 words? Have you ever heard of this book—it’s called, oh yeah--Gone With the Wind?!”
• “Wait a minute, Chuck—what do you mean it’s a bad tactic to start your story with a dream? I know this small-time writer guy—Dan Brown. Perhaps the name rings a bell. He wrote The Da Vinci Code—pssh, whatever. Anyway, well, he starts The Lost Symbol with a dream, and I think I read somewhere his advance was more than $10 million. So, uh... in your face.”