Learning how to write a great query—one that will not only make an agent want to read your book, but pick up the phone and call you the minute he/she reads your query—is essential if you want to be a published author.

In this live 90-minute webinar — titled “Querying 101: Putting Your Best Book Forward” —  Literary agent Jennifer De Chiara will guide you, step-by-step, in writing the perfect pitch for your book. She’ll offer do’s and don’ts from her 16+ years of agenting and share queries that got her attention and those that didn’t. De Chiara will also give tips on how to find the right agents to query.If you’ve written a dynamite query, it’s still worthless if you’re not sending it to the right agents. It all happens at 1 p.m., EST, Thursday, September 25, 2014, and lasts 90 minutes.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• How to start your query
• How to write the perfect elevator pitch
• Common mistakes that writers make
• How to find the right agent to query
• How to highlight your hook
• How simple and direct can often be the best way to go

INSTRUCTOR

Jennifer De Chiara is President and Owner of the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, which she founded in 2001. Before forming the agency, she was a literary agent with two established New York agencies, worked in the editorial departments of Simon & Schuster and Random House, and was a writing consultant for several major corporations. A New York City-based writer, she is a frequent guest judge for the WRITER’S DIGEST, WOW! WOMEN ON WRITING, and THAT FIRST LINE writing contests, among others. She is a frequent guest lecturer on publishing and the art of writing at universities and writers’ conferences throughout the country, including New York University’s Summer Publishing Institute, the Penticton, Canada Writers Conference, the San Diego State University Writers Conference, Backspace, the International Women’s Writing Guild, and the Learning Annex. The agency represents both children’s and adult books, fiction and non-fiction, in a wide range of genres. They represent many best-selling, award-winning authors, including: Pen Award-winning author Carol Lynch Williams, Edgar Award-winner and PEN Award-winner Matthew J. Kirby, Newbery Honor Medal-winner Margi Preus, Lambda Award-winning YA novelist Brent Hartinger, best-selling children’s book authors Chanda Bell and Carol Aebersold, best-selling, award-winning Cathie Pelletier (aka K.C. McKinnon), and #1 New York Times’ best-selling author Sylvia Browne. The agency has a strong presence in Hollywood and is affiliated with many of the top film agencies there, with many film and television projects in development, several of which De Chiara has created and/or co-produced.

HOW DOES THE CRITIQUE WORK?

All registrants are invited to submit their query letter for review. All submissions are guaranteed a written critique by literary agent Jennifer De Chiara. Jennifer reserves the right to request more writing from attendees by e-mail following the event, if she deems the query excellent. Instructions on how to submit your work are sent after you have purchased the webinar and officially register in Go-to-Webinar. When you have registered in GTW, you will receive a confirmation email from [email protected], which contains the information you need to access the live webinar AND the Critique Submission Instructions.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

• Writers who are unsure about how to craft a query
• Writers currently composing a query who want to make sure their work gets read
• Writers who want to write the perfect elevator pitch
• Writers with a finished novel or proposal who are ready to submit their work to editors and agents
• Writers who have been rejected by agents and editors and wonder if their query letter was at fault
• Writers in need of help with the business side-rather than creative side-of publishing
• Writers who want a professional critique by a literary agent