Things I Learned From Nephele Tempest

Agent Nephele Tempest spoke to the Tucson chapter of Romance Writers of America on Saturday. She talked about the industry, agents in general, her own likes in particular, and then gave a great presentation in the afternoon about writing a synopsis. A few things that I knew but had reiterated to me:

1) When looking to submit, go directly to the agency website. Don't rely on a third-party website to give you up-to-date submission information.

2) Follow the submission guidelines. If the agency doesn't rep mystery, for example, don't bother submitting your mystery to them. You're wasting your time and theirs.

3) Know your genre. Don't send a 200,000 word manuscript, no matter how great you think your book is. And Young Adult fiction, for example, doesn't usually even get to 100,000 words, and it certainly doesn't go higher than that.

4) Pay attention to your driving. Blowing through a red light on the way to taking the agent back to the airport might give the wrong impression that you're in a hurry to get rid of them instead of the simple fact you were focused on making sure you didn't take a wrong turn (which I ended up doing anyway).