Query Writing: The relevancy of writing credits

1) What genre are you writing? If it's YA, I don't think "sounding underage" is a problem as long as you have a professional letter that shows you're mature enough to be doing this. In fact, if you are writing YA, I'd go ahead and mention your age now. I think agents like the idea of younger writers writing for each other.

2) Did you get paid for the column? If so, it may be worth mentioning.

3) I'm not sure one was or the other about the poem. Who published the anthology? Was there a lot of competition?

I asked that question of an editor because I have writing credits that are all over the map. Not one of them relates to the genre I'm writing in (of course, there are no publications available other than here today-gone tomorrow ezines for my genre). When I was submitting last time, I kept feeling like the credits said I didn't know what I wanted to write because they were too diverse (which was true at the time).

The editor said I could put them down but that they wouldn't interesting to the agent other than showing I'd gotten paid for writing. The link is here: http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/03/autobiographical-portion-of-our-program.html. Maybe it's just me, but if it takes up real estate in the query, it should all be interesting. I ended up doing what inspired me to write the story instead of credits because I could do something to tie in with what makes the story special.

If you feel like you need to mention anything, I'd just say you had a monthly paid column in a newspaper. Since it's not relevant to the genre you're querying, I wouldn't specify what the column was about. I'd say the same thing if it was about gardening. It does show you've been paid to write before, which is always nice. Anyway, mentioning it doesn't take up more than a few words, and it does add that little bonus in your favor. It says this is not just your hobby, it's something you're pursuing as a career.

Hey guys!
I also have a question on writing credentials.

Besides winning a few small poetry contests in high school (and I mean REAL small), I don't have any writing credentials.

BUT I did receive a 6/6 on my GMAT essay score which only 4% in the nation receive. The essay scoring does take into account writing style.

Not sure if I should include that in my writing credentials? I know it's not much, but it's still somewhat rare to receive that score...

Phinxy said:

Hey guys!
I also have a question on writing credentials.

Besides winning a few small poetry contests in high school (and I mean REAL small), I don't have any writing credentials.

BUT I did receive a 6/6 on my GMAT essay score which only 4% in the nation receive. The essay scoring does take into account writing style.

Not sure if I should include that in my writing credentials? I know it's not much, but it's still somewhat rare to receive that score...

Click to expand...

I would only include publishing credentials, not test scores.

You should include in your query whatever previous writing credits (and other life experiences) have a direct bearing on what you're trying to sell. If you're trying to sell fiction, mention previous fiction that was published. If you're trying to sell YA, then definitely mention that you wrote a youth column. Although it's not fiction (presumably), it's all about connecting with young folks via the written word and it would be a relevant credit.

Poetry is so-so when you're trying to sell fiction, IMO. If it was a larger collection of your poems, then I'd say yes. If it was just one poem in an anthology, I'd personally opt to leave that one out. On the other hand, if it was a well-known or well-reviewed anthology, I'd put it in.

My advice is to include any writer credentials that show either a. you have been paid to write or b. your work has been published (not self published). Though these are not directly related to your genre they do show you are a serious writer and helps separate you from the crowd.

They won't make much of a difference either way, so do what feels right to you. If you'd feel naked without some credits, use the newspaper one, as the poem won't help you with fiction. If you feel they wouldn't be relevant, leave them off.

What matters most is the story. If your hook is good, your query strong and your story compelling, you'll get requests. If not, credits won't matter.

The time when credits could sway is if the agent is on the fence, but they see the author has sold a lot of shorts in their genre. Then they might be willing to ask for pages since others clearly felt the writing was good enough to buy.

The one case where these will be useful is if you're submitting to small Canadian literary presses. A lot of them still like to demand that anyone who wants to send stuff to them have credits like that.

Writing Credits question

I've seen some excellent advice from other posters so I won't repeat any of that, I'll just throw in my own two cents...

The credits issue gets much stickier when trying to query for non-fiction. I'd steer clear of submitting fiction credits when doing non-fic queries...not that you're asking about that, I just mention it for other writers who might be wrestling with that question.

Also--ditto on test scores and such for non-fiction queries. The simple truth is, editors (at this THIS editor) don't care about that sort of thing...it would be much better to enclose some well-written clips.

Then again, I've submitted queries with NO clips whatsoever and still made the sale--the key there is to add your personal experience to the mix. I pitched an article once called "Five Dumb Things Startups Do" with no clips. The selling point of the article was that I was personally involved in the companies that did all the dumb stuff.

Nail that sort of thing and you've got a much stronger query.