evilsusan: (Oh no!)
evilsusan ([personal profile] evilsusan) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt 2020-08-27 06:57 pm (UTC)

It sounds like creep-in-law wants to write fiction. Fiction has to be complete and polished before presented to an agent or publisher. Only books written by authorities on a topic are going to get entertained at all without a manuscript.

Plus not all publishers/agents work with the same sorts of manuscripts. LW's people might not work with what CIL does at all. Assuming he actually does anything. A How-To publisher is not going to look at his fantasy world, for example.

It's not just a lack of names, it's not just a lack of access, it's not just a lack of understanding of how to human, it's a fundamental lack of understanding of the industry he hopes to enter.

LW needs to refer CIL back to doing the actual writing.

Yes, I know, that's not the real point of the letter, but just asking him if his manuscript is completely done is both constructive and reasonable.

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