Hi there all! I received some (not M&C) competition feedback this morning. I've had bad experiences with feedback in the past, with comments that had little to do with my manuscript or were bland generic restatings of the submission guidelines. In this case the reader clearly had read and commented directly on the submission, praised the prose, the plotting and the use of formatting and epistolary elements... Once my heart settled a little I realised that it gave me absolutely nothing to work on, nothing to improve. It's not as though it was the greatest thing their readers had ever seen, I didn't make the list let alone place. Where do you go for constructive feedback? Are there competitions and publications/sites that you've found helpful on the past? Does the necessity of payment go hand in hand with people just wanting to please you?

Hi everyone. Hope you're keeping well. Just wanted to share that my debut novel (indie self published) is holding its own on Amazon two weeks after launch. The Right Members Club is a political satire in the vein of The Thick of It crossed with humour from something like Peep Show. It's been a blast promoting it and I've delighted to say I'm approaching 150 copies sold, 10 great reviews and about 6,000 kindle page reads. It's been picked up by a local bookstore and I've got a bunch of events in the diary to go and talk about it. If anyone wants to check it out https://www.amazon.co.uk/Right-Members-Club-Louis-Urbanowski-ebook/dp/B0GPR9W5MH/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.EuoWXEwY2-g2j_L6r6h-kw.KCR0XKHFOq9jgnI7HGOmO0JCZ5uB4nIRNWRnl_3QiEI&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+right+members+club&qid=1775371003&s=books&sr=1-1 I'm also on Instagram as @UrbWrites and Substack as same name. Have a lovely evening! Cheers, Louis

Morning all, I managed to get to the Writers' Summit at the London Book Fair last week, and was on a roundtable discussion with a literaty agent. I asked her how much detail to include, about the story, in a query letter. She said the main thing is that it demonstrates the main question within the story. Acccording to her, there is no definitive rule as to whether we should focus on the inciting incident and/or the climax, as long as the question being answered by the story is clear and compelling. I hope this helps.

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I've attached my best rejection to date, which I received this morning. I guess that means that my queries are getting closer to hitting the mark. I've already repositioned it as YA rather than MG, but I feel like I maybe need a manuscript assessment by a professional editor. Ideally, this would be someone who works as an agent as well and knows the market. There are plenty of American agents doing both jobs, but can anyone recommend a UK person for it, please?