Eric Smith, Agent at Neighborhood Literary

Eric was great. He provided a ton of feedback and I think I’m ready to query this project!

Eric is always so supportive and kind. Itís wonderful to receive critique and encouragement from someone who genuinely cares about my improvement. Itís a difficult journey, but having honest mentors who can help light the way makes it more tolerable.

Balances Encouragement with Tough Love

I so appreciated the opportunity to work with Eric through MSWLA. He had valuable feedback to offer and struck a balance between encouragement and incisive critique. Some of his big-picture suggestions felt like tough love, but he was right. The consultation gave me the confidence and direction to make necessary changes and begin the querying process.

Clarifies Query for Stronger Impact

Eric is awesome! He was able to help with my query – making the whole process seem less scary. He pointed out some things that might have gotten my query letter stuck in the spam filter! I’ve already adapted his notes on the first 10 pages, and it is much stronger as a result. He also clarified that the stakes I was showing in both the query and first 10 pages were only from the main character’s perspective and not the bigger picture.

I am now confident enough to get my first queries out into the world.

Days ahead of my Query + 30-Page Read + 30-Minute Consultation with Eric Smith, he sent me my pages with copious comments. If thatís all I got from Eric, Iíd have been thrilled. His attention to detail, astute insights, and fantastic recommendations helped me tighten and enhance the all-important opening pages. So add the meeting to that, and I felt like I hit the jackpot. He is a really generous, kind, empathetic human being who clearly enjoys helping writers. Eric’s notes offered encouragement; in the meeting, Eric offered warm compassion. He’s just a wonderful human being.

Eric was so helpful and professional. He helped me identify and address my issue right away and saved time to answer my million questions. Heís supportive and thoughtful in how he coaches. While it sucks to realize what youíve written just does not work, discovering so and developing an alternative approach with someone whoís eager to coach and listen to new ideas makes it so much better. Very grateful!

Clarifies Querying and Next Steps

My query consultation helped me better understand the querying process and I received fantastic notes to take my work to the next level, furthering me on my journey to publication. I canít recommend this service enough.

Eric was super helpful! He provided his notes on my query letter in advance of our consultation and answered any questions I had. He went above and beyond by providing additional feedback on changes I made based on his comments. My query letter is now much stronger and clearly defines the stakes in my story. He’s definitely given me more confidence to continue the querying process.

Balances Encouragement and Tough Feedback

When you get an email from Eric Smith, his email address is Ericsmithrocks @ [whatever]. As it turns out, Erik Smith really does rock. I’ve had experiences now with a great number of Manuscript Academy faculty. I know that this writing business ain’t easy. Sometimes we get feedback that feels good. Sometimes we get feedback that makes us want to drop everything and run naked into the hills. At a time when I felt vulnerable and ready to run naked, Eric settled my heart and spirit in a way that I haven’t experienced very often. Maybe it’s because my manuscript is just so awesome. More likely, it’s because Eric is. He is great at balancing the positive and the notñso in a way that is not only soothing, but motivates you to want to do better. I can’t say enough about him after only a few minutes with him on the phone. Indeed, Eric Smith rocks.

Eric was professional, knowledgeable, supportive, and generous. When I first submitted my query, he sent notes and first impressions back right away, which ultimately made our ten minutes together feel like acres of time.

Eric was super friendly and made sure I could ask as many questions as possible. He gave me notes on my query beforehand so we could optimize our time, and we ended up just chatting about books and movies for a little while. Wonderful experience.

Eric is helpful and friendly. He liked my query and gave me sound advice on how to add to it for better understanding.

Offers Thoughtful and Empathetic Guidance

Eric made an immediate first imperssion by responding so quickly with notes regarding the plot synopsis and chapter I sent. The notes offered great insight and were excellent pick ups. These suggestions were well thought out and not rushed, providing me with plenty of time to consider them for our session.

I chose Eric as he is a talented agent but he also offered an important opinion regarding my story. One of empathy. What I truly enjoyed was just how down to earth he was as well, and helpful. This discussion has put me in a great place to tell this story and with Eric’s guidance I believe I will tell this story better. The man was so relatable the only thing missing were drinks.

Thanks so much, Eric. It was a pleasure to finally meet, and to have this moment talking shop, with you.

Delivers Actionable Query and MS Notes

We are so fortunate to have access to literary agents like Eric. He reviewed my query and first 30 pages and returned notes a week before our consult. This allowed time to digest his feedback and have a very productive dialogue about my project. He offered actionable feedback that will make my MS better!

I’ve paid for services like this in the past, but always felt disappointed in the end. This time, we were able to discuss what the main issue was, and at least in the opinion of one agent, it wasn’t my writing. It was my query letter and perhaps my approach to agenting. So at least I can walk away and hone in on this point. So in this sense, I would recommend people check the services from Manuscript Academy out. Definitely helped me feel less crazy and deflated.

Eric was wonderful! Even though it was a live consultation, he was thoughtful enough to send a few written comments ahead of time to provide context for the conversation so we could hit the ground running. And he was so friendly and insightful during the conversation – it was a fantastic experience all around! Highly recommend 🙂

Collaborative and Insightful Partner

Eric was lovely to work with! He listened to my ideas, helped me work out what aspects would and would not work for the market, and even suggested some great comp titles.

Challenges Core Concept Effectively

On the sliding scale of 1 to 10 as to how how frank I wanted the agent to be, I chose 9, because I thought it would be most helpful. The questions Eric had about the core concept of my novel were challenging, but I think that the manuscript and query will be much stronger once I figure out how to address them. He also had a great suggestion for how to describe the genre I am writing in.

Provides Insightful Query Comments

Eric’s comments about my query letter were super insightful. I left our meeting with a clear idea of what’s working well and what might need some additional work.