Can you let your writing speak for itself in an agent submission?

This episode’s question comes from Mellany. Mellany is preparing to submit her novel to literary agents and she asks: How important is it to explain why I’ve chosen a particular agent in my submission letter? I spend hours researching and end up using a quote from their profile. How much time should you spend on it? Can you just let your writing speak for itself? And are there ways to be more creative about it?At the heart of this is something I’m sure every querying author recognises. If the quality of the book – and the writing – is the most important thing, why do we have to spend so much time crafting perfect pitches and synopses, finding comparison titles and honing our author bio. Then tailoring every single submission too. Shouldn’t the writing speak for itself?Listen for my answer.Notes:The post I mention about the query trenches is here: https://katherineclements.substack.com/p/the-query-trenches-an-honest-updateYou can find an article about everything I did to prepare for submissions here: https://katherineclements.substack.com/p/everything-im-doing-to-find-a-newSubmit your question here: https://katherineclements.substack.com/survey/7183013Explore The Inkwell: Coaching & Community for Ambitious Authors: https://katherineclements.substack.com/Background artwork: Bianca Van Dijk from Pixabay Get full access to The Inkwell at katherineclements.substack.com/subscribe