From the horse's mouth

 Last Sunday I went to the IAm Writing Festival at Winchester a university. I attended a workshop run by an agent, and one run by the editor of a major SF publisher.  In both workshops we talked about how to get published.  Both workshops were focused on getting work accepted by a mainstream publisher.

To get published you need a good submission package, so we spent a lot of time talking about elevator pitches, the blurb, and the cover letter for the submission.

Along with most other writers, these are the parts of the process I find the hardest.  Take the vexed question of comps.  When we're submitting our work we're supposed to find comparative titles for our story.  In effect, we're saying that our book is like X book and Y book.  I often struggle with this because my stores are influenced by other work, but they can't really be described as like those books.  In some cases, I've been so annoyed by the published work that I've written my book as a challenge to it.  Which makes finding comp titles challenging.

The agent said that the comp titles didn't need to be an absolutely accurate fit.  In, his words, they had to "set the vibe" for the book.  That's much more helpful for me.  He also said that comps could be pitched as "A meets B, with elements of X".  That was useful, as one of my comps does exactly that.

Comparative titles need to be recent,  No quoting fifty year old classics.  Which is another problem for me.  What counts as recent?  The agent said books published with the last 3 - 5 years.  The editor said books published within the last ten years.

Finding recent comps is often a problem for me.  One of my novels features a sentient planet.  The most accurate comp titles would be Anne McCaffrey's Powers That Be trilogy, featuring the sentient planet Petaybee.  The only problem is that these books were published decades ago, so I can't use them for comps.

I did have the opportunity to read the blurb and elevator pitch for the novel I'm about to submit to both of them.  I got some useful feedback for editing the blurb from the agent, and the editor told me my elevator pitch was 'very good'.

The day was long, and I was exhausted by the time I got home but it was well worth leaving home at 6.30 a.m. for.  The feedback I got from both editor and agent was a much-needed boost to my querying self-confidence.

Now I just have to sit down and do the tedious work of sending my stories out.