Today, both Nathan Bransford and Ask Daphne address the perennial query letter dilemma: to invoke the master/bestseller comparison or no?

Daphne points out that this “kind of shorthand” is how a lot of agents pitch books to editors … but you run the risk of alienating an agent who despises the author whose work you compare yours to.

Nathan, on the other hand, advises the querying author to seek the middle ground between trying to coat-tail on a bestseller and comparing your book to something so obscure that you might stump the agent.

Both are good blog posts, from people who know.  Check ’em out.