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I was ready. I had an edited manuscript. I had a tiered list of agents. I had a spreadsheet. I’d read every scrap of information about getting an agent, and I was prepared, at last, to submit my novel. The process could take months, maybe years, I’d heard. I was in for the long haul, baby. The good news is it didn’t take years to get an offer of representation. The even better news: That offer came in the form of four magic words, words I’d been told to wait for by all the experts: I love your book.
Not just a Facebook-worthy thumbs up, not a “I think I can sell this.” Love. The reason you wait for true love in publishing is because publishing requires it, and not just from the author. Remember the feverish crush that helped fuel your first draft? Your agent needs that same big-eyed reverence for your book to take it out to editors, hoping for another love connection.
So how do you snag one of these lovey-doveys for yourself?
GIVEAWAY: Lori is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Please note that comments may take a little while to appear; this is normal).
Column by Lori Rader-Day, author of the mystery THE BLACK HOUR (Seventh
Street Books, 2014), which received starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal
and Publishers Weekly. Born and raised in central Indiana, she now lives with her
husband and dog in Chicago. Her fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery
Magazine, Time Out Chicago, The Madison Review, and others. Best-selling
author Jodi Picoult chose one of Lori’s short stories for the grand prize in
Good Housekeeping’s first fiction contest. Lori is a member of Mystery
Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers.
Find her on Twitter at @LoriRaderDay.
Revise
You’re not ready until you can bounce a quarter off your manuscript. You’ve already revised, I know. Leave it alone for a month, then go back. Make sure your pages say precisely what you meant. Make your sentences sing.
Read
Meanwhile, the best way to see how it’s done is to read. Read widely. When you don’t like something, figure out why. Apply everything you learn to your draft until further ideas ping off it.
Research
Gather your intelligence. Which books are like yours, not just in subject but in tone and style? Who agented them? Read the Writer’s Digest archives. Use online resources to sort through the known universe of agent submissions. Learn as much as you can, and start a list. Rank agents in order of likelihood of love match.
Package
Learn to write a query letter. Write a synopsis. What’s a log line? Get one. If at any one of these steps you find something lacking in your story, don’t ignore the problem. Every step of this process is a chance to get it right before someone else can tell you you’re getting it wrong. Go back over your draft until your product is perfectly packaged for sale. Did your eye just twitch? Get used to thinking of your baby, your life’s creative work, as a prototype that might yet be tinkered with by other people.
Network
Time for some allies. If you have a writers’ group, they should have already had a swipe at your pages, but having a writing network isn’t just about first readers. What you want is a group of people who can tell you how the road ahead looks. Research writers’ associations in your genre and beyond. Ask at your local library, bookstores, or universities for writing groups or workshops.
Read again
The guidelines, in this case. This is your last chance before you click send to take a look at your list of agents and take note of what they want from your initial query. Getting through the front door is often about playing by the rules. Don’t send anything less—or more—than each agent has asked for.
Submit
Submit to four to eight agents only. Send each a separate email or mailed package (as they requested) with only the information they asked for. Keep things professional. No gimmicks. Save the rest of your list for now.
Write
Start something new. No, really. Go write another book. You need to think about something else and even if everything goes just as you’d like it to on the first book, you’ll still want a new draft in short order.
Track
Keep track of your submission results—and learn from them. If you aren’t getting any page requests, your query letter needs work. If you’re getting partial requests but then nothing, your first pages aren’t snagging the reader. If you’re getting full requests but no nibbles, it’s time to take a look at the full manuscript again. Make note of each reply, give it time, and then—
Submit again
This is why you saved the rest of your list. Submit, again, to four to eight agents only, using every step, every rejection, every encouragement to better prepare your work for the next round (and the next), as long as it takes to find a match.
Commit
Just like in love, things might not always go as planned. Keep writing. Maybe the next book is the one that will put stars in an agent’s eyes. Of course, that’s not really why you write, is it? If you commit to writing for reasons beyond publishing, it won’t take you long to find the love of your life, in the words right there on the page.
GIVEAWAY: Lori is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Please note that comments may take a little while to appear; this is normal).
The biggest literary agent database anywhere
is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the
most recent updated edition online at a discount.
Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:
Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.
“How I Got My Agent” is a recurring feature on the Guide to Literary Agents Blog, with this installment featuring A. Lynden Rolland, author of the YA supernatural novel OF BREAKABLE THINGS. These columns are great ways for you to learn how to find a literary agent. Some tales are of long roads and many setbacks, while others are of good luck and quick signings. If you have a literary agent and would be interested in writing a short guest column for this GLA blog, e-mail me at [email protected] and we’ll talk specifics.
GIVEAWAY: Lynn is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the print book, whereas other readers worldwide can win the ebook. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Please note that comments may take a little while to appear; this is normal).
A. Lynden Rolland was born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland. As a former
English teacher, she enjoys visiting classrooms to discuss reading, writing and
publishing. When she isn’t writing or chasing her two young children around
town, she moonlights as a writing tutor and gymnastics instructor. Her debut
novel is OF BREAKABLE THINGS (April 2014, Month9Books), a YA supernatural
story. You can connect with A. Lynden Rolland online through
her website, Facebook, or Twitter.
PINK SLIP IN THE MAIL
The first time I mailed a query letter the envelope gave me a paper cut. I should have seen it as a sign. The fact that I used snail mail tells you how long ago this journey began, and the fact that I sent out only one query tells you how naïve I was going into it. I checked the mail with a childlike diligence every day. A week later, there was my SASE, perfect lettering and all. My penmanship is typically slop. It’s a cursive-print hybrid mess that only a handwriting analyst might understand. But with lettering so intricately lined, so neatly arranged, the SASE had to contain good news. I rushed back to house, tossed the rest of the junk on the table, crisscrossed my legs and fell to the floor, ripping open the envelope. At first, I didn’t think there was anything there besides my query. Was it possible that my dream agent had accidentally forgotten to include the shining request for the full manuscript? I expected it to fall out with a thud like a block of gold.
(Classifying Your Book: How to Research & Target Literary Agents.)
I thumbed through the contents again, flipping the envelope upside down and shaking it. Out fluttered a neon pink square. Pink. Freaking pink. Surely such a positive color would be representative of good news, but immediately the term “pink slip” came to mind. If that was the intention, I’m telling you now, agent: NOT FUNNY. Not funny at all. I didn’t even receive a personalized rejection. Hell, I didn’t even get a full sheet of paper! Just the standard thank you, ‘this business is subjective’ blah, blah, (shoot me in the face) blah.
I didn’t think it would sting quite as badly as it did, but that horrid, pink demon-slip left quite the paper cut on my ego. Everyone gets rejected. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times. But writers take things to heart. Writers are perfectionists. We analyze and internalize things more than other people. If we weren’t overly emotional, we wouldn’t write dramatic fiction.
MORE REJECTIONS
Eventually, I racked up over forty rejections. I took the criticism in stride. I rewrote; I reworked; I revised. Every time I wanted to jump off the roof, I reminded myself that my house wasn’t high enough … I’d only break a leg, and then I’d be crippled and still rejected. Pass.
Many agents were encouraging. They liked my writing. They liked my premise, but I was already hearing the word trend. YA Paranormal was on its way out. I came very close with one agent, but in the end, it just didn’t work out. I was thankful for her advice, but I was crushed. Hope is a beautiful thing; each time an agent would request the ms, the elation was such a high. But the tricky thing about hope is that it acts similarly to helium. It doesn’t last forever, and when I was inflated to cloud nine, that only meant I had further to fall. And fall I did. I was done with it.
(Definitions of unusual literary terms & jargon you need to know.)
AND JUST WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO GIVE UP, THIS HAPPENED…
I gave up. I shelved the manuscript. My skin was not thick enough to withstand the knives of rejection. Ironically, the same week, I received an email from Rachael Dugas at Talcott Notch Literary Agency. She requested the first fifty pages. A few days later, she requested more. It was not my first full request, and I was no longer that optimistically eager moron. This time I didn’t get my hopes up. A month later, I checked my email to find:
Hi, Amy–
Thank you for your manuscript and your patience. I simply loved [Of Breakable Things] and would be interested in representing you. Can we set up a time to chat sometime early next week, perhaps sometime Monday afternoon?
Best,
Rachael Dugas
Blink.
Squint.
Reread.
Jaw drop.
My first tiny piece of success as a writer. I fell to the floor in tears. Would the moment have been so gratifying if I’d succeeded the first time? Certainly not. I’d like to believe that those paper cuts have made my skin a little thicker, but if anything, at least they’ve made me a bit more colorful, a bit more interesting, and a bit more appreciative.
GIVEAWAY: Lynn is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners must live in Canada/US to receive the print book, whereas other readers worldwide can win the ebook. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before. (Please note that comments may take a little while to appear; this is normal).
Hook agents, editors and readers immediately.
Check out Les Edgerton’s guide, HOOKED, to
learn about how your fiction can pull readers in.
Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:
Want to build your visibility and sell more books?
Create Your Writer Platform shows you how to
promote yourself and your books through social
media, public speaking, article writing, branding,
and more. Order the book from WD at a discount.
|
"The Gust," Willem van de Velde |
In the tangled morass of uncertainty that is the query process, it becomes easy to lose sight of the basics. People e-mail me every day me for feedback and suggestions on their query (which I'm unfortunately unable to provide), and want to know why their project isn't working and why they're not finding success with the query process.
Every project is different, every situation is different, and it's really difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why something isn't working. But when you boil it down, there are really only two possibilities.
Either:
a) Your query isn't strong enough, or
b) Your query is fine but your project isn't resonating with agents
Which is it?
Well, if you're receiving some requests for partials or full manuscripts, chances are your query is fine and you just need to keep at it. You may be on the right track and just need to find the right match. Or you have a great query but there's something lacking in the manuscript. But unless you receiving some specific feedback that gives you an idea for a revision, the result is the same: All you can do is keep trying.
If you
aren't receiving any requests, it might be time to pull back your query for some more feedback and possible tweaking. If you're following the
batch querying theory you should have plenty of opportunity to keep things moving while perhaps trying out a different approach.
Ultimately, while it can be agonizing to pursue the traditional publication path without knowing whether your novel will or won't make it through the gauntlet, it's also exciting too! Your work is out there. It's so tempting to want answers, but there's no one out there who can tell you for sure why something is or isn't working. The only thing to do is to keep evaluating the response, try to keep a level head, and keep things moving forward.
See also:
The Art of Reading Rejection LettersEvery Writer Gets RejectedRejection is Not Personal
One of the hardest things about searching for an agent is that you don't exactly know what kind of an agent you're going to get. Even though you may know the agent by reputation, even though you may ask them every question beforehand, there's a certain leap of faith you take as you sign on with an agent. (I was of course wildly fortunate with my own agent.)
As you're searching, one thing I would advise is to try as best you can to sniff out a spaghetti agent.
What's a spaghetti agent? Well, it's a term I made up. Basically, you know that phrase throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks?
That's a spaghetti agent. They sign up a bunch of writers even when they're unsure about a project, they throw the manuscripts at publishers, and they see what sticks.
On the one hand, this isn't actually the worst strategy in the world. As much as people would like to think that agents are clairvoyant, at the end of the day you never
really know what's going to resonate with publishers. So spaghetti agents are acknowledging that fact and are spreading their odds across a lot of different projects.
The problem for writers is that since spaghetti agents will send out projects even when they might be on the fence, they may be sending out projects that aren't quite ready. And in a competitive publishing landscape, it pays for a project to be as ready as humanly possible. Spaghetti agents may also have a shaky reputation with editors because they send out so much stuff and it's not always of the highest quality.
Back when I was an agent, I can't tell you how many times I would find a manuscript that was close-but-not-quite-ready and wanted to work with the writer on an
unagented revision, only to be undercut by a spaghetti agent. I would offer to revise, the author would say they had an offer of representation on the table, and then I'd be in a bind. I couldn't really say that I'd take on a project no matter what after a revision, and I couldn't very well advise an author to give up the bird in the hand when they had someone enthusiastic about their work either. So I'd stand aside and let the author go. Sometimes this worked out for the author, quite a few times it didn't.
What can you do as an author?
When you're offered representation, ask good questions. Ask how long they're willing to keep your work on submission. Are they just going to try with the big publishers or are they willing to go down to small presses? It's an important question, because one hallmark of a spaghetti agent is the submit and dash. They'll send a project out to a few editors, gauge the response and then bolt if it's not working quickly. Not every good agent is willing to keep something on submission endlessly so don't put
too much stock in this question, but make sure you're comfortable with the answer.
And if you're getting multiple responses of "I like this but don't know if it's quite ready" from some agents but then one wants to go out with it immediately... take a long pause and really really think it through. I'm not necessarily advising giving up the bird in the hand, and don't be paranoid, because this may just be the one agent who really gets your work and they might be completely right that it doesn't need work. But as always, just really, really think it through and make sure it's the right choice.
Having the wrong agent can be worse than having no agent. After working so long on your novel and wanting so badly to go out on submission, it'
Is there life after a query that strikes out with agents? My awesome client Jim Duncan, whose debut novel DEADWORLD will be published by Kensington next April, shares his experience. Make sure to catch the exciting contest on Jim's blog at the end of the post.
By: Jim Duncan
As you might guess from the title, I am not what one would call a good query writer. Mediocre at best. My wife (romance author Tracy Madison) whole-heartedly agrees with this assessment.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I will admit to not being a very good editor. It's very difficult for me to assess my own writing, and thus, I don't like doing it. Second, when it comes to certain aspects of the publishing process, I have little patience. When my book was done, I wanted to send out queries that moment.
Back in the old days of 2007, when I completed my novel for the first time, I had queries going out the next day. I made about half a dozen attempts, picked the one I liked the best and sent it out. I had done my research, making sure the agents wanted my genre, whether they took email or snail mail, getting their name correct, etc. I followed agent blogs like Nathan's, Miss Snark, Kristin Nelson, and others (there are a lot of good blogs for writers out there), to glean as much knowledge as I could about the process and how to make that query stand out. I failed. I received one of Nathan's polite form rejections.
What feedback I received (off of a roughly 90% rejection rate) did not like the multiple first person p.o.v.'s I used. Was I deterred? Of course not! I decided to rewrite the book in third person, because I felt very strongly about this story. Whether it was written well enough was another matter.
So, I wrote a new query, several versions in fact, and though I was not happy with any of them, I picked what I thought was the best of the lot and sent it out. There's that whole patience thing again. The results were marginally better, but still no real interest.
Knowing I can't write queries for shit, I figured that might be my biggest problem, so I wrote yet another and tried again a few months later. I sent it out to a couple of publishers who are open to submissions, and like all good writers should do, I began to work on my next book (can't stress this enough: keep writing!)
In the meantime, I had become a regular responder on Nathan's blog. I'd sent a couple of emails to him, suggestions for topics and such. Then, one fine day, I came up with a contest suggestion that became my 15 seconds of blog fame. Those of you who were around a year and a half ago may remember the Agent for a Day contest. At the time it generated the most hits ever on Nathan's blog (about 70k, and 15k comments). Through my willingness to participate and make suggestions, good or otherwise, I had cemented my name in Nathan's mind. We didn't become BFF's. It was some fortunate networking that happened out of interest as opposed to direct effort.
Then, I got the call. Kensington Publishing offered me a three book deal for my novel, Deadworld. Super excited? You bet. What struck me though, was the fact that they were buying my story as an urban fantasy. This entire time, I had been submitting it as a suspense/thriller. Head smack! What would have happened had I realized what genre my story was best suited for? Another good point learned well after the fact. Understand the market for your story!
With offer in hand, I really wanted to find an agent. I had no desire to do this on my own. I picked about a dozen agents that I had queried before and asked them if they would be interested in a second look because of the offer I had on the table. In hindsight, I didn't give them enough time, which was five days. I probably lost some potential agents with that. In the end, it came down to two.
Nathan, whom I'd already
By Brodi Ashton
In 2008, with my first finished manuscript in hand, I was ready to query. To find that special someone who would take my story to the top. You know, to find THE ONE.
My sister-in-law (also a writer) devised a contest: first person to reach 100 rejections wins. We crafted our queries, did our research, and by the end of four months I won the race. I’d received 100 rejections. But I also won an agent. Everything’s downhill from there, right?
The agent submitted my book and after three months, we had 2 positive rejections (you know, the kind where they’re all, “I like it, but how would I sell it?”) and about 7 no-responses. Not the reaction we had expected.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t going to be one of those writers who put all of her flowers in one bouquet. I decided to write another book, so that when we had exhausted all possible avenues for book #1, I’d have something ready to go. My 13-year old niece read Book #2 in 24 hours; that had to be a good sign, right? (side note: warranted use of semi-colon, check.)
With your first book, you’re guaranteed the agent loves it, because he/she offered representation on it. But with your second, you never know. I gave my agent book #2 in January 2010. Three and a half months later, he was “still reading.”
Just like a clueless girlfriend, I made excuses for him. So what if my niece had taken 24 hours to read it? She’s really fast. So what if this second book was 20,000 words shorter than my first? I probably used bigger words. The story makes the reader want to savor it, not finish it. He probably doesn’t want it to end. (Agreed, that was the stupidest excuse.)
Determined to be proactive, I sent him a list of editors who had mentioned on blogs that they were looking for my type of book.
He responded with a resounding, “Um, let’s talk on the phone.”
That did not sound good. I’m sure you all know how frakkin’ hard it is to get an agent in the first place. My family and friends knew. Their advice before the dreaded phone call was, “Say what you have to say to keep him.”
But here’s what only a phone call could show: the passion was gone. He liked book #2 okay, but he didn’t love it. It was polished, but it wouldn’t make a splash. It didn’t need that much work as far as revisions went, but he probably couldn’t get to it for a few months. Maybe after the holidays. (That would’ve been 9 months later).
So, he wasn’t going to dump me. I could’ve kept him. But one thing was perfectly clear: there was no way he would be able to muster the passion necessary to make a sale, especially a debut sale, especially in today’s tight market. It wasn’t his fault. This business is subjective.
I knew we couldn’t go on like that. But was I really ready to dive into the query pool again? Could I face a hundred new rejections? Would I really be stupid enough to leave an agent? LEAVE an agent?
But the passion was gone. There was no way around it. He just wasn’t that into me anymore. As our phone conversation started wrapping up, I blurted out that this wasn’t going to work. He didn’t put up a fight, and we parted ways amicably.
I started querying the next day. (Yeah, I had a query written. I’m sort of a cup-half-empty type person.) Within a month, I had nine offers from wonderful agents who were passionate about book #2. And three weeks ago, I sold my debut trilogy to Balzer and Bray, Harper Collins in a pre-empt, after 48 hours on submission. All of this happened five months before my first agent would’ve even submitted it.
I don’t blame agent #1 for not loving my book, just as I don’t blame my high school boyfriend, who fell in love with someone else right before the Christmas Dance. (I totally blame the other girl, though, but I digress).
Point is, even though it hurts, you can’t help
|
Proper technique |
Once you have followed the gentle suggestions in the
How to Write a Novel post and done gone and written yourself a novel, (or if you've written a
nonfiction book proposal), it is then time to see what the world thinks of it. The first step in this process if you are seeking traditional publication is to find an agent.
Please check out
this post about how to find a literary agent, since a query letter is not the only way of going about it. But chances are you will at some point have to sit down and write one of these beastly missives. Here's how you do it.
What to Know Before You StartA query letter is part business letter, part creative writing exercise, part introduction, part death defying leap through a flaming hoop. (Don't worry, you won't catch fire and die during the query process though it may feel precisely like that at times). In essence: it is a letter describing your project.
The first thing to know about writing query letters is that there are as many opinions out on the Internet about query letters as there are, well, opinions on the Internet. You will find lots of dos and don'ts and peeves and strategies and formulas. The important thing to remember about this is that everyone is wrong except for me. (Just kidding. The important thing to remember is that you will need to choose the ideas that work best for you).
As the immortal Douglas Adams said, don't panic! Write the best letter you can, be yourself, don't overthink it
too much, don't sweat it if you realize the second after you sent it that you made a typo or
accidentally called me Vicky. If an agent is going to get mad or reject you over something trivial like that they're probably not the type of person you'd want to work with anyway.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
(For Further Reading):
Get the Big Stuff RightCan You Query If You Are An Unpublished Novelist and Your Novel Isn't Finished?The Common Sense and Decency Rule Why It's So Important to Learn to Summarize Your Work Research and PersonalizationThe second thing to do before you write the query is to research. This is because you need to do your darndest to:
1)
Figure out which agents would be the right fit for your work - Three basic things to figure out: a) does the agent represent your genre, b) do they represent something too similar to your project, c) do they seem like they would be a good fit for you. The answers should be a) yes, b) no, c) yes.
2)
Figure out the agent's submission procedure
This is great news — I just figured everyone was out to get me.
You forgot:
c) The writing mafia, headed by the triumvirate of King/Meyer/Rowling, is terrified my manuscript will thwart their plans to ‘dumb-down’ literature so they, and only they, will be the only people to ever be published ever again. To this end they have sent out strict instructions to their Evil Gatekeepers (Agents) minions to reject my MS upon sight!
……….wha? is it time for my medication already?
I'm still working on getting my manuscript where I want it, so I haven't gotten to queries yet, but when I do, I plan to comb through every piece of advice you've ever given about them (on this here fine blog).
And I would never ever EVER email you personally for advice. Don't people know you have a job? And a life? Well, they should.
Most are receiving rejections because it's a subjective business. It always has been and always will be.
Some, granted, don't know how to write a query from a thank you note. But the majority are being rejected because it's subjective and they just have to keep exhausting every single possibility there is out there now that's available to authors.
Hillsy. I seriously vote for C as that's the truth.
You mean after all the time you spend helping us with advice on the blog, running the forums, and everything else, you don't have time to help perfect every query that hits your inbox?
I thought you were an Android.
This is a very timely post for me, thank you!
I've done my first batch of queries and it's time to attack that query letter (of which I was inordinately proud) and also revise the manuscript (ditto ridiculously proud) to up the word count a bit.
I agree that rejections are subjective, but I also believe that if you can show your story arc clearly and succinctly, you're head and shoulders above the crowd. I use a "template" of
1) opening paragraph with targeted detail saying why the agent was chosen (I google "agent+interview" to find something to reference)
2) mini-synopsis that has: who the protagonist is, what he/she needs to do (what reader is rooting for) and why that's important
3) closing with personal details as to why the author is qualified to write this book.
Then the professional "can provide full" stuff. Never more than a page.
My first agent told me she'd signed me because "not many authors can show their story arc in a synopsis" and after reading a lot of queries & synopsis for my critique service, I see that. It's hard to disengage from the details we love, and just get down to the spine of the story, and the hook.
Gotta check out the forums. I love this stuff. (Sick, I know.)
Nathan--
Is it all right to send revised queries to people you've already sent queries to? I read query critiques, and sometimes I hardly recognize the revised versions...and I'm just reading a few once or twice a week. If your query was forgettable, is it all right to send again?
Wow. I'm no where near that point of the publication process, and suddenly I'm not as excited to get there. That sounds frightening.
I don't handle rejection well (honestly, does anyone?), but I guess, when I get to that point, I'll have to suck it up and deal with it. I will definitely be coming back to this blog for tips at that point of the process, so thank you so much for providing them!
Have a wonderful day, and happy writing!
Good basic advice, Nathan.
Rejections can be daunting or not, depending on our own attitude. If we use it constructively, it benefits us.
Query letter writing has been elevated almost to the status of the book itself. Why is that? Is it due to the influx of writers, clogging the market? It's the first rung up if you succeed, if not, back to the unpublished mud with you.
BTW - love the photo.
Whirlochre, how can they be out to get you when they're really out to get me? Let's split them. Half (3 billion people) out to get you, and the other 3 billion out to get me.
Hillsy, you too!? Okay, let's make it 2 billion vs Whirlochre, 2 billion vs me, and 2 billion vs you. You can have Stephen King, Whirlochre can have J. K. Rowling, and I'll take Stephanie Meyer.
But really, I don't get rejections. For a very simple reason...
My query got eight form responses out of twelve and only one request for a full-- but that was from an agent I met at a conference.
I am a writer and I cannot write a query letter. Pathetic.
When I first started querying I was excited just to form rejections because I finally felt in the game. Of course after several more, I wanted to throw in the towel. I know there is a lot of pressure on the query letter itself but I'd have to assume that even if the letter isn't perfect an agent would still request material based on the story being pitched. How many rejections constitute another look at the query letter?
Thanks, Nathan! This was like a mini perspective cleaning. =D
Hmmm.... it seems to me that there's also that c) there are so many people submitting mss these days that the law of supply and demand allows agents to pick and choose very, very carefully only those things which they think will be top sellers, skipping over those mss which may even be better but will not be as marketable.
But, then again, I'm only an English teacher, so I can only guess at these things.
(I do like Hillsy's explanation though.)
when i sent my manuscript to a wonderful historical fiction author who had offered to help (and then was extraordinarily kind enough to eventually put her blurb on my novel) she also asked to see my query letter.
she said wonderful things about the novel and DESTROYED my query letter. it was apparently awful--self deprecating, nervous, tentative, washed out awful. she took the time to wreck it with the most brilliantly constructive comments possible and i am so grateful!
You forgot to throw in the non-responders.
Ten queries sent, 4 requests, 2 passes and four dead silences. Those suck more than the rejections.
Some agencies allow you to query different agents at the same agency (not simultaneiously) but how are you supposed to know when it's no longer simultaneous if the first agent you query never responds?
Just as I'm beginning to feel disheartened, along comes Nathan with words of hope! I've received several requests for excerpts and/or a synopsis, so maybe it's not the query letter.
I did get feedback from one agent that it seemed too "episodic." OK. I could work with that if I knew what he meant. Of course, I know the definition, but how does it apply to my story/writing? Aren't most works of fiction "episodic" to some extent? I really appreciated that he cared to offer feedback at all - just still not sure what I need to do to correct it. So, tell me, when you were an agent (it wasn't you, by the way), if you felt the writing was too episodic, pray what would you be trying to tell me?
Thanks. I'm glad I found your site. Now that I'm getting dangerously close to the querying stage, it will come in handy.
That's good advice, but it's important to keep in mind that you may get a rejection for reasons other than your letter or manuscript. Maybe the agent isn't accepting new cilents, maybe the agent's assistant who scans all the queries didn't like the concept of the story. Maybe you sent it to the wrong person in the office. There are lots of reasons. The only remedy is to keep at it.
When I was younger........ I could find myself dreaming of writing books. But now, maybe I`m too lazy for the work I think it take to write and correct all these pages...
I was getting nothing but form rejections, until I decided to put a little literary oomph into the query. Then I got a reply saying that the attached 10 pages weren't as good as she was expecting, which told me that the query letter worked, but not the beginning of the manuscript.
I had to come to terms that the beginning chapter of the book, which I was very attached to, was not very strong. I recently bit the bullet and re-wrote the first chapter, with my more improved writing skill, and am ready to head back into the trenches (as soon as I write a synopsis :P)
Unfortunately, there are other reasons why manuscripts are being rejected. Most agents are looking for books that will bring in mega sales and are rejecting some amazing books, including Paul Harding's TINKERS which went on to win a Pulitzer Prize as an indie-published novel and THE SILENCE OF MEDAIR which went on to become a Finalist in the Aurealis Awards after being self-published. Here's a rather illuminating blog post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who's won numerous major awards, is the only person to ever receive a Hugo Award for fiction and a Hugo Award for editing, and had books on best-selling lists all over the world: The Business Rusch: You Are Not Alone. And here’s Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Bio. In today’s market, no matter how perfect their query letter and how excellent their book, many of the best books will never be requested by agents. That’s another, darker side to the story about today’s market. It’s also why some of the best writers are turning to self-publishing.
You could also try the cheaters method and just get lucky. It's nice to get lucky.
I'm not much into the query, but what I appreciated about this article was that it brought out the importance of the MS. I think alot of times people can get focused on writing the perfect query, when the thing that really needs attention is the basic writing.
It's so hard for writers to know when that's the issue!! I think if I had several rejections (actually I'd do this before I sent it out) I'd look for professional feedback on my work someway or another. New eyes and a fresh perspective.
Good luck to everyone who is querying!
Thanks. Good to know.
Great post Nathan, this kind of regular advice and honesty is helpful for aspiring authors! : )
I agree with Marilyn - you left off:
c) Your query is fine, your book is excellent, but the agent for one reason or another doesn't notice the fact, or mistakenly thinks it won't sell.
It's not always the author at fault. There is plenty of evidence to demonstrate that agents don't always get it right.
After forty form rejections by major fantasy agents, I managed to get a hold of some editors and find out why no one was interested in my project. Turned out my novel premise is just too weird to be considered marketable in mainstream publishing. Sometimes there's nothing wrong with what you're doing -- it's just that you're not pitching it to the right people.
Interesting response from Marilyn Peake. I can understand why she says this. I paid for an agent's critique of my pages at a conference, and submitted a manuscript that everyone - my crit groups, my individual CPs, everyone - had loved. The agent's feedback was that it was good, but that it was too quiet to be marketable. I'm still deciding what to do about that - revise again, or submit to houses that are known for quiet stuff - but there is, with agents, an element of "how mass-marketable is this, anyway?" In a sense, because so many houses are closed to unagented submissions, this is discouraging.
Mira makes an interesting point about getting professional feedback, but a professional crit of an entire novel can be very expensive. However, if you have the writing chops to take feedback on your first few chapters and then apply it to the manuscript in its entirety, then I think it can be worth doing.
Lexi. Yep. That's a good point for C and unfortunately it's pretty common. Basically as the agents said, my work is not marketable at all and / or no one would be interested in it. Strange, but for a novel which will be released in November it already has few hundred fans and followers and after a simple preview I got these feedbacks; "a great idea developed into a highly marketable product." or "Not usually greatly into fantasy genre, BUT I reckon I could enjoy this one.", ". So your point C definitely stands. And the best is, officially not I'm the professional, not I'm the marketing genius... yet it seems not I'm the one who was dead wrong, but those few dozens of agents who rejected it without even reading my work (As most of them actually never read it, just rejected it.).
Istvan, I suspect in the UK some agents are rejecting without even a cursory glance at the first paragraph, so overwhelmed are they by their slush piles. And most successful indies sought mainstream publication before going it alone.
So no one should accept their work is not good enough SIMPLY because they cannot interest an agent (though of course there’s always the possibility the book is unreadable). If I’d had faith in the responses of agents to my books, they’d still be unread and I’d be a lot poorer.
Good luck with your novel :o)
Lexi. I believe the same goes in the U.S. When I read that some agents are making a "race" about query reading and they're telling... "Imagine. I finished 300 queries today.". Well, that's already sounds weird. How many of those queries were actually read? And how many were rejected just to have a chance to blog that day; "I finished 300 queries today.".
Many used to ask, why traditional publishing is dying? Well, this is one of the reasons.
Thanks for writing on this subject. Every rejection feels like some one just laughed at my baby's picture.
Sometimes it's hard to find a theme as
most rejections I've received have been vague and boiler plate. After 12 rejections, some after partials and one full request, I asked one particularly friendly agent for a little more specific info, which was helpful. Now I have to look at my manuscript again and decide if I should just keep moving or attack my "final" edit one more time.
Istvan.
I personally would've said that if agents have enough queries that they can afford to just skim over 300 queries per day, then that puts traditional publishing in rather rude health.
It's like saying "Do you know why my resteraunt is struggling so much? Its because I've got capacity for 200 diners and every night 500 people turn up to eat."
The idea that agents are just disregarding their query pile and skimming over everything is much more myth than reality. But if an agent IS skimming over their query pile it's because they have enough clients already, not because they're rude terrible horrible people.
"Do you know why my resteraunt is struggling so much? Its because I've got capacity for 200 diners and every night 500 people turn up to eat."
If you have the capacity for 200, you won't invite 500 for a party. Only if you're stupid or greedy. Agents has the capacity of 50 or 100 per day, yet they're accepting much more, because "We're soooooo professional and the "we're receiving many queries" on our blog looks so good and make us real professionals in the eyes of our fans.". And this is a joke as they're not reading the half of the mentioned quantity. If they don't have the capacity, they should simply stop asking queries for a month or two. But nope. They rather ask for more, because that shines our endless ego. And because of this, they're doing a damned lame job in most cases (There are only few exceptions.). They should learn that quantity is not equal with quality. And in a job where quantity is existing and taking the lead, that's never going to be quality job anymore.
Istvan-
So.. agents should cap the number of queries they receive? You would find that satisfactory?
How do they implement that? How do they do it fairly?
Next up: people complain about agents capping queries.
Nathan. If they're capping queries, that would be much more acceptable. What agents forgot is the simple basic business etiquette. As a writer I don't care about what problems do they have or how many queries they're accepting, until they're saying "Our business is open! Now, we accept thousand billion queries." . If they can't read that much, then don't request that much. But as they're accepting hundreds of queries, the basic business etiquette demands a fair review for every single one of them, instead of the "I skim this one, because other fool is going to send me more.". Agents simply lost their credibility.
Istvan-
How should they implement that, fairly and easily?
Hmmm. If I should do this, I would accept queries for two or three weeks, or I would set a limit of X hundred queries then when it's reaching the number, I would close the session. Then I would review the received queries for one or two weeks. Then another query session would come, then another review session. And so on and so on. Maybe an agent wouldn't get that much query as before, but maybe they wouldn't pass good manuscripts too. As I read some agent blogs, some agent is believing if they're accepting hundreds of thousands or few qatrillion queries, they'll look so professional. But in the reality if they can't read that much, they shouldn't accept that much. Writers are not idiots. They also consider agents as human beings and they used to accept if an agent is not willing to accept queries for a week or two, or for a month or two.
Agent! Shhhhmagent! We don't need no stinkin' agents!