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If you have a general publishing related question, I periodically answer those here on the blog. To submit a question, send me an email: JetReidLiterary at gmail etc. Put "Question Emporium" in the subject line.
Questions need to appeal to the blog readership and be of general interest. Thus, nothing about particulars that apply only to you.
Not all questions can be answered. Generally I'll let you know if your question will be and when it will be posted.
If you want to see what kinds of questions I've answered in the past, click "Question Emporium" in the "blog posts by category" on the left hand side of the blog.
If I submitted a modified excerpt of an unpublished novel to a short story writing competition, and if it were to get selected and published, would it hurt the novel's chances of getting picked up by a publisher? Is it a different story if it wins, rather than merely reaching 2nd-25th 'runner-up' status?
No.
Yes.
The more ways you can be editorially published while you're looking for an agent, the better. By
editorially I mean your work is vetted by an editor. Contests sure. Magazines be they online or print. It can't hurt and it might help. I regularly read Alfred Hitchcock Mystery magazine looking for fresh voices and interesting writers.
Plus there's a lot to be said for periodically changing up what you're writing. Working on a short story as a break from the novel might help you see things in a new light. I'm a great believer in moving furniture for the same reason.
Or as Dad would say to Mum "where do you want the piano this week?"
Hello! I have three short query questions.
Firstly, what is the best font to use in a query? Secondly, how many credentials are too many?
Can you offer any advice on keeping my query at/under 250 words?
(1) Times New Roman or Courier
(2) It's too many if your list has more words than the number of words telling what your book is about. Prioritize: published work first. Anything else is just filler.
(3) Focus on the plot of the novel. There are a lot of queries at QueryShark.blogspot.com that show how to do that.
I just read about a Women's Novel competition for unpublished female authors (that's me). And I was wondering if it was acceptable to query an agent if I've already entered my manuscript in the competition?
Or should I enter my novel in the competition, and then wait and see if I make the short list before querying an agent?
Or should I query a few agents, and if those are unsuccessful, then enter it in the competition?
I'm a big fan of contests. Good ones, not the scammy kinds. And by good ones, I mean contests that are run by real publishers or organizations, don't cost a fortune to enter, don't have a gazillion categories, and the previous winners include some names you recognize.
My favorite contest is the
William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Unpublished Manuscript contest because that's w
here I found Stephanie Jaye Evans and her wonderful Sugar Land mystery series. (Yes it is true I vaulted over a table and stepped on Charlaine Harris' toes to reach Stephanie before anyone else did. I regret nothing!)
If this contest looks legit, enter.
But do keep querying. If you win, someone might vault over the table to sign you up.
Last year I published a religious book with a local publisher. It has a very finite audience and will probably sell 1,000 to 1,500 copies a year. If you google me, this book comes up on Amazon. My question is this: I am now writing thriller fiction; will this pigeonhole me to agents and make it harder for me to acquire one? I have no desire to publish anymore in the nonfiction religious genre as I saw a need and filled it.
It shouldn't pigeonhole you. When I read a query for a thriller the first thing I consider is the story. The second is whether I think there's a market. The third is whether the author is an asshat. Only then do I start looking at previous publication outside the genre.
It helps that you've been published in non-fiction, rather than fiction. Being a "debut novelist" is an easier sell than "novelist being resuscitated from the dead."
Hi Janet,
I've been missing your blog posts tremendously! Every time I've checked, I see your latest post, which ends with the book titles... Sudden Violence. Silence. Truly ominous!
You can imagine what horrible scenarios a mystery writer could conjure up to explain your absence. Believe me, I thought of them all! Then I had the bright idea to check your twitter feed (duh) and was relieved to see that you're alive, if not well. Really hope you feel better soon.
If at some point you feel inspired to take a Whisky Hour (or Dr. Pepper break) and ponder a question for your Question Emporium, here's one I've been curious about. Perhaps tricky to answer, given the many variables...
Thanks for your good wishes. I'm slowly clawing my way back from the dead.
Here's the question:
How many books should I expect (or hope) to sell as a first-time novelist? What's a realistic sales goal? I realize the answer is somewhere between "100 copies to friends and family" and "the NYT bestseller list" but is there a # of thousands I should aim for in the first year? What's considered successful
in the publishing industry? [My publisher is a small press and the novel is a genre novel (mystery).]
You're asking the wrong first question.
The first question you want to ask is how many books is the publisher printing? And don't squirm around and feel pushy for asking. This information is crucial for your publicity and marketing plans.
If the publisher plans to print using POD technology, that means they will print books to fill orders. Very little inventory if any.
If the publisher plans a print run and to hold some inventory, they'll most likely look at how many orders come in before publication date, and print some number more than that.
They should tell you which method they use up front. They should tell you how many books they're printing up front. (By upfront I mean close to publication date)
ASK before you do anything requiring an investment of cash or time. And to answer your question: you hope to sell your print run. And then go back for a second printing and sell those too.Questions?
I have a novel out with several agents, in partials and fulls. Recently, a small press offered on a different novel of mine. Would it be appropriate to email these agents and tell them that another novel of mine has an offer, even if it's a small press. I'm not looking for them to represent that novel.
Also, I know that low numbers on a self-published book can hurt an author's traditionally published book's first print run and sell through expectations. Is the same true for a previous book published by a small press?
First question: yes, you should email the agents looking at your manuscript to tell them you have an offer on another novel with a small press. If this were a writer I was interested in representing, I'd want to know AND I'd want to look at the contract even if I didn't sell the novel.
I recently looked at a contract for a friend of mine who had an offer from a small press. It was an UTTER disaster. Film rights, world rights, option clause from hell. The works. I think I sent three pages of notes and we crossed our fingers. Fortunately the press was glad to work with her on the terms of the contract and agreed to most of the changes.
Where you can REALLY tie yourself in to a knot is agreeing to a bad contract. Then when you have an agent for your other book, the terms of that first contract can limit what you can sell, to whom, and when.
Second question: Yes. If your sales numbers are on Bookscan, editors will have access to them. If you sell 25 copies of your first novel, your agent is going to need a pretty compelling reason an editor should give you thousands of dollars and expect to sell thousands of copies.
Publishers prefer a blank slate with new authors (less so now than they did ten years ago but it's still largely true.)
During the process of polishing my novel to query agents, I employed a professional editor. Should I include this information in my query? If so, to what extent?
No.
No.
No.
First, leave me to my delusions that you wrote the book yourself with no help. That way I won't wonder if you can do it again.
Second, even though it's true you had help (beta readers, critique group, caustic comments from the QueryShark perhaps) I don't care how your novel came to be. I only care what it's about.
You don't have enough room in a query to add filigree. Get the plot on the page. Tell me what the book is about. Count it as a good day's work.
I have an odd query question for you. I've read your entire blog and the query shark blog, and have never come across the situation I had recently. An agent responded to my query by asking me to rewrite my query and resubmit it to her. This seemed odd. If she hated my query, wouldn't she just say no? And if she was intrigued, wouldn't she ask for pages? Query writing is a blood, sweat and tears process, and I'm wondering if this is common for agents to ask for a query rewrite? Thank you!
Don't get me started on the number of times I've wanted to do just that! Without seeing your query it's hard to know what was wrong or just not right. And I too am not sure what the point is. Maybe she's better at tormenting writers than I am.Did you rewrite?
I'm starting to research agents to query for the manuscript that's currently making its way through the teeth of my beta readers, and I find myself almost immediately stymied.
The novel I'm preparing to shop is pretty straightforward commercial crime. While it's shopping, I'll be moving on to another project, and the three candidates clamoring for my attention are all various flavors of fantasy. Looking at my portfolio of stuff in various stages of development and production, it's a pretty even split between crime/thriller and fantasy, with a couple that combine the two.
Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself here, but should this affect what kinds of agents I seek out? Should I try to stick to agents that rep both genres? If I do push ahead with agents who don't rep fantasy and get some interest, at what point do I break the news that they might not be so interested in my next novel? I know agents are generally looking to establish a long relationship with an author, and I don't want to shoot myself in the foot before I even start.
You answered your own question there in paragraph 3. Yes, you are getting ahead of yourself. Don't worry about the second book until the first book has done more than wow your beta readers. This is akin to casting the movie roles for a book that hasn't sold yet. It's fun, but it's diverting you from what you should be thinking about: writing.
However, there is an answer to your question and it's this: what will happen will depend in large part on the agent you sign with. Some agents rep several kinds of genre, so an agent like that might very well rep crime and fantasy. Some agents work in larger agencies so if s/he doesn't rep something you write, s/he'll have resources in the office to draw on in-house. Some agents have cordial working relationships with agents not in their agency and enter into co-agent agreements.
You of course, being a smart writer cause you read this blog will know to Query Widely.
None of this matters now. What matters now is you spend your creative energy writing fiction, not spinning scenarios.
I have an offer from a small press and I have no agent. The publisher is a nice guy, I don't think he's trying to rip me off or anything but how do I know if what he says about the number of copies sold is right?
Ahhh...this is why you want your contract to have an
audit clause.
The audit clause generally comes right after the clause about how they'll pay you. It needs to contain a couple things to give it some teeth.
1. Make sure it says "The Author
or the Author's designated representative may examine the books" Unless you're a CPA you won't know how to audit anything.
2. The publisher will limit the number of times you can audit to once a year, ask for reasonable notice, and probably limit the audit to information about your book (not the company as a whole.) Those things are reasonable to agree to.
3. The cost of the audit falls to the Author. However, make sure you include language that says
if there is a discrepancy of more than 5% to the author's disadvantage, the cost of the audit is borne by the Publisher.4. And make sure that if there is ANY discrepancy to the author's disadvantage that the Publisher
has to pay the sum due within a certain amount of time. I ask for 30 days, and I've settled for 60. What I do NOT agree to is "next royalty statement" because in some cases that's a year away.
Without the audit clause you have no way to verify royalty statements are accurate. Most publishers are not trying to lie/cheat/steal or any other kind of chicanery. In most cases small publishers are people doing a LOT of jobs, and numbers and bookkeeping isn't one of the jobs they trained for.
We find a lot of errors on royalty statements but we rarely need to audit. Most of the time, you can find the mistakes yourself because they're things like a royalty rate is wrong, a credit wasn't properly recorded, or the reserve for returns is too high.
I was wondering about using a pen name if my name is similar to someone who has a quasi-known name.
There is a Harvard law professor named James L. (my last name) who has published non-fiction books on economics. I would like to use my own name Jim (my last name) but, is that too close?
Should I go by Initials + Last name? Does it even matter if I would theoretically be writing fiction?
I've already started to try to build a brand around my name. If I was to switch to a pen name, would prefer to do so as soon as possible (reserving domain names, twitter accounts, etc.)
I think you're probably safe using Jim (your last name).
If your name was Steven King, not so much. (The "other" King is
Stephen but you'd be surprised how many people misspell it)
If you did want to use a pseudonym, you sign your query letter with your real name and then under it you list your pen name, and your contact details:
Yours truly,
Steven King
(writing as Felix Buttonweazer)
@FelixButtonweazer
www.FelixButtonweazer.com
And you're quite right that consistency is important. Building your twitter following and reserving domains should all have the SAME name.
Your website states that queries should include the first 3-5 pages of the novel. My novel has a unique format. The protagonist writes mystery novels and in the early chapters the protagonist's narrative alternates with passages taken verbatim from the mystery novel he's currently writing. Both story lines merge later in the novel. The first chapter is twelve double-spaced pages. The passage from the protagonist's mystery novel begins on the ninth page. You would therefore be missing an important element if I only sent the first 3-5 pages. Can I send all twelve pages of the first chapter in my query?
of course you can. There's no such thing as the Query Police despite my longstanding efforts to find and train a battalion of ninjas to spring from the rafters when writers do things that are charitably labelled "clueless": Dear Agent/bcc the entire AAR membership/quoting form rejection letters like blurbs.
That said, I won't read 12 pages.
What does that mean for you? Not anything terrible. The purpose of sending those first 3-5 pages is not to see if the novel works or to get the "important elements." It's to see if you can write.
It is a lamentable maxim that great concepts are more often accompanied by bad writing than good. And the reverse is true: really good pages are often preceded by dreadful DREADFUL query letters.
The bottom line is: don't worry. Send the first chapter if you can't bear the idea I'll only read 3-5 pages. Do NOT send 35 pages. There's no way to read 35 pages in the body of the email without wanting to kill things preferably the sender.
How does an author handle multiple requests for "exclusive" reads. Let me present an exact scenario:
- On Monday, I send out several queries.
- On Tuesday, Agent A writes back to say, "I'm intrigued. Can I see for the full ms on a two-week exclusive?"
- On Wednesday, Agent B asks to see the full ms as well, exclusive or not.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: EXCLUSIVES STINK. They're almost always never in a writer's best interest.
If you send it to an agent on an exclusive basis, and they offer you representation, you don't have any time to send it to other agents and perhaps choose from MANY offers.
Agents are not widgets, interchangeable pieces of the Publishing puzzle.
You might not know if an agent is the best choice for you until you've talked with several.
Here's what I think you should do:
1. If an agent requests an exclusive, you say no. You're polite but honest: You've sent out several queries, you're hoping several agents want to read, you don't want to give an exclusive yet.
2. If the agent won't read your work with that reply, you know something pretty valuable about the agent.
3. If the agent does read despite asking for an exclusive, you've lost nothing.
And to my agent colleagues who request exclusives: get over yourselves.
Just read a piece on your blog about writers wasting time fretting. I have a question about "rules". Like never start a novel with a character waking up. Never use any backstory in first chapter. An agent will never read it. They are trying to be helpful but many novels follow all the rules but are boring. Do I have to start at the scene of an explosion with dead all over ? I can do what I have to.
Is a good MO for me to just get 100k words and then worry about these questions later w appropriate input?
I know you are not a writing coach and I promise I won't be a pain in the ass but I have to ask someone who knows.
Merry Christmas.
(May the family violence unit not visit your building over the Holidays!)
Ah! You've missed a key element of the writing process: REVISION.
That's the step between "just get 100K words" and "later with appropriate input."
In the immortal and valuable words of Bill Cameron, no slouch at this writing biz himself, "give yourself permission to suck."
so, yes, get the words on the paper. Then and only then do you go back and take out the stuff that doesn't belong.
Generally that will be anything that doesn't move the plot forward or develop character (Kurt Vonnegut's rule)
This is where the "rules" will become clear. Does someone waking up move the plot forward or develop character? If it does in your book, break the rule. If it doesn't you follow the rule. But you follow the rule cause it works here, not cause it's a rule.
Rules are generally to help people look for places that are obvious problems to a more experienced writer. Once you've written a couple novels, you've learned some stuff about how to do it.
There's one thing your opening pages have to do: entice me to read on. If you can do that with backstory, weather, driving, or waking up, no problem. If you can't, you're in darn good company and you'll chop that part out before I ever see it.
If you were a newbie writer getting ready for a one-on-one 10 minute critique session with an agent at a conference, would you come in with a list of questions, or just with an open mind and a pencil to take notes? I'm going to my first conference next week, and I would like to make the most out of it.
You're asking whether you should come prepared or just wing it?
Let's take a vote about which answer gets a resounding YES!
(pause for counting fins)
Yes, come prepared.
Type out the list of questions.
Make TWO copies.
Give one to the agent, and keep one.
That way the agent can see ALL your questions, and can answer the ones s/he feels are most urgent first.
One of the questions should NOT be: can I send you my book.
I know literary agents take on 'projects' they love, the ones they are enthusiastic about but do you guys ever take on 'just' the writer. I'm using the word 'just' carefully because there is nothing 'just' about the whole writer.
You have often expressed how important it is to target the best agent for your genre. And, I'm thinking the agent might believe they are doing the writer a diservice by representing that which they might have difficulty selling because it falls outside their realm. But I'm wondering if the love of words and the monument of effort overrides that frailty. Or, are we all so specialized? I wouldn't want my dentist doing heart surgery but I sure as hell would want him at my side if I'm flat on my back in a gutter with chest pain.
And, if the answer is yes, agents do take on writers which blow the agent's steam-whistles, how does one approach agents with that in mind?
So, you're asking if I'd sign a writer cause I loved them but knew I wasn't the best agent for their work?
That's a skewed perspective on love there, snooks.
I not only do not do that, I will actively encourage writers with projects I do love to make sure they query other agents. Finding the right agent isn't a matter of
I love you, sign here, any more than a marriage is.
Your analogy about the dentist suggests any agent is better than a specialized one. That's not true. A bad or incompetent agent, even one that means well and has GREAT intentions is worse than no agent at all.
And if you think that isn't true, you haven't talked to enough authors.
I love to edit. I love getting first dibs on a friend's story and figuring out what tools the author could use to shape the story to match their vision.
But there isn't a lot of guidance on the internet on how to be a good editor. There are plenty on self-editing, writing, how to be a good alpha or beta reader, how to find a good editor, and dealing with requested revisions and edits, but not much on the process of editing someone else's work.
It seems like this is a skill and knowledge set that is generally passed on through an apprenticeship (as an intern to an editor or agent) or by evaluating edits that you, as a writer, have received. I don't have access to either. I have a full time job that I love, and this is what I do in my fun time. I want to make sure that I am conveying my responses in a helpful way for the writer.
When you edit for flow, character, story arc, big picture elements, how do you convey your responses to the writer? A revision letter? Comments on the manuscript? Both? Do you do line edits at the same time, or wait until the big revisions are complete? Are there elements you emphasize over another?
I realize "How do you edit?" is almost as ambiguous a question as "How do you write?" But there are hundreds of people who share how they write and self-edit, letting budding writers pick and choose the tricks and processes that will work for them. I'd love to see the same for budding editors.
The first time I saw an honest to goodness real edit letter I realized to my marrow I was not an editor. I am a reader, a fact-checker, a cheerleader, and I hope a good agent, but man oh many I am not a real editor.
You're right. It's a learned skill. The agents I know who started out as editors (Betsy Lerner primarily) talk about reading the editorial letters their bosses sent to see how editing happened.
I send editorial letters and a marked up manuscript.
I send big picture, get all the pieces in place notes first and then go through line by line.
But, every good editor finds their own way. It sounds like you've got the one thing a good editor needs: a passion for the job.
Listen to what people tell you about your edits, and watch what other people do. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to edit. I think there is what works to get the project the best it can be.
Some of my clients deliver manuscripts that can go directly to the editor.
Some of them need only a spell check.
Some of them need a fact check.
And some of them need a reality check. Those are the calls we all dread, but every one of my clients who's gotten a call like that has sucked it up, and done the work. There's a reason we call them Fabulous and that's one of them.
If any of our blog readers have links to sites about editing/editors that they think are useful/helpful/entertaining, let me know.
I'm a freelance editor, and have gotten two questions from writers in the past week about self-publishing one's manuscript in order to get pre-publication blurbs to put in query letters.
Have you heard of this? Are agents starting to ask for a bunch of blurbs from random readers, or is some bad advice making its circuit through the Interwebs?
This seems like some new evil way to occupy newbies with a Sisyphean task that isn't writing or querying, but maybe I'm falling out of the loop.
Yikes!
Blurbs from well-known, bestselling authors, sure, but random readers?? No!
Here's the other warning: self-publishing IS publishing. Once a book is published it has sales numbers or rankings and we all get to look at them. (See
yesterday's blog post about this)
If an author thinks self-publishing is the way to get interest in a book, they better take a close look at the number of copies sold for people who then got traditional publishing deals. It wasn't 100. Or a 1000. It was TENS of thousands.
And it's the sales numbers that woo editors, those avaricious yet shy woodland creatures.
It doesn't matter what Stylish Reader in Poughkeepsie says about a book unless it's "I bought ten copies to give to my friends for Christmas."
And just to be clear: I ignore blurbs in query letters. I don't care what anyone else thinks about the book. At the query stage I only care what I think. I'm pretty sure most of ilk agree, but the comments column is wide open for discussion.
I've been trying to get a semi-definitive answer on the following question, but no one seems to have an answer. What would be the ramifications of an author querying a novel in one genre while self-publishing a novel in an unrelated genre via digital means on Amazon and the like?
An author, Nick Harkaway, pointed out that selling something in the range of 20K to 40K words wouldn't cut into any potential deal a press wanted to cut with for the hypothetical print book. True?
True, but let's all settle down and realize that once you're published, you have sales numbers and a track record.
And when you sell 20 copies of The Beast That Ate Cleveland (a rhapsodic love letter to the Mistake on the Lake) I have to explain to an editor why that doesn't translate to you're going to sell only 20 copies of your thriller.
And frankly, that's not the stuff I want to be talking about with a debut author. I want you to be fresh, unsullied, and brimming with enthusiasm. I want you before publishing reality has beaten the innocence out of you.
Now, if you sell 2 million copies of THE BEAST BITES CLEVELAND it's a different matter altogether.
The thing is, authors ALWAYS think they're going to sell more than they do. ALWAYS. You are NOT the exception to this rule and if you learn one thing today, I hope it's this: you never get a second shot at making your publication debut.
I'm a big fan of aiming for where you want to end up.
There's nothing wrong with publishing shorter works on Amazon first, but it's not some sort of golden ticket to a big-ass book deal. Not even close.
I know that you ask that writers include the first 3-5 pages of their manuscript with a query. Are agents expecting to see a hook in those first few pages? A conflict that is already established? Or are they just assessing the quality of the writing?
This is akin to asking if you want your prospective spouse to be smart or good-looking. One can be objectively measured; one is in the eye of the beholder. And really, you want both. Right?
So, when I read those first pages I'm not reading with a checklist.
I'm just like someone picking up the book at Murder By The Book in Houston Texas: reading the first page.
I'm flipping through pages just like a book browser at Aunt Agatha's in Ann Arbor Michigan is.
The only question in my mind is "Do I want to read more?"
You can entice me in a number of ways. A good first line is always a good bet. Something surprising works well. Gorgeous syntax does too.
Eventually it all has to come together, and much like when you met your honeypie, you come to know it's love, even if you don't know why.
You're trying, as many writers do, to make a subjective process more rational and objective. How agents choose books will never be like that. All you can do is write an awesome book and query till you find the agent/s who recognize Awesome when they see it.
The agent I am following on twitter, and hope to be to represented by some day, recently made a post, saying how excited she was to sign on a new client, and then went on to describe the highlights of my work in progress (folklore based, YA, romance, etc.).
Now, I'm not naive, I understand that all stories are reinvented, and I am not claiming my story has been stolen. However, I do feel discouraged and bummed out a bit. I planned on sending her a query in just a couple of months. What are the chances of an agent taking on two projects in one year that are that similar? What are the chances of a publishing house choosing two books that are that similar?
You have taken a tiny smidgen of info (140 characters no less!) and interpreted in the one way that will make you feel bad.
Knock that shit off.
The world is a hard enough place for writers without being the instrument of your own torment. Besides, that's MY job.
So let's look at why this particular instance is you being Author Crazypants.
1. Just because something is based on "folklore" doesn't mean it bears any resemblance to your work.
2. Even if something is based on the exact same piece of traditional story telling as your novel, remember everyone tells/writes differently. Just look at all the interpretations of The Front Page, or A Star is Born. And for that matter, Star Wars is just a cowboy movie set in space. Sort of like a Jack Reacher novel without aliens.
3. This agent might not end up signing you, true, and there are a myriad of reasons that could happen. S/he ain't the only agent in town, and that means STOP this utter horseshit of thinking of a dream agent and get realistic. Your dream agent is the one who loves your work with a passion and begs you for the chance to take it on submission. Thus you don't know who your dream agent is until YOU GET AN OFFER.
You can spend a lot of time fretting about things you have zero control over. You can do this so much that it blocks you creatively and disturbs your inner peace. OR you can understand to the core of your being that you are a writer, and every minute you spend fretting is a minute you're not thinking about your work, reading the work of great writers you want to emulate, or visiting art museums to see the work of artists in different media, or going to the movies to see great directors and screenwriters ply their craft, or just doing the damn laundry so you can write in clean underpants. In other words, when you start to fret about this stuff, it's a prime facie evidence you are NOT WRITING. Get back to work. It's the one thing you can control, and it's the one thing that will get you moving toward your goal.
At a recent writers conference I pitched my story to several agents, some of whom requested partials/fulls. I just got some critique back from one of those agents which apply to the whole manuscript (I'm working on the revisions right now). The agent wants me to resubmit the revised version, but at this point would I also send that revised version to the other agents? If so, do I shoot them an email first asking if they want that revised version? Or do I just do nothing? What's the protocol?
You send the revisions to the agent who guided you in making them first. If that agent passes (or dawdles too long!), you email the other agents to say you have a spiffier updated version of the manuscript and would they like to see it?
1. OK, so an agent asks for a full manuscript. After the angels have stopped singing in my ear, I need to send it, with a letter. I know what goes into a query letter...the 100-200 word teaser, plus whatever the agent wants, e.g., first five pages, first chapter etc. What goes into the LETTER which accompanies the manuscript?
For example,
Dear Janet,
Here it is.
Enjoy.
Call me.
Thanks,
Snookums
seems kind of terse.
2. Related, should there be any kind of title page on the manuscript? Clearly, it's too early for the dedications. But should there be a standalone title page of any sort, and if so what goes on it? Or is it just at the top of the first page, "Chapter 1. It was a dark and stormy night..."
1. Assuming you're sending this via email, hit reply to the agent's request and in that email say pretty much what you wrote there. Terse is fine really.
But I know you can't do that without wriggling with discomfort so what you can do is ADD under the terse paragraph, a sentence that says something like "here's the pitch again in case you need it" and you repeat the pitch portion of your query.
This newfangled interwebz allows us to sort and link email so it's easy to see what you sent before.
1A. IF however you are sending this by paper and carrier pigeon, writ in the blood sweat and tears of your own fevered hand, yes you need a cover letter. And it says pretty much what you've suggested: Thanks for requesting my manuscript. Here's a bit about it to refresh your memory, and you repeat the pitch portion of the query letter.
2. I prefer the title and the author's name just above the start of the chapter. I'm reading on a Kindle, and most other agents are reading electronically.
ADVENTURES ON THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE
by
Mo Toles
It was a hot and steamy day followed by a dark and stormy night at Exit One.
Certainly leave out what we call front matter: dedications, acknowledgments, copyright (!!!!) etc.
Do not leave out your name.
I'm sure that you receive many thank-yous, nonetheless I want to sincerely than you for taking the time to read through my query once again. However, I am left wondering.... You said it "sounds like a fun novel" and while I would love to be jumping for joy that Janet Reid said my novel sounds like fun!!
I can't help but wonder if maybe you were just being nice. And here I am, left to think that I would have taken it a lot better if you would have just told me that I'd written a piece of crap and that I need to change this, this, this, this, and this before it is any good at all.
Oddly enough, I feel like I can take criticisms better than compliments. I really admire your opinion and would love to know what you really meant when you said my novel sounds like fun. Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it and am better off leaving well enough alone.
Clearly I need to work on my image if you think someone with a shark avatar is ever "just being nice."
You can choose to think "oh she's just saying that" (although why I would do that is a mystery to me) OR you can choose to believe it.
One is positive. One is not. If you are to survive and thrive as writer it is imperative you choose the positive approach.
I don't mean you are Pollyanna. When you find out your sales figures aren't anywhere near what you were sure they'd be you don't clap your hands and shout "oh yay!" No, you weep and rend your garments and curse the fates, BUT THEN you pick yourself up and say to your agent "OK, let's deal with this. Strategy time."
What you do NOT say is "oh they must think I suck as a writer, woe is me."
If you're getting a lot of rejections you weep, and rend your garments and curse the fates, then pick yourself up and say "Ok, I'm riding my rocket boots to a writing conference where I can meet with agents who can give me some feedback on my query and pages."
What you do NOT say is "oh I suck as a writer, all these rejections can only mean I really suck."
If you send a query to the Chum Bucket and I say something nice you say "thank you" not "oh did she really mean it" because if you disbelieve every positive thing you will create enough self-doubt to float a battle ship and you will sink yourself. And it will be exhausting for people around you.
How you respond is a choice you make. We all have that instant feeling of doubt, of panic, but the next step is crucial. Get a grip on your reptilian brain, shake it and growl "Enough of that panic horseshit! When Janet Reid read my query and wrote it was a fun novel she meant it." And then you believe it.
Rule for writers: Be positive
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The Question Emporium is one of my fave parts of your blog. I realized when you posted yesterday, it had been a while. It was good to see it back!
I love that you do this. Thank you!
I love this too. I sent a question in this morning. It is my hope that I appear curious and not brainless.
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