How to Query Successfully: My Learning Curve

Earlier this week, Cat Woods posted a great post on From the Write Angle about querying prematurely. As in, querying before your query letter and story are ready to be sent out. While she’s got tons of great tips and ways to tell if you are getting out there before you are ready…

I have a confession to make.

My road to agented came with a massive learning curve.

Of course I queried prematurely! Of course I queried before my story was ready! Of course my query was not yet up to snuff!

It happens to us all. Don’t get down on yourself. We’re all human. We’re all learning.

Here are a few things I did to fix my errors.

1. Realizing I was making errors.

While this may seem obvious, it can be difficult to see that what we are doing just isn’t working. My first query wasn’t getting nibbles. Luckily, I think I only sent about 10-30 as I quickly realized that what I was doing–or trying to do–simply wasn’t working. Time to back off. Stop. Think. Take another look. Find another approach. Don’t burn all your bridges.

2. Research

Take a look around. Read agent blogs. Talk with other writers who are querying. Figure out what a good query letter in your genre gets in terms of nibbles (requests for partials or fulls).

3. Look at your first chapter

Your query letter might be stellar, but what about those first ten pages you keep sending out with your query? Maybe your query is fine and your pages aren’t hitting the mark. For me, I didn’t realize this until I read literary agent and author Noah Lukeman’s “The First Five Pages” and did the exercises in his book. I quickly realized I had run out in the literary world with my pants down! Major edits ensued.

4. Get critiques

I found some fabulous people over at agentqueryconnect.com who shared their time with me in terms of critiques for both my query and my story. I learned a TON.

5. Put your ear to the ground

Listen. Listen to who is looking for what. Listen to what agents are telling you. Listen for trends. I made the mistake of continuing to write in a genre that simply wasn’t taking acquisitions. In fact, they were CANCELLING contracts with debut writers. Yipes. I switched genres.

6. Write another book

As writers we get mightily attached to our first attempts at novels. That’s natural. We spend a lot of time, love, and tears with them. But sometimes it is time to move on. Apply what you have learned on a whole new story. Keep writing. Keep perfecting. Keep crafting. Your second story will be better. I guarantee it.

7. Make connections

Never underestimate the value in networking and making connections and being ‘open.’

In the end, after honing my query, honing my craft, and honing all these other tiny skills it was a connection with another writer friend who helped me land my agent. She asked her agent if what I was doing (nonfiction-wise) would be something he’d be interested in. He said he might. The door was open. The next step was mine. I sent my honed query, my honed proposal showcasing my honed writing. I got in.

8. Always keep your chin up and cry in private

All these so-called over-night success stories you hear about are almost always many, many years in the making. Yes, at times they are enough to make you want to lash out and bitch. If you need to vent, do it in private. Always. And don’t let it fester, we can see bitter, jaded aspiring writers a mile away and so can everyone else in the business. It takes time. It takes dedication. You can do this.

What have you learned on your querying path?

By the way, on Friday I will be over at From The Write Angle blogging about what the fiction query can learn from the nonfiction query. Don’t miss it!

Desperation, Finding a Literary Agent and Perfect Matches

The other day a bunch of us aspiring authors were yaking it up in an AgentQuery.com chat room. Litgal, the studious, brilliant type had us read a blog post about writer firsts (first time getting an agent, first time getting a publisher, etc). It wasn’t the ‘first’ aspect of the article that got us talking, but the aspiring author desperation that can make us act in  ways that may not lead us to attain our career goals. (Yes, we aspiring authors can truly be a desperate lot. Note: not an attractive quality in dating, and also not an attractive quality in aspiring writers.)

While we aspiring authors are not desperate all the time, we do have those panic attack moments. That alone, isn’t the reason for concern. (Like dating, it’s when we act on our desperation that things go down a path that leads to nobody’s best interests.) For writers, desperation can lead us to sign with an agent who might not be The One.

To be honest, the idea of The One or a ‘perfect’ agent stresses me out. Why? Well, first of all, how do you know who that agent truly is when you send them a query letter? Yes, I research agents before querying and target ones that seems as though they might have The One potential. Yes, your research may gather a general sense of who the agent is as a professional, but the reality is, you won’t know who they truly are until you have talked to them and possibly even worked with them. So, who do you query? How do you know? What if there isn’t a The One out there for you?

Freaking out yet? Don’t worry, I have a theory. (Purely untested, of course, but I’m working on that.)

The questions is: Are there several The Ones when it comes to matching up with a literary agent?

My hypothesis: Yes. I believe so. This is a numbers game. A business deal. There are a certain number of agents out there that can help you make the most of your business (writing). The more queries you put out there, the more likely you are to reach the right agent. Some folks hit the right partner within 20 queries. Some need to send 200. (And yes, some never do.)

Because this is business and not some life-partner quest, I don’t think it’s fair to aspiring authors to think of finding a literary agent to represent them as The One. When finding the perfect mate, I was willing to wait as long as I needed. Decades, even. With finding a business partner, I am not willing to waiting that long. I am certain that there are at least a handful of agents out there that could connect with me and my work and vice versa (no desperation required to fog my vision). There could be a handful of The One agents that could help me bring my work to the world and help me reach my career goals.

I also think that the odds are in my favour–more than they would be if I were to go about finding a new, perfect mate. With dating, approximately 50% of the population is eligible for match ups. (I know, I know, there are men in that population who aren’t interested in women, who have already attached themselves to someone else, and men who aren’t going to be ‘t suitable. But you what I’m saying.) Of that 50% there is, say, one man in two thousand that you could see yourself marrying–happily–and being partners forever more. Not exactly the greatest odds. (Sorry to any singletons out there who now feel depressed.) With literary agents (around a 1000 in the U.S.A.), approximately 50% of the agents rep women’s fiction or romance (approximate guess, my favourite searchable agent database is down at the moment). Of that 50% (500), there are maybe five agents who would make a very good fit as a business partner and you could see yourself working happily ever after. Look at my odds: 1 in 100. That’s downright inspiring.

Next time you hear someone making an aspiring author hyperventilate by tossing around words like The One in the same sentence as literary agents, do me a favour, smack that person upside the head for me. Thanks.

Query Writing

Well, I have finally reached the point where I feel like it is time to start the one month process of banging out the ‘perfect’ query letter. Egads! Perfect? But there aren’t even hard and fast rules about query letters! How can you make a perfect one?

Well, folks, that would explain the large sized bump on my forehead from banging it on the coffee table for the past few days.

To prepare for the task at hand (writing the letter that could change my life and career–no pressure), I’ve read Noah Lukeman’s book “How to Write a Great Query”, which varies quite a bit from some of the excellent advice over on AQ Connect. <Bang goes Jean’s forehead again.> But rules are for breaking. Sometimes. Kind of. A little bit. When you are brave. And sometimes when you are stupid. Really, the line between bravery and stupidity can be blurry. <Bang, bang.>

Catch the agent’s attention and try and get them to read more. That is the goal of the query. That is my goal. I can do this. I can condense my 118,000 word story (which is still on a diet, by the way) into three dynamic sentences that show my voice, answer what the book is about, touch on genre, and excite someone I don’t know. No problem. <More banging.>

<Deep breath.> Not intimidated, no, not at all… Anyway, Query Shark wouldn’t chomp on my letter from last month, which probably means that it was not stellar and it was not awful. Just mediocre. So, armed with yet more thoughts, advice and lots of head banging, I am diving in. At the end of the month, I hope to have the query letter of all query letters and not have a concussion.