Learning the query

Revision update: I’ve done entering all my corrections for the crucial first eight chapters. Next is the big test: Read it all and see if the edits I’ve made work. Fingers crossed.

If you read my post a few weeks about about Andrea Brown literary agent Mary Kole’s query contest, you’ve probably been following her analysis of her winning letters. If not, check them out, starting with her honorable mentions here, and moving forward to the grand prize winner.

Writing a query is a very different skill from writing a novel, but good writing is still good writing, and learning about query writing is not only important when you’re writing those dreaded letters, it can help with your long-form work too.

In a query letter, you have one page to make a brilliant first impression as a writer, a person and for your story. You have to entice the reader with your story and impress with the freshness of your voice, all while you’re telling the main crux of your story in just a few sentences, showing your experience and why you’re submitting to this particular agent — and, again, all in one page.

Doing that, fitting it all in and making it interesting and exciting, is a lesson in editing that will help with your book.

When you’re writing a query letter, you have to make sure every word counts. You have to use just the right words to tell the story in the briefest most interesting way, with the right flow, action, etc., and all in your voice. Sound familiar?

When writing a novel, it’s easy to overlook some sentences, paragraphs, even chunks of text and think, ahh, they’re good enough. They’re halfway down page 124 in a 214-page book. Who’s going to notice?

But really, when we’re editing our novel, we should give every word just as much attention. The story should flow, be believable, be understandable, entertaining, etc., all showing your fresh, original voice. And this applies to every word, every sentence and paragraph on every page. Phew!

Mary Kole gave some really great analysis in the query letters she showcased in the contest results. Have a read. I learned a lot, and I’m sure you’ll take something away too.

How’s your writing going?

Write On!

Submitting to an agent and/or editor

First, good luck to all you NaNoWriMo participants starting your 50K novels today. I’m revising, so I’ll be participating in spirit, with some revision work done every day. But my best wishes go out to those of your who signed up. Good luck!

Now on to the regularly scheduled blog post:

Number three in my blog posts about the North Texas SCBWI conference I attended on Oct. 24. Today, I’ve got notes from Dutton Children’s Books editor Lisa Yoskowitz and Foundry Literary + Media agent Lisa Grubka, both of whom were really great.

Few pointers from Lisa Y on submitting to an editor:

• Submit in accordance with publishing house’s guidelines
• Address to Acquisitions Editor or Query Editor. But, IF (and only if) you’ve researched a particular editor’s body of work and you feel your book is right for them, it’s ok to address to them, and in your query, explain why
• Economy of words – just like in your book, make sure every word counts in your query.

That last one was echoed by Lisa G, who stressed, “You only have one page [for the query]. Make it count.”

She also told attendees to submit in accordance to agents’ guidelines, and to personalize the query; research the agent and explain why you’re sending to that agent. She said that good writing will come across in a good query, and she encouraged writers to, like they do with their manuscripts, put their query letters away from a while after they’ve written them so they can revise and make them the best they can possibly be.

Even the best query can take time to get through the system, of course, and Lisa G said the busiest times of the year for agents are January through May and September through December. The summer, although still busy, is considered the slow time. So, consider this when sending your query. Don’t wait to send out your query if you’re ready and it’s in a busy time, just be patient and know that if you don’t hear back immediately, it’s just the workload.

Lisa Y said for editors, they’re busy year-round — especially in today’s economy, with fewer people doing more — but they generally have four slower weeks in each quarter, but they vary.

As for what these two lovely ladies look for in submissions, both lean toward more literary, character-driven YA, but Lisa Y said that, if the writing’s amazing, she’ll be attracted to anything. There it is writers: Be amazing!

Write On!

Perserverance

Current word count: 31,883

New words written: 1,622

Words til goal: 8,117 / 270 words a day til the end of September

For today’s whopping words written count, I’d like to thank our local Ford dealer service department. Our car needed a check-up, so I had to get up early to get to the dealership early enough to be first in line — or close to that — and wasn’t able to write before I went. However, I planned ahead, took my laptop, and despite the NFL commentators talking like they were powered by the Energizer bunny, I managed to write nearly a whole chapter in the three hours I waited before my computer battery ran out. So, thank you, Ford dealership. I’ve got three and a bit chapters left, and I love that my words a day goal is now less than 300. I’m still hoping I can whip this out in two weeks.

Yesterday, I spent time researching agents I had already identified as possibilities for my writing style, as per my goals for this week, which I posted yesterday, and started preparing the query letters I’m going to be sending off.

I’ve read over and over that perserverance is key to publishing success. And I believe that perserverance is really key to any success. There’s always a journey, and for some it’s longer than others. But no matter how long it takes, if we don’t perservere, we won’t make it.

This weekend as I browsed some blogs, I found a great example of that in a How I Found My Agent post on the Guide to Literary Agents blog. Billy Coffey, a non-fiction writer, relates how he submitted to his preferred agent, then after he got a rejection, he submitted to others. After he got more rejections and was advised that he needed a platform and following before he could be considered, he started writing a blog. Months later, a blog reader recommended he submit his book to her agent — his original preferred agent. Perserverance.

There are lots of stories like this one, and they have one single message: Don’t give up.

How’s your writing going?

Write On!

Why we read agent/editor blogs

Current word count: 30,261

New words written: 1,205

Words til goal: 9,739 / 314 words a day til the end of September

Wow! I’ve passed 30K Yay! I’m in the home stretch and wrote another chapter this weekend. I thought I had only four chapters left, but it has turned into five (for now) because I found a better place than I had planned for a nice cliff-hanger chapter change and a great place to switch POV in my two-POV novel. I’m on track to finish by the end of September, but secretly — well, I’m sharing this secret with you — I’m hoping to be typing THE END in about two weeks. We’ll see.

My other goal for this coming week is three-part:

• Send out my entry to agent Colleen Lindsay’s scholarship contest for the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar (deadline Sept. 4; have you entered?);
• Send the picture book I worked on a couple weeks ago two an editor I met at the SCBWI Houston conference this year and another editor I met at a SCBWI writer’s retreat a couple years ago who read an early draft and said she’d be interested in seeing it again (conferences are invaluable — I highly recommend going, and expecially going to SCBWI conferences and joing the organization if you’re writing for children);
• And send out query packages for my newly revised first novel.

For the first novel, I’m also going to try a new story description in my query letter. This is my send go around with this book, but this new version is a lot better than the first, so I’m hoping it will get more notice. My original query letter, which was sent to seven agents, got only one response for more, so I also hope for a better response rate with this new query letter. The story description is much better, I think. I’ll let you know how I do.

It annoys me that I didn’t see the problems with the novel earlier. I fell into the same trap I’ve warned against on this blog many times: sending out a book before it’s ready. But the problem is, I had done a LOT of work on the novel, lots of revisions, and I did believe it was ready. It was only until I was researching agents and read some of their comments that I saw the problems in my novel. I was reading things they said not to do and realizing I had done some of those things, hence, another revision.

This is a great reason why it’s good to read agent and editor blogs. You can get invaluable information WHILE you’re writing instead of when you’re researching to submit. Check out my blogs list to see the ones I read, and let me know if there are others you want to recommend and I’ll add them to the list. Keeping up with other writers’ blogs is great too, but to help your book’s chances during the submission process, read up what works and what doesn’t in agents’ eyes.

Write On!

Genres and what they mean

Current word count: 25,574

New words written: 1,688

Words til goal: 14,426 / 380 words a day til the end of September

I banged out four days worth of word-a-day goals this weekend, which is great, and I love to see my number of “words a day til the end of September” goal dropping. Maybe I can finish this earlier. Pat on the back; gave myself some chocolate as a reward. Ooohhh.

Now for something entirely different…

Literary agent Nathan Bransford has been having quite an interesting discussion about genres over at his blog, starting with Wednesday’s You Tell Me: What Genre is Your WIP? post and following up on Thursday with his Genre Poll Thoughts post.

Ok, here’s where I’m going to make a confession that I probably shouldn’t make in public, but I’m going to anyway. Genre kinda confuses me. Well, let me clarify. I know horror when I see it. I know fantasy is when the story is set in another world. I know science-fiction has to involve, well, science. Where I get confused are all the subgenres. Urban fantasy, supernatural, paranormal, and the reason I get confused is because the same book can be assigned different genres in different places.

For example, I heard the genre “urban fantasy,” and, not having heard that one before, I looked it up. According to Wikipedia, urban fantasy has supernatural elements but is set in the real world. Ok. Sounds good. So, the Percy Jackson books, which are about the Greek gods still roaming Earth and have taken up residence in the U.S., has supernatural elements (Greek gods, monsters, etc.) but is set in the real world, i.e. the U.S. However, Wikipedia says the Percy Jackson book series is an “adventure and fantasy.”

Ok, I know, Wikipedia isn’t the most reliable source. It is afterall edited by whoever logins in and changes information, but it does make my point. I also searched Barnes & Noble and Amazon online and while they both have the series under children’s books, Barnes & Noble also has it under “Fiction & Literature” and Amazon has it under “Greek & Roman” and “Monsters.” hmmm

And if you go into bricks-and-mortar bookstores, children’s books are mostly differentiated by age, not genre.

So, where does this get writers like me who are writing novels that have supernatural elements but are set in the real world when we’re querying agents? Do we say urban fantasy, contemporary fantasy, supernatural, paranormal (which, according to Nathan Bransford includes anything with witches and werewolves)?

Well, I kinda like what Nathan Bransford put at the end of his Genre Poll Thoughts post:

Please remember: friends do not let friends lose sleep over genre distinctions. It’s not worth worrying over. Just pick one, and if you find an agent, they’ll tell you what it is.

Sounds like good advice to me.

Anyone else confused about what genre they’re writing?

Write On!

P.S. In case you haven’t seen it, literary agent Colleen Lindsay is participating in a contest for a scholarship to the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar in New York (only entry, travel is up to the winner). The deadline is Sept. 4 and entries must be mailed (i.e. no e-), so start printing and get to the post office. Oh, and it’s only open to entries that correspond to a finished novel.

Dealing with rejections

Current word count: 12,201

Words written today: 568

Words to goal:  27,799/ 352 words a day til end of September

Nothing written yesterday, but I got back on track this morning and hope to not miss a day this week. The good news is, when I do write, I’m usually way over the number of words I need a day to have 40K by the end of the September. The bad news is, what I am writing is not making up for my missed days, and I’d secretly love to be finished earlier than the end of September. We’ll see.

Friends and I both have query letters out with agents right now, and we were chatting the other day about gleaning information from rejections. It’s frustrating to receive a form letter that says the manuscript just isn’t right for them. It would be wonderful to get a letter that gives some specific details about what exactly they don’t like about the manuscript, but that doesn’t happen often mainly because agents don’t have time, and I FULLY understand that.

But there’s another reason I think rejections letters are vague, even when they’re not form letters. I received a lovely and very encouraging personalized rejection letter from one agent who had requested the full manuscript. In it, she said there was “much she enjoyed and admired,” but ultimately, she said she didn’t feel she was the right agent for the book and knew “another agent will feel differently.”

There’s still nothing specific in this letter that could guide me on improving my manuscript, but that’s the point. Sometimes a rejection doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with a book. I’ve read agent Kristin Nelson write on her blog about books that she turned down that went on to do well once they’re published. But Kristin pointed out that the book did well thanks to the work of another agent, and if she had picked it up, the book might not have done as well because she didn’t have the passion for it.

Let’s face it, writing is an art and art is subjective. Some people love the Harry Potter books passionately, others enjoy them but didn’t rush to buy the last book when it was released, others might read them in a pinch at the doctor’s office. But for an agent, who’s going to go out and sell a book, there has to be real passion for the writing and subject matter and story and characters. If not, that agent might not be able to sell the book as well as another agent who has that kind of passion for it.

Of course, there are some reasons why queries and/or manuscripts are rejected. The Adventurous Writer blog lists 17 reasons given by agent Janet Reid, editor Julie Scheina and reviewer Haile Ephron. Some are misuse of the English language, boring writing, too complex a plot, too many stock characters…

These are all good things to think about when we’re considering sending out our work. As writers, we should look at our work with an honest eye — a really honest eye, after we haven’t looked at it for a few weeks to a month and the excitement of finishing and revising and revising has worn off — and see whether we can truly say that our manuscript and query letter suffers from NONE of these. If that’s the case, then we could send it out. If not, then we should keep revising.

But if we can say that we truly believe our manuscript or query letter has none of these problems, then we should look at rejections with less frustration. Because, like Kristin Nelson points out, agents do think differently, and it’s out job to keep persevering until we find the RIGHT agent for our work.

How’s your writing coming?

Write On!

Preparation is key

As I was doing more research on agents yesterday, I ran across a thread on the AbsoluteWrite.com message boards. If you haven’t been on these boards before, they can be very handy. I was searching for information about an agent who doesn’t give interviews and doesn’t have any kind of web presence, and on the message boards I found messages from writers who had queried the agent, response times and links to other information.

But one message stuck out to me. A writer said she had queried an agent and got a request for a partial, which is awesome. The sad part was that the writer went on to say that her partial wasn’t yet fully revised, so she had to send it out early.

I don’t know what happened with this writer and her partial. Maybe she got representation. I hope so. But if she knew her partial wasn’t ready for publication, i.e. still needed revision, I’m going to bet that agent knew it too. Consequently, the writer most likely blew it with that agent. She lost an opportunity. (P.S. I was just checking out my regular blogs and found a Q&A post from agent Kate Schafer-Testerman in which she says this. Click here then scroll down to the question from @jjochwat. Note that when she says if there’s a no, revise then resend elsewhere, meaning the writer blew the chance with that agent for that project.) (P.P.S. Guess this is a hot topic today. Here’s a post from agent Jessica Faust about making sure you edit your manuscript before you query. She also encourages writers to move on to their next book, saying, “Agents and especially publishers want career novelists, authors who will write book after book after book.” That’s what I’m moving onto now.)

Before you send out anything to agents, you have to be prepared. You’ve worked hard on your book, so give it the best possible chance during the submission process. Remember, if an agent says no, 90% of the time, that’s no to the project, not no to this version of the project. If they see the book again, they’ll remember and reject it automatically. So first impressions count, and you have to make sure they’re the best.

How do you prepare? First, don’t even think about querying an agent until you believe your manuscript is ready for publication. You’ve done all your revisions, got the plot and structure down, deleted passive language, fixed pacing problems, fully developed the characters, corrected grammatical errors, cut scenes or words or paragraphs that didn’t add to story or character — you want it to truly shine. When you read through it for the umpteenth time, you shouldn’t be bored; it should be that entertaining. That’s when you start thinking about querying an agent.

When you’re ready to query agents, research them. Build a master list of all the agents who handle the types of books you write — think long-term here; you want an agent you can work with for a career. (Granted, you can start doing this research between drafts of your manuscript, just don’t query them until your manuscript is absolutely polished.) Once you’ve got the master list, start researching the agents themselves through interviews, news items, sales, etc. Is this a person who has the same sensibilities as you, the same goals for their books, the same outlook? Again, think long-term. Is this a person you think you’d like to work with for a long time? List the agents in order of who you think you would like to work with most. I put all this information in an Excel spreadsheet, but do whatever works for you.

Once you’ve got you’re agent list, research their submission guidelines and add those to the list. Now you can see what you’ll need to prepare before you start querying. Some agents will want only a query letter, some the first few pages of your book, some a synopsis. Depending on what your ideal agents want, prepare it. When I was preparing, some of the agents wanted a synopsis, which is generally around four pages. But one agent wanted a two-page synopsis. For me, that’s a little tight, but I wrote my regular synopsis first, then prepared a two-page for that agent. I wrote a skeleton query letter with story blurb and information about me, then I personalized that with information about each agent letting them know why I was interested in working with them.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: This is a lot of work, and I’m so anxious to get my work out there. I fully understand. In the past, I’ve sent out my work before it was ready. But here’s the thing — I was roundly rejected. And I can’t blame the agents. They were right. My work at that time was not ready for publication. (This was a different project from the one I’m currently submitting.) Unfortunately, I wasted their time and mine, as well as tasted the bitterness of rejection, all because I wasn’t fully prepared.

This time, I prepared myself for whatever the agents wanted initially and whatever they would need if they requested more. I’ve polished my entire manuscript, so I can send out fulls with no worries. Whatever they ask for, I’m ready to provide it. It has already come in handy, but more on that another time.

So, give your book — and yourself — the best possible chance at success by being fully prepared before you send out your first query letter.

Write On!

Researching agents

 I did it! I’ve send off my first submissions for my novel. Queries went out to agents this morning and to two editors I met at the SCBWI Houston conference. I’ll let you know the results.

As I was finishing up these submissions, I was doing some more final research on the agents and came across a site that I had heard about at my critique group and promptly forgot: QueryTracker.net. The site offers similar research opportunities as AgentQuery.com, which I used to get my master list of agents, except, I believe, QueryTracker.net also tracks response times from agents.

I came across the site through a blog I found called Literary Rambles, which posts some really useful agent spotlights. The blog’s writer, Casey McCormick, has compiled info and links for a bunch of agents, some which aren’t very easy to find online, so thanks, Casey. I’ve put her blog in my blog roll under Blogs By Writers, so check it out.

But in her latest post, Casey talks about the importance of researching agents before you send to them, something I’ve talked about a lot on Day By Day Writer. Casey also provided a post in which QueryTracker.net’s Elana Johnson lays out how to research agents.

It’s really worth it to do this work. Not only do targeted query letters save time for you and the agent, you’ll get fewer automatic rejections. Rejections aren’t nice anytime, so why put yourself in the path of one by sending to an agent who doesn’t handle the kind of books you write? Research, research, research.

Write On!

How to query

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner has an interesting post up today about query letters. It seems that a group of writers got together, worked on their query letters together then hired someone to submit them. The problem is the person who was hired didn’t properly research the agents or their guidelines, resulting in rejections for the writers and, I would guess, a waste of their time and money.

It’s a wonderful idea that in our busy life, we can concentrate on writing and leave the submitting to someone else, but, if you have spent all this time making your book the best that it can be, would you want to leave its future up to someone else?

Now, I’ve never used or even researched services such as these, and maybe there are good ones. But, if you’re going to use one, let Rachelle’s post be a cautionary tale and research them well.

However, keep in mind this: No one will care about the future of your book more than you. No one will care enough to spend the time researching agents for just the perfect ones, researching their submission guidelines and tailoring the query letter to them specifically. All of these things will give your book its best chance of getting noticed, so they’re all important and should be done right.

Remember literary agent Jennifer Jackson’s Letter From the Query Wars blogs posts: Last week she read 205 queries and asked for partials from 3 — just 3 out of 205! Imagine if out of those 205, she had 12 that all read the same way, were received the same day one after another and didn’t follow her guidelines, like those Rachelle received. Do you think any of those 12 would have been in the 3? I’m sorry to say that I don’t think so. As Rachelle pointed out, even if all those 12 were great query letters and did follow her guidelines, Jennifer wouldn’t be interested in following up on 12 books that are all the same. And she’d probably be a little suspicious. I would.

Don’t short-change your book. After you’ve done all the work on writing and revising your manuscript, take the time to write a great individual query letter that will stand out in the crowd; research the best agents for your particular work — not just your genre, but your style too — research their guidelines, the ones from their website not a book that might not be up to date; research their style of working, read their blog if they have one, their clients, their clients’ books to make sure your work will fit with them; then tailor your query letter to each one of those, personalizing the letter.

Give your book the best advocate it can have: You.

Write On!

More on the importance of a brilliant query letter

I’ve written about this a few times before, and the more I read about query letters, the more I see that spending time making your query perfect is as important as time spent making your manuscript perfect.

Literary agent Nathan Bransford had a post this week about working with new agents and in it, a link to a speech by best-selling author Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, etc.) about how he got his agent. Have a read. It’s a fun piece. But here’s the part I want to point out:

A typical agent in New York gets 400 query letters a month. Of those, they might ask to read 3-4 manuscripts, and of those, they might ask to represent 1 The odds are tough, but not impossible, and that’s why I believe that a good query letter is the single most important page that any unknown, unpublished author will ever write.

I worked hard on mine; 17 drafts over two weeks and I did my best to make sure every word counted.

Nicholas Sparks’ success is unquestionable, and his road to publication began when he spent two weeks writing and revising his query letter. (Note that, if you read more of his speech, he got nos from all the agents he sent to except a new agent who had been passed his query from someone else in that agency. So, even after two weeks of work, the odds were still tight.)

To show how competitive this is, check out literary agent Jennifer Jackson’s blog every Friday when she posts Letters From the Query Wars. At the top, she lists the number of queries she read this week, the number of partials/manuscripts she requested and their genre. This past week, she read 158 queries and requested 0, none, nada.

There are a number of possible reasons for this, including a query letter could be brilliant but not her cup of tea. But all 158 of them? I doubt it. Those query letters really need to shine.

I’ve also written before about being picky when it comes to getting an agent. New writers often feel so grateful for any attention that they’ll sign on the dotted line for anyone with a pulse and an interest. But this is our career that we’re setting up, and an agent is someone we’ll work with for a long long time. So, it’s ok to be choosy and make sure it’s a good match. (This is why it’s important to research the agents you send to before you send out your queries.) Check out this post from literary agent Rachelle Gardner about the best way to fire an agent — a situation you don’t want to be in. The post is very interesting and offers great advice. But here’s something I thought was good in one of the comments:

I made a mistake and signed with the first agent who’d take me on. If my experience can teach just one lesson, let it be this: the author-agent relationship is like a marriage. Be just as careful in getting into one as the other.

This author ended up terminating the relationship with her first agent and thankfully signed with another agent more suited later. Congrats. But if you can avoid it, do. Research research research, write, revise, revise.

Make your query count. Your manuscript and your career will thank you.

Write On!