How to Query and Get an Agent

How Not to Query and Get an Agent

Resources:

Query Tracker http://querytracker.net/

You can use query tracker to keep up with your queries, but the real use of this gem of a site is that it gives you insight about how long it usually takes an agent to respond. With so many agents using the no-response-means-no, it’s great to have an idea of whether the agent you’re querying takes a shorter or longer amount of time to respond when they request pages. Sign up for a free account and check out the comments for the agents you’re querying.

Query Shark http://queryshark.blogspot.com/

Janet Reid, a literary agent at FPLM takes readers’ queries and tears them to bits with her delightfully snarky advice. Start at the beginning and read these before you write or send your query in. Every. Single. One.

Publishers Marketplace http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/

If you’re serious enough about writing to query, you need to suck it up and pay the $20/month to have access to his site. While agents and editors self-select to include their sales here, why would you want to query someone who doesn’t have any sales listed? Or someone who has not managed to make a sale to a NY publisher? This site is also helpful for figuring out which agents represent books like yours and which agents regularly get those change-your-life advances everyone dreams of.

Preditors and Editors http://pred-ed.com/

To be honest, I didn’t use this one much because I only queried agents with documented sales on Publishers Marketplace and agencies that were well known. It doesn’t hurt to check, though.

Nathan Brandford’s Blog http://blog.nathanbransford.com/

Agent-turned-middle grade writer Nathan Bransford is an amazing source for clear explanations on everything from how to write a query to what to expect from an agent.

Google: Seriously. Before you even thing about querying an agent or editor, Google the bejeezus

out of him or her. Read every interview, review, or website you can get your hands on. Know who that person is and who they work for. Don’t blind or mass query—do your research. In the age of Google, there’s no excuse not to.

          

The Nuts and Bolts of a Query Letter:

There are eleventy-million sites and books about how to write a query. Go. Read them. Find examples. Copy those examples. This is not the place to let your inner oddball show through.

·      Single-page business letter

·      State the title, word count, and that you are looking for representation somewhere (usually the beginning)

·      Include a Hook, Mini-Synopsis, and a short Bio—in that order (3-4 paragraphs)

*Start with your protagonist.

*Make the setting clear early on

*The synopsis should read like back-cover copy

·      For romance, you MUST give an indication of the conflict and the stakes in the relationship. The HEA is presumed, so why else would the agent want to read?

·      Contact Information- professional email, phone that your child/cat/boss won’t answer, address

Hints and Tips:

* Don’t Query Until You’re Ready to Let It Go

If you’re still tweaking and writing, don’t query. If you’re still so in love with everything about the story that ohmygodI’lljustdieifitdoesn’tgetpublishded!!!!!  Don’t query. When your manuscript is as good as you feel you can make it and when you’re ready to move on to another project, query.

* Make Friends With A Spreadsheet

I called mine The Reject File. I had the name of the agent, agency, email address, whether they responded or did a no-response thing, the average time for response, actual response, and pages sent. My spreadsheet kept me sane.

* Sell Your Talent, Not Your Book

Sure, you have a book you want to sell. That’s why you’re querying, isn’t it? NOPE! You don’t want to sell a book. You want to sell lots and lots of books. You want a career. To get that, you need to have an agent who wants you as a writer, not just this one shot at one book. Make your query about showing what you can do as a writer just as much as it tells about your one book.

*Put Away The Crazy

If you want to be represented by a professional, act like one. Put away the ego, put away the strange fonts, ridiculous claims about your book’s brilliance, impulse to call and check up on your query, glitter, chocolate bribes, threats, and any other impulse you have that you think will make you stand out. YOU don’t want to stand out. You want your writing to stand out.

* You’re Not JK Rowling, Nora Roberts, or Stephanie Meyer (yet)

Unless you’re making a comparison that elucidates something important about your book (other than its possibility of making the agent a ton of money), do not compare it to any of the big-named books.  Also, I’d watch comparing it to books/authors your agent already represents. Why do they need two of the same thing?

*Sit On It

So you have the perfect query, your pages are polished to a gleaming shine, and you’re ready! Great. Now sit on it for a week. Seriously. Just close that file. Don’t even peek at it for at least seven days. After that cooling off period, take another look and see what you think. If you make any changes, sit on it again.

*Query Like It’s Your Job

If you’re serious about being published, be serious about querying. No one is going to come knocking on your door, agents are not going to ask twice for pages, and nothing is going to happen unless you make it happen. Set a schedule for your queries, keep clear records, devote a portion of each day or week to querying and stick to it until you either have an agent or decide the manuscript is dead.

*Embrace Rejection, Revel In It

Did you notice how my query file was called The Reject File? Yeah, that. 

You don’t have to be pessimistic, but you need to expect rejection. It’s gonna happen, and that first no is going to hurt. You’re going to panic and go back to your query and your book and wonder if it’s good enough or if you did something wrong. The chances of a first-time writer getting their very first manuscript accepted from the very first agent they query who then sells it in the very first round of submissions is slim-to-what-have-you-been-smoking.

It’s going to happen. It is. Every rejection is one step closer to the yes. Check them off on your spreadsheet, pout or cry or drink or whatever, and then let it go and keep writing.

*Know When It’s Time to Move On

            Okay, so I lied. It might not happen. But that’s okay. You’re a writer. You wrote one

thing, and maybe the next thing you write (because you will write a next thing) will be the one. Make sure that you’re the one to decide when enough’s enough so that you’re not querying out of desperation. Do you really want that agent no one’s ever heard of just because he’s the only one that will take your book?

*Just Keep Writing

Everyone will tell you this, and at some point you will want to smack them all. Resist and get your butt back into the chair and your fingers on the keyboard. If you get an agent, he or she is going to want you to write more than one book. No sense making them wait. Remember, writing is the thing that keeps you sane.  Or is that just me?

Query Ninja: Skinniness is Next to Goddessness

This is the first in what I'm hoping will be a monthly query critique series. Be sure to check out my Query info page if you want more information about what makes a good (and a great) query, and what you can do to make yours shine. 

Today's first victim volunteer is Julia S. (my comments are in the green)

Lacey Steele believes she would “kill to be thin,” until the expression becomes a tragic reality. Maybe more direct? "Until she almost does..."

Fifteen year-old Lacey is faced with the daily torment of her Mother’s disdain and obvious preference for her sister Charity, aka Mother’s clone, insults that would put any feuding rapper to shame by diva extraordinaire, Jamie, and even her supposed best friend Tucker’s decision to not be seen with her in public, and all for one reason.

This sentence is a bit unwieldy. I had to go back over it to figure out where the parts were. I'd suggest either re-organizing it so you have shorter, choppier sentences, or possibly even cutting it to get to the next part, which grabbed my attention faster with its blunt forthrightness.

Lacey is fat.

But she’s over it. [Is she tired of being fat? Or literally, she was fat but isn't any longer? Maybe make it more clear if the book starts when she's fat or if it starts at the point where she's already lost the weight.] After a lucky bout with the stomach flu, Lacey drops fifteen pounds in a flash and reaches celebrity status at Woodlands High. 

The difference between she's fat and the 15-lb weight loss strikes me as odd. When it says "she's fat," I'm picturing someone who's quite large, but 15 lbs wouldn't make that much difference. Or is it that she *thinks* and *feels* fat?  The other thing you might want to tease out a bit more is what causes the celebrity status? It seems like a big jump (from the first paragraph), and you might need a bit more to show whether the status is because the school is really that shallow or if it's more of her perception.

Armed with such a simple solution, Lacey and her friend Ashley slash calories to the point where the rumblings of their stomachs keep them up at night. But even hunger can’t dissuade them when the numbers on the scale drop so fast.

When the bill for her rash actions comes due, trendy thinness isn’t worth the price extracted from Lacey. Can she overcome the fruits her foolish plan leaves her with, guilt and pain?

"the bill for her rash actions comes due" and "fruits of her foolish plan" seem to skirt the issue. HOW do the actions come due? Does someone die (which is your hook, above)? Does someone get sick? And what are the fruits? The celebrity?

 Is it possible to love herself just the way she is? Skinniness is Next to Goddessness? is a 70,000 word YA contemporary stand alone novel with series potential.

Don't forget a brief bio.

Suggestions:

1. Think about overall tone. I love the voice of this, but it didn't strike me in tone as issue-driven book, so it was a bit surprising to get to the dark twist at the end. I'm a big believer that your query has to sound like/feel like your book. This has a great light and almost snarky tone ("she's over it," "fifteen pounds in a flash"), but I'm thinking that's not the book you wrote.

2. You start with a great hook- she'd kill to be thin...you'll want that to come full circle in the query. Does she (almost) kill herself or her friends with her plan? It's implied, but not completely clear.

3. I think the other thing that will help make this query really stand out is if you can find a way to tell us who Lacey is. We know she's fat, and we know she likes the perks of celebrity, but who is she, really? That first paragraph about all she deals with, I think, can be the key to this. She's got to be damn strong to deal with all of that heaped on her, but the overall query gives the impression that she's not strong. You may want to give the sense that she's someone to root for, and even the weight loss starts as something the reader might root for...until it takes a more sinister turn.

4. Maybe consider a one-sentence pitch in here somewhere near the end to wrap it all up: "Skinniness is Next to Goddessness is...."

       -an emotional story about how friendships can survive...

       -a dark comedy about the culture that drives girls to diet to death...

       -a [description] about [theme]

Finally, you might want to try to tie in the title a bit more. It's such a cute title, but why "Goddessness"? When I first read it, I wondered if it would have a mythology twist...but it's clear that it doesn't from your query. Maybe bring that word--Goddess--back in somehow. Is Lacey searching for her inner-Goddess? Does she learn that Goddesses come in all shapes and sizes? 

Hope that helps! Good luck in the Query Trenches and be sure to let us know how it goes!!

Blog Kickoff and Contest!

Hi!

Welcome to my shiny new blog!

My first book, SWEET UNREST, will be out October 2014 from Flux books. It's about New Orleans and Hoodoo and ghosts and century-old curses and smooching.

I know. Exciting, right?

So I figured I should probably have a blog. I used to have a blog, but that one mostly talked about my kids and grad school and blah blah blah. Nobody wants to hear about that.

THIS blog is going to talk about writing. And books. And writers. And literature type things.

What can I say, it's what I do.

You know the best part? I'm not going to be the only one posting here!

Here's what I have planned for you:

Must Read Mondays: Books that I think everyone needs to read. Like. Right. Now. I promise they'll be good. And sometimes, I'll even have giveaways.

First Line Fridays: Get ready, because I have authors booked through the summer to give us sneak peaks of the first lines of their upcoming books.

Keep Going: Ever wanted to just throw in the towel? Occasionally, I'll be featuring the stories of authors who almost gave up...and what happened when they didn't. Because let's face it--we all need a shot of hope every now and then, right?

Author Interviews: I have a pile of ARCs that are just itching for a new home. Sometimes I'll have authors on to talk about them--and I'm giving the books away to you!

Query Critiques: Here's the deal--I'm kind of pretty good when it comes to queries. I can whip yours into shape in no time, so once a month (lucky 13!), I'll be giving away a query critique to one lucky commenter. If you're willing to let the whole world see, I'm willing to give you a free query.

Sound good?

Yeah--I thought you might like that.

Oh, right. And there's one more thing. To kick off my blog, I'm hosting my first giveaway--and it's a big one. I have four ARCs--that's right, FOUR! And they're REALLY good ones. Check it out:

The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings
Unforgotten by Jessica Brody
Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman
and
The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski

All four are going to one lucky winner (US only, please!)

So you want to enter?

Of course you do!

Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below and leave a comment telling me which book you're most excited for in 2014.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

New Year, New Blog

2014 is here, and it's a year I didn't really think would ever come... It's the year I will have a book-shaped thing with my name on it sitting on a shelf somewhere. It's the year I go from being  a writer to an author.

Someone smarter than me once said begin as you mean to go on, so I'm starting this year by officially making this blog a thing. I'll be updating it fairly regularly with guest posts, interviews, and news about SWEET UNREST. 

I might even do some Query Critiques or other fun things for writers. 

And giveaways. LOTS of giveaways. I have two shelves full of 2014 ARCs that need homes, and I'm making it my job to set them free into the world.

So come follow me on Twitter.

Like my Facebook Page.

Checkout my life on Instagram.

and Watch as I try to figure out what Tumblr is all about.

Because I want to send YOU a book :O)

Happy new year! And happy reading!