I'm Agented! And also, Thoughts on Querying
Hey everyone!
If you keep up with me on social media (or you’re a family member) you’ve probably already seen that I’m now agented by Paul Lucas at Janklow & Nesbit, with Eloy Bleifuss assisting.
I’m excited! And also slightly nauseous.
I’ve been in various writing circles long enough to know that, if you’re a writer who wants to pursue traditional publishing, getting agented is not the end, by any means. Check out A.M. Kvita’s newsletter issue “You need so many yeses” for a small bit of what I mean by that.
Anyway, I’ve heard stories from writers who didn’t get a publishing deal till their second, fourth, sixth book, not to mention the books written before getting agented. I’ve heard from writers who got their book published, only for the publisher to pass on the next one. I’ve heard from writers who’ve had to move on to another agent when the initial book, or the second or the third, never sold, or the writer and their agent ultimately concluded they weren’t career fits at all.
None of which I anticipate happening for myself! Or rather, I hope it won’t. But I’m a jaded elder millennial and I’ve lost a lot of the starry-eyed hope I had when I was a preteen scribbling ideas in my brand-new college-rule notebook (because I was a mature, Experienced 12-year-old with neat handwriting who didn’t need wide-rule, natch) and including annotations such as “I just KNOW this is going to be an NYT Bestseller!”
Or, to put a more positive spin on it, I’m more of a realist, now. I do still have hopes of getting my books, plural intentional, out in the world, and because I’ve seen a bit of how much work indie publishing takes, I don’t currently want to go that route. But I know that being agented, while a definite positive step forward, is no guarantee.
However, that’s all still in my future! What I thought I’d do here is sum up my thoughts on querying and what advice I’ve got as someone who did it successfully in 2022.
Querying, How Do? (At least according to one person)
Be prepared for it to take a while.
I’ll be honest—I lucked out with my query timeline. I had my first offer of rep just a little after 4 months of querying. This is atypical in the current landscape. Most writers I’ve chatted with in various spaces who’ve queried in the pandemic times didn’t get an offer of rep till they’ve been at it for closer to a year. Things are just slow right now. That it was faster for me I attribute to mostly luck.
Make your query package as strong as it can be from the get-go.
Okay, here is where luck wasn’t (wholly) a factor. I had my first two full requests within 48 hours of sending my first query. From this, I take it my query and opening pages were strong from the start and set me up in a good position. My process of creating my query package:
Write a book and revise it to make it good (duh, but also, if you’re like me and thrive on external deadlines/cheerleading, look into a mentorship program or find a critique partner(s) who can help motivate you and encourage you to keep going).
Write a strong query letter. Send your draft to multiple folks, both those who’ve read your book but also ones who are completely new to it. My query letter has a long history:
First version: 2018, to go along with an earlier draft of the in-progress book I took to the Futurescapes workshop.
[Write and revise book rest of 2018 and into early 2019. Get critiques on book from writing group. Flounder about how to address their feedback. Have a baby mid-2019. Put writing put on hold due to infant care and then a global pandemic.]
[Claw way back into writing in 2021. Begin revising book again.]
Next version of query letter: fall 2021 to throw my hat into PitchWars. Don’t make PitchWars, but get a mentor and a support group! (Hi, Kvita and Raft-mates!)
Next version: March 2022 for Futurescapes, again, with letter based on the revision-in-progress. Actually absorb more of the advice there, particularly from C.L. Polk re: ensuring the part of the book that excites you makes into the query.
Next version: June/July 2022, based on queryable version of book. Send to mentor and several other writers—I think seven more?—collecting critiques from folks who’d read the book, others who’d read just the synopsis, and others who’d read neither.
Final version: late July 2022! Send into the world, i.e., to agents!
Write a decent synopsis, ideally one-page since writing synopses sucks. Most agents will accept the one-page version, saving you from having to do more work on a second version. (Tip: I wrote my first draft of my synopsis on my phone, without referencing my book. This helped my draft come in very close to the one-page needed because it forced me to be naturally shorter, unlike this newsletter that I’m writing on my computer with my 24” monitor and nice ergonomic keyboard, entirely lacking physical inducements to brevity. Sorry!)
Prioritize fast responders.
Here’s where we start getting into the “what I would do differently” aspect of my advice. Because while I did make sure to include some fast responders in my first batch, it was maybe a third of my queries. If I had to query again, I’d try to put more fast-responders in my first batch, the idea being to get feedback if your query package is working ASAP (again, I had evidence early on mine was). My primary source for figuring out who were fast responders was Query Tracker.
Don’t rely on/hope for agent feedback.
When I was first gearing up to query, the widespread recommendation was to send queries in batches so that you could revise your query, or even your book, based on agent feedback, then send out another batch. Readers, I never got any feedback on my query other than “Not for me/not for my list” or “Send me more!” And of course there were plenty of no-responders.
Even when it came to feedback on the full, the only actionable feedback I got came from the offering agents. The agents who rejected my full either gave no feedback at all, or it was a vague taste thing, or it was a one-liner on an aspect I wasn’t sure I wanted to change anyway. Nothing I could actually work with—with the possible exception of the agent who said they’d have offered an R&R if I didn’t already have an offer. But I hope a true R&R would’ve had more detail.
This is not a knock against the agents. I’m a first reader for Diabolical Plots. I’ve also peer-critiqued numerous short stories and novels. I know how long it can take to craft helpful comments. I get that there simply isn’t enough time to offer feedback when one receives hundreds of queries a week, has actual clients to work for, has a family, friends, and a life, and maybe even another job. But as of 6 months ago Google’s top hits for “how to query agents” were training writers to expect agent feedback. Google hasn’t caught up to the current reality.
If you have evidence your query package is working, ignore rounds/batches. Shoot off as many queries as you can stand.
Now, everything worked out happily for me in the end, and relatively fast at that, but in hindsight, once I had those first two full requests, I should’ve tried to hit my full query list. Because while querying isn’t fully a numbers game—a poorly written book won’t net an agent, at least not a reputable one, and querying picture book agents with a gory horror novel isn’t likely to work out—the numbers do have an impact.
I know this from submitting short stories. On average, I have to submit a story seven times before it’ll be accepted. Sure, sometimes I luck out and the first market snaps it right up; other times it takes 17 markets; and other times I trunk the story because it’s made the rounds to 20ish markets and no one took it. It doesn’t make sense to give up after a handful of markets (or agents).
But I also said “as many queries as you can stand.” Mental health is factor here. Resentment over having to use precious writing time for sending queries (in my case) is a factor. In hindsight, yes, I would’ve pushed myself to send off more queries sooner—but I suspect that my own limits are probably in the realm of 15 per week. After that, my crankiness over what can feel like a thankless task sets in, my eyes blur from computer strain, or I start stressing over whether I typo’d someone’s name. Sending three queries per weekday I think would’ve been manageable for me.
Pitch Events.
I’m aware that “pitch events” is not a sentence or even a fragment that hints at advice. That’s because while I participated in Twitter pitch events and connected with Paul through one, they all took place in the pre-Elon era. I have no idea what will happen with them now. If Twitter keeps limping along, they can be worth it. But Twitter pitches are hard to write, at least for me, and the algorithm isn’t particularly kind, and it can be deflating for your best-beloved pitch to get likes only from well-meaning friends who aren’t agents. (I speak from experience here. I was moderately successful with most pitch events and usually had a handful of agent likes collected from all my pitches, but I’m not an active enough Twitter participant for the algorithm to float me to the top. The events are also stressful and usually meant that I lost the bulk of that day’s writing time to them.) Overall I say it’s a case of “know thyself” to participate in these, but it doesn’t hurt to try at least one.
Assuming they continue to exist in the future, that is.
Prioritize your mental health.
Cycling back a moment to “send as many queries as you stand”: mental health is at least a factor of why I didn’t press myself to send more. I overall like Query Tracker and find it valuable, but it can drive you batty to see that Agent Coolpants responded to mumblety-teen queries after yours. Why not yours? Did it get lost, where “it” could be either the query or the response? Does Agent Awesomeshirt group all the fantasy queries together and go through them at the same time, so your query is being judged against all the other fantasy queries? I mean, yes of course your query, or rather the book it presents, is being judged; that’s a big part of how this works. But anxietybrain can get on the Hamster Wheel of Fruitless Questions and do a lot of spinning.
I signed up for Premium Query Tracker knowing that I was likely to have a Hamster Wheel period until the novelty of querying wore off. That’s what happened with my short story submissions and the Submissions Grinder. I was right, and eventually the desire to check in on my queries every day faded, so overall I was glad to have QT as a resource. But it’s another “Know Thyself” case.
Rejections, though. They suck. They can suck more depending on what else is going on in your life. Rejection days when I’d had poor sleep and dealt with a tantrumming toddler, or when some short story rejections had also come in, were harder to deal with. Others I could shake off. “Agent Thrillingsocks rejected my book but WHO CARES MAMA GOT TWO SHORT STORY ACCEPTANCES ON THE SAME DAY! AH YISSSS!!!!”*
It goes in waves. I used to feel like I needed to force myself past the rejections (short story and other) and just press harder, but now? If my mental health is truly suffering, I take a break. And that’s my recommendation to querying writers. Rejection is part of the process, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any less bruising. If you need a day or a week or a month to sit in the sunshine or pet a dog or cat (hopefully your own, stranger dogs and cats may not like being petted, at least ask their human first) or play video games or go running or whatever puts you back on an even keel, do that. Publishing will still be there when you’re ready, and it’ll still be a grind. Make sure your loins are girded.
That’s what I’ve got, folks! I hope the beginning of 2023 has treated you well. If you’re a writer, may the words be ever in your favor, and if you’re not, may your chosen endeavors be in your favor, too.