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The One Right Way to Write a Query

May 2, 2011 in Queries | 27 comments

Gotcha. There isn’t one. But as you can tell from the comments on last week’s query post, and several other query posts I’ve written, everyone is still obsessed with query letters. Even after I’ve implied that everyone is overthinking it and should simmer down.

Why are people so obsessed?

  1. Queries are your first contact with an agent, your foot in the door, your first impression.
  2. They have an overwhelming amount of perceived importance: if this letter isn’t awesome, the book won’t get read, I’ll never be published, etc.
  3. There are so many opinions out there about queries…from message threads to entire blogs devoted solely to queries.
  4. Writers don’t have a slush pile to read so they have no context for what a bunch of real, live queries actually looks like (or any idea of how many people they will outshine just by writing their letters in basic, grammatical English).

And I get it. I’m not trying to poke fun at how fixated writers are on query letters, nor to diminish their importance. But I always get really frustrated with writers who start freaking out.

Here’s my take on it: the writing sample is so much more important than the query. The query is a 250 or so word cover letter that is meant to introduce the agent to a writer’s premise and qualifications in a snappy, enticing way. That’s all.

The basic query has the following parts (in no particular order):

  1. Salutation (“Dear Ms. Kole” or “Dear Mary” are much better than “Dear Agent.”)
  2. Hook (A one-line “Hollywood” or “elevator” pitch) optional
  3. Query meat (the good stuff, all about your book…here‘s how to write it)
  4. Biographical information (preferably short, to the point, and full of only relevant information)
  5. Agent personalization (“I’m querying you because…”)
  6. Vital statistics (“BOOK is a 50,000 word YA manuscript. The full is available for your request. This is a simultaneous submission.”)
  7. Your sign-off and contact information (“I look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely,…”)

Some people put a hook at the beginning, then the meat, as shown above. Others put the personalization, omit the hook, and dive into the meat. The salutation always goes first, the vital statistics and the sign-off usually go last. In between? You can make it your own.

Looking at the comments, I’m seeing writers who are so overwhelmed by the different advice available on queries that they’re really frustrated, some almost to the point of shouting “Just tell me the way to do it and I’ll do it!”

Well, I can’t give you the perfect formula for the perfect query. Why? Because:

  1. I’m just one agent…we all have our preferences and mine may not be the same as a colleague’s at a different agency…or even a colleague’s at my own agency.
  2. Not every writer who will ever write a query will read this blog and “get the memo.”
  3. For every person who can think about a task and follow directions, there are a dozen who can’t and won’t and will misspell your name, to boot.
  4. It’s really not about satisfying my tastes in query letters, it’s about writing your own and not worrying whether or not you’ve used my favorite word or formatting quirk. I really don’t care. Honestly. Please believe me. I have many other things to think about.

Every query that I’ve ever loved, for every client that I’ve ever taken on, for every project I’ve sold, has been different. There’s no secret formula that we’re all keeping from you. I’m not staying up at night, tossing and turning, because you put your bio paragraph before your salutation. By the time I’m reading the manuscript and loving it, the query is a fuzzy memory that I usually dig up only when I’m writing my own pitch letter for the project, just for fun. I don’t think I’ve ever read the perfect query, nor am I convinced that such a thing exists. There are queries I’ve loved, like Karsten Knight’s for WILDEFIRE, but copying that query and substituting your own details, like one writer actually did on a message board a few weeks ago, isn’t going to work. It’s his query and shone so much for the exact reason that it had his unique personality in it.

That’s why I don’t like agency submission forms that ask you to fill in all the details of your book according to my preferences. I really do want to see what you do with the query. Not because it will determine your fate or the fate of your book or your life, but because it’s another way I get to learn about you as a writer. I know I’ll get some pushback on this post, but I don’t care.

Write your query, try and follow the advice you’ve read that makes sense to you, put it away, revise it, get some feedback from your critique group, and then go back to the more important thing: your manuscript.

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Avoid The Obvious In a Query

April 25, 2011 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 24 comments

I’ve been seeing some query letters lately that state the obvious. It’s unnecessary. For example, you don’t need to waste your time writing any of the following:

I am querying you for possible representation of my novel.
I am writing to you because I would like representation from a literary agent.
Publishing a novel is my goal.

Etc. I’m an agent with a submissions pile. If I get an email to that inbox, I know exactly what it is, exactly what it’s doing there, and the exact intentions of the email’s author: to publish something with the aid of a literary agent. You really don’t need to waste the time or words and state the obvious.

Also, don’t give the agent instructions. For example:

Please read the following sample pages and reply if interested.
Contact me to discuss representation.
If interested, please reply and I will submit a partial or full manuscript.

This may be your first query, but it’s not my first time getting one, by any stretch of the imagination. If I’m interested in your project, I know exactly what to do. Leave tips and pointers out of your query as well and let me do my job. Instead of these inane and obvious phrases, do your query job and make me care about the character and plot, instead. That’s really the heart of the letter, and you can see my tips for doing just that here.

None of these little phrases are an automatic rejection, per se, but they do indicate to me — perhaps unjustly, but they do indicate it nonetheless — a lack of higher order logic or thought put into the query. So make sure you’re not sending that message.

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You Need a Complete Manuscript

April 13, 2011 in Agent, Publishing | 8 comments

I’m surprised by the number of times I’ve gotten this one recently. But everyone learns new things at different times and new readers are always showing up, so I am happy to repeat more basic information.

When you’re a debut writer looking to publish in children’s books, you will need a complete manuscript 99% of the time (especially in the case of my readers, who are primarily fiction writers). That means that you’ll need a complete manuscript for:

  • Board book
  • Fiction picture books
  • Non-fiction picture books
  • Fiction early readers and chapter books
  • Same for non-fiction (though there are fewer of these on non-fiction shelves)
  • Middle grade fiction and most MG non-fiction
  • YA fiction and most YA non-fiction

The only exception to this rule is if you’re writing older non-fiction, like something for the middle grade or teen age rage or a reference book/textbook. And picture books from author/illustrators will, of course, need to have a dummy attached with some art sketches.

(Picture book dummy: A sketch version of what the book might look like in real life, with the art and text blocked out on 17 spreads/32 pages. Two or three of the spreads should be rendered as if finished…this is called a “mock finish.” The dummy should convey quickly, with the sketches, and in more detail, with the mock finishes, what the book will ideally look like. If you’re curious about dummies, this explanation is a great resource.)

I bet you’ve heard about a lot of authors selling something “on proposal.” That’s a lot more common with adult non-fiction, a business or diet book, for example, or a cookbook, than it is with children’s books. And in fiction, writers only sell on proposal if:

  • They’re an established author
  • They’ve sold multiple books to this editor before
  • The agent decides the project is really, really strong and wants to entice an editor with a partial
  • You’re working with a book packager and have only developed a sample before going on submission

If none of this applies to you or you’re just starting out with some fiction ideas, I’d urge you to forget the word “proposal” and work on your full manuscript. A large part of the writing craft is reaching the end and starting the revision process. There’s nothing like it. You learn more from finish and revising than you did from just writing the thing out.

If you haven’t had this experience once or several times before trying to approach agents or editors, you most likely will not have all the skills necessary to get edited and published. So plug away and finish. Besides, a strong, complete manuscript is a much more convincing sales piece than just a partial that could potentially fall apart in the execution. Having a full manuscript works to your best advantage and is a huge learning experience.

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Focus Groups and Teen Opinions

March 2, 2011 in Agent, Publishing | 22 comments

This question comes from my Writers Digest webinar. The reader asks:

I recently conducted a focus group made up of 68 teenagers (male & female between the ages of 13-18). I had them read my manuscript and complete an anonymous survey at the end. I received many wonderful comments and scored an 8.5 on a scale of 1-10. Should I mention this in my query to agents or not?

The writer has done a lot of work to reach out to readers, which is always admirable. But does it matter? Will it sway my decision? Not really. Why? Because an agent’s first customers in publishing aren’t teenagers. In the trade process, my customers are publishers: the editors bringing my manuscripts to acquisitions, the sales and marketing people evaluating the work’s sales potential, the finance guys upstairs crunching numbers (in the form of a P&L, a “profit and loss” statement) to determine whether the project makes good business sense to bring to market.

While teens are the “end user” in the YA publishing process, they’re not my first buyer. They’re not even a publisher’s first buyer. After a house buys one of my manuscripts, they will edit it and then pitch it to booksellers and librarians. Those are my customer’s customers. And it’s booksellers and librarians who will then reach out to the teens: my customer’s customers’ customers. So before an actual reader gets their hands on a book, it will have gone through several layers of gatekeepers and decision-makers.

Is a B2B system that ignores its end-user in favor of a customer with more capital a good one? There are people who say that this is one of the things wrong with the publishing business model. Most publishers simply don’t do the kind of “on the ground” research that this writer did for their manuscript. But while these questions and issues are definitely valid, this post isn’t an attempt to address them. And for now, that’s the way things are in the trade publishing landscape.

With the above in mind, I say that I don’t really care what a focus group of teenagers said about a manuscript. Because I’m going to be pitching this project to editors, not teenagers. And most readers who don’t work in publishing and don’t read as much as the people who work in publishing may not have the discerning taste of those who work in publishing, so they’ll usually rate random things pretty highly.

It’s all a matter of context. Agents and editors, who read thousands of manuscripts a year, can be picky and choose the best of the best because they’ve also read the worst of the worst and the meh-est of the mediocre. The average teen who reads maybe a few dozen books a year will see something and think it’s pretty good because, well, why not? They don’t really have to be all that picky and entertainment is entertainment.

This is also why I’m not a fan of sites like Inkpop and Authonomy. Sure, they’re sponsored by HarperCollins, and, sure, highly rated manuscripts posted there get some official Haper eyeballs on them (having spoken to a few of the people who are on duty to vet these manuscripts, I can tell you it’s less glamorous than described), but your chances of getting a book deal out of posting there are still about the same as your chances of going through the slush or self-publishing something that becomes an international bestseller.

Writers often come to me with praise from real, live kids or high ratings on these online writing communities. But since most kid readers and most online community participants don’t have the kind of context and standards that I have — and since they’re not my immediate customers, publishers are — I don’t really weigh their opinions heavily when making my decision. I know that I have to impress publishers first, then impress the reading public with the products that publishers create on my client’s behalf.

I’m an agent. A tastemaker. A gatekeeper. My unique opinion and judgement, after all, is why people come to me in the first place. (And if they don’t like my judgment, they can go to another agent.) My personal list is what I shop around to editors. Who I rep and what projects I attach my name to are a matter of my opinion. When I’m considering a project, that’s the only opinion that matters to me. (And, of course, the opinions of my colleagues and my foreign rights co-agent but you know what I mean).

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Assistant Attitude

February 16, 2011 in Advice, Agent | 32 comments

For my Writer’s Digest webinar, I pledged to answer all the questions sent in by students. This one got me fired up enough to transfer the exchange to the blog:

What can we do to ensure that an actual agent sees my query? I’ve received rejection letters directly from assistants, therefore I know that the agent hasn’t seen my query or sample work. Perhaps the agent would have liked it, but if he or she wasn’t able to see it, then both the agent and I miss out on what could have been a wonderful opportunity.

This writer seems to have what I would call Assistant Attitude. It’s a belief that assistants aren’t really important and that only the big names at an agency can make or break a writer’s chances at representation. A lot of (beginning) writers think very poorly of assistants and are shocked — shocked! — to learn that these are the people reading their queries.

I invite everyone currently suffering from a case of Assistant Attitude to consider, perhaps, the complete opposite viewpoint. The truth is, assistants are amazing. Especially when it comes to going through the slush. First off, they are often the hard-working, unappreciated souls who make sure your queries get a response. Would you rather you submission languish in obscurity while a big shot agent caters to clients, makes book deals, speaks at conferences — you know, agents — for a few months or years, or would you rather an eagle-eyed assistant go through submissions and respond to you in a timely manner?

Here’s another thing to consider: Assistants are hired directly by the agent and know the agent’s tastes intimately. They also tend to pay more attention while reading. Would you rather an assistant read the whole query and sample or the agent glance at it and reject after reading a sentence because they are overwhelmed with a deluge of other submissions?

Assistants are also on the hunt and spend more time and energy giving writers a chance. A really busy agent may not invest a lot of time on a promising-but-not-ready-yet writer. Their assistant, though, could really spearhead a writer’s growth and give someone some editorial feedback, a shot to revise, an invitation to resubmit, a phone call, etc. Some assistants can even take on their own clients (see the Newer vs. Established agent conversation for more thoughts on this). Since this is a chance for an assistant to prove him or herself — and use the training they’ve received directly from the agent you’re targeting — most assistants and new agents are really hungry and eager to lavish prospective clients with attention.

Finally, assistants are often the ones who champion things they find and recommend them to their bosses. “Stop what you’re doing and read this right now. It came in through the slush but it’s really good” is a very compelling argument when it comes from the right source. Who do you think an agent will listen to? A random query or a personal recommendation from their trusted colleague?

I don’t have a full-time assistant because I work from home, but I do have a wonderful, savvy, genius intern-slash-reader. My intern sometimes cruises my slush and picks out which queries sound the most promising. Sometimes, she emails me to tell me that I need to request something ASAP OMG it is the single best thing she’s ever read. (My intern can get really enthusiastic and persuasive.) So what do I do? If I’m near a computer, I zoom immediately over to that query to see what’s getting her so excited, of course. My intern is a tough cookie and has very discriminating taste — like me — and so I trust her judgment completely. When she gets excited, I’m often not far behind.

Assistant Attitude is toxic and it’s actually the writer missing out on the opportunity of a patient, well-trained, excited pair of eyes on their manuscript…and to get a very close ally within the agency they’ve queried. Assistants are people, too, and some of the smartest, brightest, and most dedicated I’ve ever met, to boot.

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Trendwatch 2011

February 4, 2011 in Publishing | 32 comments

So, this post comes with the caveat to NEVER bank on a trend when you’re writing. There are people in my submissions pile still writing vampire paranormal romance, fallen angels, and dystopian. The vampires, I’d say, are very much over and there’s no way for me to convey that nicely. The angels and dystopian will stick around for a while but, by now, with editors’ inboxes so saturated, your premise and writing quality better be unbelievably good in order to stand out. Steampunk and mermaids seem like false trends, unless that rumor about Stephenie Meyer’s next series being mermaid-related is true. But a lot of mermaid books are coming out now and not really hitting as well as I think a lot of publishers have hoped.

Publishers create books two years in advance, usually. With picture books it can take longer. With really hot ticket books that are sold in great shape, it can take a year or so. Still, the average is about two years. This means that if you’re just hearing about a trend or some books coming to market that seem to have a common theme, you’re about a year to two too late (Holy Homophone, Batman!). Don’t start writing to trend when you hear about it. Just don’t do it.

With that caveat, I do have an advance eye on these things, as I see manuscripts before most editors see them. I’ve been catching up on submissions lately and can spot something shimmering in the distance. Dreams. Not only have I seen some dream manuscripts for critique (for example, a manuscript that came in for my Do the Write Thing for Nashville auction) this fall, but now I’m seeing dream-related queries by the truckload.

What do I mean by “dreams”? I’m mostly seeing messed up dreams where people are screwing around with other people’s psyches. Is this a direct result of Inception? Probably. But that’s problematic because Inception is a movie and lives by cinematic rules, and books are fiction, with their own related-yet-different workings. Anyway, I feel like your dream manuscript, if you’re cooking one up, has to be really intelligently done. Inception was mind-boggling and very sophisticated. Dream manuscripts, since you’re dealing in a very freewheeling fantasy, are going to be difficult to believe and even more difficult in terms of world-building, right off the bat. Plus there’s the challenge of something happening entirely in the psychic sphere: it’s all mental. What is your real world, external conflict going to be? You still need one. Anyway. I don’t really envy those with this challenge. It seems tough, and I’m already skeptical. All ye dreamers, beware!

What other trends are you all seeing in your literary travels?

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How Soon Do I Query Again?

January 12, 2011 in Advice, Agent, Publishing, Queries | 12 comments

At last, another good picture book querying question! Plus, this one is useful to novel writers, too (if only a bit less relevant). Read on, everyone! Megan asks:

How often is too often to query an agent with different projects? For example, I’m in the process of sending queries for project A and writing project B. By the time I wait for agent responses to trickle in, I may be ready to query project B. Is it crazy to send another project to an agent who rejected me within 3 or 4 months? Am I just being annoying? Or, since picture book manuscripts can be written, revised, revised, revised, and polished faster than other genres, maybe this frequency for queries is expected?

I tell my picture book writer clients — AND THESE ARE CLIENTS…people who’ve already cleared the “hurdle” — that one out of every ten of their picture book ideas/manuscripts is going to be saleable. Picture books are “easy” to write and generate and revise and get 700 or whatever words into shape, sure, but it’s infinitely harder to hit upon a winner idea. GOODNIGHT MOON was first published in 1947 and parents still read it to their kids every night, all over the world. Publishers are tightening their lists and, ideally, would love a book with that much power and longevity. In other words, everyone wants something that will backlist for eternity. It’s not easy. I would even argue that’s it just as hard to hit upon such a picture book idea as it is to write a publishable novel, especially in this current marketplace.

Personally, I balk a little when writers hit me up with picture book after picture book, even if some time lapses between attempts. The point is to evolve and go to the next level between picture book manuscripts. Every submission round to agents will bring you valuable feedback and insight. (If you get absolutely no personalized feedback, that’s feedback in and of itself.) Keep writing while you’re on submission, of course, but you should also, in my opinion, wait to see how a submission round goes before you jump back into the querying game. You don’t want to give off the idea that you’re just churning projects out without stopping to learn and grow in between attempts.

Look at it from my angle. I have, oh, six picture book clients. They can all, in a good year, give me 10 manuscripts. That’s 60 manuscripts. Say I decide to just go out with them all (which I would never do). For each submission, I go out to about 8-10 editors at various houses. That would be between 480 and 600 picture book projects that I would send out. About 10 submissions a week. There are about 300 editors actively acquiring in children’s books these days (at the major, mid-size houses, and smaller houses), so even if I cast my net as wide as possible, I would still hit up every editor at least once, sometimes twice, regardless of whether they’re a good fit or even looking for picture books (if you want to know, that particular number of PB-hungry editors is at about 70-100). You also have to consider that, if an editor and I have a good relationship, existing projects together, or similar tastes, I will send to that  group of particular editors more frequently over the course of the year. Those editors — the ones I really love and want to work with — would probably get more like five or ten projects each.

Do you think all those editors are going to see my email or get my phone call and think, “Wow, I haven’t heard from Mary in a while, and I know she only goes out with projects she thinks are really top notch, so I am really excited to hear all about this one!” Absolutely not. They will most likely think, “Yikes, another call/email from Mary. What does she have for me this month and how quickly can I get it off my desk?”

I don’t go out with everything my clients give me. I have to be selective and keep my currency with editors high, so that if they see something from me, they don’t roll their eyes. The worst position you can be in, I think, is if someone gets an email from you and groans. So I’m selective. And I have extremely high standards for the work that I pitch to publishers (just ask some of my impatient clients…and we all know how I feel about patience). You should strive to be this way, too, so I don’t groan when I get your second or third or fourth query for the year.

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How Much to Sell Yourself?

January 5, 2011 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 18 comments

Some writers are notoriously shy — or at least timid — when it comes time to plug themselves in queries, at conferences, etc. I’ve heard lots of published authors say that they’re writers, not salespeople. They rely on their agents to vouch for their work and pitch it to editors, so they can focus on their craft and building their readership. Contracts, pitching, negotiation…that’s the domain of agents.

Well, what happens until you get an agent, or if you choose to go without one? You advocate for yourself. From your query to your networking at conferences to meeting librarians and booksellers and telling them about your book, you’ll have to sell your book at least a few times in your career (ideally, you’ll have the opportunity to sell it to lots and lots of readers). So how much plugging is too much? Where’s the line between confident and bombastic?

Whether you pitch in person or in writing, here is the dividing line and where it lies for me:

Bombastic: This is an amazing story of wonderful proportions, full of thrilling adventure and poignant emotion, lovable characters and a breathtaking plot…
Confident: My thriller pits my main character against his biggest enemy in a high-voltage climax, with a surprising twist ending.
The Difference: Don’t be lavish in your self-praise and, for goodness’ sake, cut down on the adjectives. Everyone knows you love your story…that’s why you wrote it. Nobody wants to hear you praise your own work. It means nothing coming from your mouth, so I’d avoid all the fluff.

Bombastic: My uncle, who is a (unpublished) writer, thinks this is the best book ever written. My children love this story and ask that I read it to them every night. My professor, who has a PhD (in, ahem, civil engineering), said I was an exceptional writing talent.
Confident: Award-winning sci-fi writer, Writer McWriterpants, says of my book, “A rare debut full of heart and fantasy thrills. A great new voice on the scene!”
The Difference: Praise doesn’t count as much when it comes from a relative or friend of yours, unless maybe your brother is Stephen King. I’d much rather hear what an unbiased third party has to say about the book, and ideally have it be someone who knows what they’re talking about (ie: a writer, not an engineering professor). If you can’t get any casual blurbs like this (and that’s totally fine), don’t include something just for the sake of including it.

Bombastic: This will sell like hotcakes and there are endless opportunities to leverage my idea. It lends itself easily to greeting cards, music videos, apps, video games, theme parks, movies, t-shirts and other merchandise, and, of course, sequels!
Confident: The ending of this manuscript gives my story sequel opportunities and, as a trained screenwriter with a cinematic writing style, I can see potential for the screen as well.
The Difference: We all want our work to go from book to screen to the toy store to the clothing rack. If you have experience and possible connections to another industry that can be a great cross-promotional avenue for your book idea, you can hint at it. Maybe bring up some marketing or subrights ideas if you talk to agents or editors on the phone after they express interest. But keep the pie out of the sky and don’t rattle off all your merchandising dreams in the query.

Bombastic: My self-published/previously published book was a bestseller.
Confident: I sold 200 copies of my self-published book in its first year and it is regularly reordered by two independent bookstores in my community. My previously published book enjoyed three printings in one year from a small press.
The Difference: Words like “expert,” “bestseller,” “hit,” and others are a bit like adjectives. They sounds like fluff. If a book sells five copies at a local indie bookstore, sure, it can end up on their bestseller list, especially if your book has a regional tie-in to the region or if you recently did an event at the store. But that’s quite a different level of bestseller than what Stephenie Meyer gets to write on her resume. Use words like this sparingly, and be really specific as to what they mean in your case.

What are the takeaways here? Be specific. Instead of blowing your pitch full of hot air with adjectives or buzzwords like “bestseller,” be straight and direct with the reader. You want to project a healthy amount of confidence, but make sure everything you’re saying is grounded in fact and doesn’t go flying off into Hyperbole Land. All that stuff isn’t what I’m reading for when I read queries. In fact, I skim over most of it.

Caveat: I often tell people to look at the copy on the back of book jackets when they’re crafting their queries. That’s about the length and tone that you’re aiming for when you write the meat of your pitch. However, book jackets can get away with adjectives and buzz and blurbs and all that hype because they’re actually trying to make someone go to the cash register and buy the book.

When I look at queries, I care more about the story you’re pitching to me than how you’re pitching (check out my evergreen article on How to Write a Simple, Compelling Query), but I would greatly prefer a writer who falls on the confident side of the fence rather than the bombastic. If you’re having the opposite issue, and you tend to undersell yourself when you present projects, look at the confident examples again and see if you can’t take more of a stand for you and your writing when you pitch. Either way, remember: we want to be sold. We just don’t want the sweaty-handshake-used-car-salesman hardball sell. Nor do we want the looking-at-your-feet-and-mumbling sell. We want the simple, compelling, concise, and thoughtful pitch that comes from your confidence in your work!

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Do Agents Remember Submissions?

December 10, 2010 in Agent, Queries, Revision | 18 comments

Estee came up with a really interesting question, inspired by Wednesday’s post:

I’m curious if you remember the slush. I mean, if someone submits something that isn’t good enough, revises it and re-submits it at least six months later, do you recognize them?

Other comments joked about agents and their all-remembering powers. Since we see thousands of submissions a year, it’s a funny idea that we’d remember them, right? Well, I have news for you. I remember submissions pretty well, considering the circumstances! I can’t really remember what I had for dinner a few days ago or to pick up the one thing I really need at the grocery store, but I do start to get submission deja vu when reading something I’ve seen before.

For me, and I don’t know about other agents out there, it’s always a turn of phrase or a description that triggers my memory. In cases where the query or submission had a really focused premise, the premise will jog my memory if I see it again. The same goes for other random tidbits: funny character names, strange author names, jokes, exotic locations that the author is writing from, random connections we have that they might have brought up in their queries, etc. There are a million different things that catch my attention, of course. And I probably wouldn’t recognize everything I’ve ever seen if it was presented to me again, but my memory has been pretty accurate so far.

If the question was asked in the context of whether to mention a resubmission in the query, I say you should always mention it. Don’t count on the agent to forget that you’ve submitted before. Most of us who use email can search for your previous correspondence. And it’s not a bad thing to resubmit something. We all know that writing is a craft and that writers end up revising, sometimes days after they send their first query, sometimes months or years.

What do you say if you’re resubmitting something? How about something simple along the lines of:

Dear Mary,

You saw this query and passed with some really insightful feedback (Ha! My fake letter is laying it on a bit thick, but if you did get a response from the agent the first time around, don’t be afraid to mention something about it…). I’ve since revised the project and am hoping you’ll be interested in taking a second look. To refresh your memory, the story goes like this:

And then you launch into the meat of your query again because, as good as my memory may sometimes be, I’ll always appreciate another pitch to remind me of the key points of your project.

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Is Waiting a Bad Sign?

November 12, 2010 in Agent | 31 comments

This clever question comes from rifferaff, in the comments:

I have a theory, based on the many writer blogs and forums I read, that when agents offer representation, they usually do so quickly, usually within two weeks, but often days. Is there any truth to this? Would you hold onto a full for 2 to 3 months and still offer representation? Or if you’re offering representation do you usually do it as soon as possible?

I can see why a lot of writers would think this. Blogs and forums are full of sexy stories: “My agent offered representation the same day!” or “An editor read it overnight and pre-empted with a huge deal!” It’s a little less exciting to get on your blog or a public forum and be like “I heard absolutely nothing for six weeks, turned myself into a basket case, and then my agent offered representation, but by that point I was locked away in the attic, murmuring to myself, and my husband had to coax me out with a bottle of wine!”

I’m exaggerating, of course, but there’s a reason why the stories shouted the loudest on the Internet are some of the more impressive ones. A long wait and lots of daunting silence — which is often what happens with writers who end up with representation — just doesn’t make a good headline.

While it’s true that agents who spot a really hot premise or really great writing in their submissions pile will be compelled to read quickly, and those really big-sounding projects will most likely have multiple offers of representation, also quickly, that’s not the only way that writers get representation. (I’ve noticed a lot more of this happening recently, with everyone pouncing on the most commercial projects, and wrote about it here.)

It’s not like we “hold onto” a project for two or three months, actively considering it. Sometimes forces outside our control or an overwhelming submissions pile keep us from reading full requests that we’re genuinely excited about. Sometimes a writer will get another offer, which usually shoots that manuscript to the top of my To Read pile. Sometimes, though, nobody else has expressed interest and the manuscript just waits in line until I can read it and give it the consideration it deserves. Unfortunately, it could be months before this happens.

When offering representation, I’ve gotten my clients by offering the next day, by winning contests where a lot of agents were interested, and also by offering in a few weeks or a few months after the initial submission. I’ve also offered representation and gotten a client whose previous manuscript I’d rejected, and then had them come to me with a new, stronger project.

Every writer will have a different experience. If you have a knockout commercial idea–and you’ll usually know it–expect things to happen quickly. But don’t despair if they don’t. It is perfectly fine, and more common, in fact, to wait. The worst thing you can possibly do when you’re out on submission to agents — and I tell this to my clients who are out on submission to editors — is to start reading into every little thing. Sometimes, wait times and rejection letters and communications with agents or editors are laden with meaning. Other times, they’re just a natural part of the process.

While out on submission, I would highly encourage you to start working on your next project, even if it’s just an idea brainstorm or an outline. This will be a much better use of your time. And I can only hope that you don’t have long to wait, but if you do, that’s fine, too.

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