Querying

What Does a Form Rejection Mean When Querying A Novel?

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 1 Comment

I’ve queried before.

I’ve queried this story before.

Thirty-six rejections in, this story has been decently queried, but has not blanketed the literary agent world. (Especially since I find myself revising the entire piece every ten rejections or so.)

One of those revisions was based on a revise-and-resubmit, one of those times was based on finding a writing mentor who could help me bring my writing to the next level.

After I finished my latest round of revisions, I queried five agents back in July. The most recent rejection arrived just last week — two months after I’d closed out the agent as “no reply means no thank you.” But, closure is kind.

Why haven’t I queried more? Well, I told myself I was finishing the revisions on my middle-grade story for Pitch Wars. I was prepping for my NaNoWriMo story. And I wanted to see how my new query and first pages worked.

All I’ve gotten is a stack of form rejection letters.

How to handle rejection

  1. Indulge in self-pity — Not forever. Not even for a week (unless you really need it). But? For a night or two? Wallow in it. Let yourself grieve over the hope that has been shattered and eat chocolate or junk food. Complain (privately) to a few trusted friends.
  2. Distraction — Got other projects to work on? Books or shows to binge? Maybe you’re also moving, or helping school your children. There’s always stress-cleaning your house from top to bottom and re-alphabetizing your bookcase (forgetting this sorted-by-color trend). Distraction can help a lot.
  3. Track it — If you can, see every rejection as a step closer to publication. Maybe you’re going for 100 rejections. Maybe you’ve decided if you hit a certain number without getting an agent, you’re going to self-publish. So, update your querytracker.net account, or your spreadsheet, or wherever you’re tracking who you’re querying and from which agency (because some agencies only allow one query for all their agents combined). Some people paper walls with printed out rejection letters, or add a bead to a necklace, or in some way commemorate every rejection on their path.
  4. Assess — What is the problem? Do you have a writer friend you can trust to tell you? Can you glean anything from the rejection? Some tell you something… others, are just polite form rejections.

What can one gleam from form rejections?

A form rejection tells you… nothing. Although, there are a few different things one can think.

  1. The query is badly written and not pulling people in. But… I felt my query letter was solid, if not amazing. Although, it is easier to write someone else’s query, I feel confident in my query writing skills.
  2. The query is well-written, but the story is trite and no one is interested. Maybe. I’m my own target audience, but sometimes, from a higher level, a lot of fantasy quests can feel repetitive.
  3. The first ten pages let the story down, and that’s why no one wants more. It feels weird to say this, but… the last time I read through my story, my first third of my book even impressed ME, and I’m the one who wrote it. Although, the one revise-and-resubmit did suggest more backstory before the inciting incident, and maybe I am starting too quickly, before you care about the characters?
  4. Maybe 2020 was a horrid time to be querying, especially young adult fantasy. Agents were too wary and not picking up much of anything. I mean, it can always be the market, right. My book is on the cusp of YA and adult, should I do a few edits so I can query it in the wider adult fantasy market? Should I just wait a little for people to recover from 2020 and then send out, as people feel more eager for new stories?
  5. Those five agents weren’t right for the story, but the right agent (and publisher) are out there waiting. Possibly! This is what I keep telling myself. Maybe I’ll start querying again in mid-January, waiting a week or so after the agents re-open to not get lost in the flood, probably a Tuesday morning, after the coffee’s kicked in, before the lunch hunger starts to distract them…

Querying is scary. There’s very little solid feedback — thanks to both outlier writers-of-yore-and-today who argued and harassed agents, as well as the massive number of querying writers these days, as technology makes the process more accessible than ever. One has to have faith in one’s writing abilities, confidence that the story can stand on its own, and the perseverance to see it through.

Best of luck to all of you in the query trenches. If you’re self-publishing, I salute your bravery! And? Wish me luck in 2021!

Querying and Agents: Now I’m Confused

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 20 Comments

While I consider myself rather well-versed with the querying writer’s life and expectations, I recently ran across something new and worrying.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, literary agents are well-read people, familiar with the industry, who are versed in contract law and help writers find a publishing house. While you can go it alone, the larger publishing houses often do not even accept submissions from un-agented writers. Querying is the process by which we entice the agent with the characters and stakes of our story, let them know where our story fits in the market, and include any relevant biographical information. It’s a one page letter that works almost like a job application — only, if the agent selects us (with that lovely external validation) — they’re working for us, to promote our writing.

Back toward the end of October, I was gearing up for NaNoWriMo, waiting to hear that I did NOT make the cut (again) for PitchWars, when someone in my Middle Grade Waves PitchWars support group (middle grade is what comes before YA books, but after chapter books) mentioned that they’d queried an agent… and the agent had:

a – gone on twitter to complain about someone querying outside of business hours
and
b – rejected them promptly

Wait. WHAT?

First of all, email is asynchronous communication.

Secondly? Queries are business emails. No querying writer should ever expect a response at 2 am on a Saturday night. But, that might be the time of day that the house is quiet and they can put their thoughts together and work up the nerve to send the email.

We should never expect a response at 2 am on a Saturday night. In fact, most of us expect our query letters to be filtered into a ‘queries’ folder and only looked at when the agent has finished dealing with their pre-existing clients. Maybe just before lunch on Wednesday, or Friday evening before they head out for the weekend. Sometimes, we suspect agents just set aside a day, maybe not even once a month, where they go through and clear out the queries that are pushing ‘past due’.

An immediate response was never an expectation most of us even thought could be a possibility.

So. Now I’m not just worried that my story isn’t ready, or that my query needs work, or that the market is oversaturated, no matter how good my story and query are. Now I get to obsess over timing of my email!

I’m already factoring holidays, school schedules, and elections into the mix. I usually hold off if there was just a pitch contest on twitter, because I know agents usually bump those to the top of their queue because they seem a bit more time sensitive.

How do I handle this?

Was this just one agent? Do I just assume an agent who dislikes this is not the match for me? Or is this more a common pet peeve?

Maybe I’ll start prepping my query letters and schedule them to submit on Tuesday mornings. Not Monday, because they’ll have all the weekend backlog, but not so close to lunch that they’re hungry and distracted…

Agents — is this a common practice?
Do you feel frustrated when you get emails outside of regular business hours?

Querying writers — what else have I missed about properly timing my query letters?
Anything else I should be stressing about?

Querying Versus Submitting

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 3 Comments

Last week, I wrapped up my Virtual Balticon notes, but before I launch into sharing my notes from CoNZealand I figured you were owed an update.

Camp NaNoWriMo did not happen for me in July of 2020. That doesn’t mean I didn’t move forward on my writing, though! I finally finished revising my YA manuscript and got back into the querying trenches.

And? I took a pair of short stories plus a poem of mine and submitted them to editors.

What’s the Difference Between Querying and Submitting?

If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you probably are familiar with the concept of a query. It’s a brief letter to a literary agent telling them about your characters and their stakes, with a brief paragraph on the story’s stats and genre — maybe even with a few similar novels thrown in for comparison’s sake, and an even briefer sentence or two bio.

Once you get that heralded agent, they will submit your work to publishers on your behalf.

Most traditional publishers of novels do not accept “un-agented” work. They want you to be vetted. And? They want to be sure you have a person well-versed in book contracts to represent you, partially so you can’t claim ignorance later.

For the short story market, it’s a totally different beast. They have the payments listed (X cents per word), so no contract is really needed. And they expect writers to submit their own works, without an agent. Because really, the commission on a 1,000 word story that nets $80 at the pro-writer rate is chump change for anyone.

Now publishers, be they for novels, short stories, or flash fiction, don’t get query letters. They get cover letters, with the writing included — sometimes as a word attachment, sometimes copy/pasted into the email. These cover letter plus the full works are called “submissions” or “a submissions packet.” And the person you’re sending these to at the publisher is called the “acquiring editor.”

As I’ve discussed before, cover letters are far more brief than a query letter. You get one, maybe two sentences to describe your writing. Another sentence for its length (to the nearest 100 words for short stories or exact count for flash fiction). And then a 2-3 sentence bio, if they ask for you to include one. Especially with shorter works, you don’t need to tell the acquiring editor about your story, it’s right there and can speak for itself.

Despite the word “editor” in their title, acquiring editors are not just people who edit your work with feedback and all. Acquiring editors decide what they will and will not be publishing. They’re the ones who decide if your story fits the theme of their magazine, anthology, website, or publishing house. Sure, some of them will do some edits, after your work is accepted, but you should only be submitting fully polished works that are as good as you can make them.

There’s usually limited space (either in print, in time, in budget, or all three). If you had the choice between a solid piece and a might-be-amazing but “OMG it needs so much work and we need to have these prepped in two weeks and you’ve never worked with this writer before and they might take the edits in a direction you don’t want”… you’d probably go for the one that you know the readers will enjoy — without taking the chance on the one that needs more work without the guaranteed payoff.

Unlike querying agents, many publishers do ask for exclusive submissions. This means that, while you can usually query multiple agents at a time (although, most prefer you not to query multiple ones at the same agency at the same time), you should only be sending your shorts to one publisher at a time. I wish I could tell you that because of the exclusiveness, all publishers are prompt with their acceptance or rejection letters, but as with all things writer related… it can vary tremendously. Do pay close attention to the ‘open for submissions’ window time frames.

For me, I usually go to “The Grinder”, not the hook-up website, but :thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/ and search for paying markets. I start with the pro level ones (paying 8 cents a word or more), and then try the sub-pro, and then maybe the free markets (or sit on the piece until another paying market opens). I also google “Short Story Markets” and check the listicles for places that might not be on The Grinder.

For agents, I usually go to querytracker.net, search for agents in my genre, and then cross reference their manuscript wish list, twitters, and literary agent profiles to see if the books they represent or mention enjoying are similar to my works. If I don’t recognize any of them, they’re probably not a great fit for me.

Note: Once you perfect your query letters and cover letters, you’re probably going to reuse them. Be Very Careful When Doing This.

Make sure to update the agent name and any sort of personalization you added to the query letter. If you mention the name of the publication you’re submitting to in a cover letter, don’t be me. Make sure to update the publications name before you submit your piece to another publication.

I got a very quick rejection on a submission I made that mistake with. (Well, the publication has an under 48 hour turnaround time anyway, but still. Definitely not a mark in my favor.)

Between short stories and my manuscript, I’ve gotten 8 rejections this year.

There’s always the doubt: is it my writing? is it the market? Did I flub the query or cover letter? Am I picking the wrong agents?

Form rejections can’t tell you anything — but they’re become more and more commonplace as agents and editors get tired of writers responding negatively to thoughtful feedback.

If you get a personalized rejection — you know you’re on the right path. I’ve gotten a few in the past, but none this go around. But, I’m not letting it stop me.

I’m gonna keep querying and submitting because I believe in my work.

Best of luck to all of you out here with me in the query trenches or the submissions grind.

#38 Query Corner – “Bat Kid And Banana Slug”

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 2 Comments

Welcome to:

Morgan’s Query Corner:

Fresh eyes for your query quandaries.

All Sophie wants is a best friend, but camp is hard for this weirdo.

NOTE: If you submit your query to me (morgan.s.hazelwood@gmail.com), and you are selected for inclusion, I will give you a high-level review, in-line feedback, and my own draft of your query. If this is your query, feel free to use or ignore as much of the advice and suggestions as you wish.

[Disclaimer: Any query selected for the page will be posted on this website for perpetuity. I am an amateur with no actual accepted queries and a good number of form rejections. This does not guarantee an agent or even an amazing query, just a new take by someone who’s read The Query Shark archives twice and enjoys playing with queries.]

Overall Impression:

This querier’s story was fun, upbeat, and almost there! They mostly wanted confirmation they were on the right path. Of course…

  • I did tighten the story-part a smidge…

Queryist’s Original:

Dear Specific Agent,

I’m excited that you are actively seeking [example: friendship stories in middle grade fiction, and books that include main characters with invisible disabilities]. BAT KID AND BANANA SLUG is a 46,000 word contemporary MG novel for readers who enjoyed Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s Fish in a Tree and Gillian McDunn’s Caterpillar Summer. It has received feedback from sensitivity readers for neurodiversity and nonbinary identity.

When eleven-year-old Sophie discovers that she can navigate like a bat, she hopes her new skill is her ticket to fitting in–until the other kids at summer camp decide she’s rabid like a bat too.

All Sophie wants out of summer camp is a best friend. She thought she’d found one in her roommate–a kid who wears a hat with antennae on it and goes by the nickname Banana Slug. Banana Slug even asked her to perform as a team in the camp talent show! But that was before the other kids decided she was a weirdo and before Sophie gave away the bat hat that Banana Slug had made for her.

Now Banana Slug isn’t speaking to her and Sophie doesn’t know how to fix things. She’ll definitely leave camp as alone as she arrived. But with the talent show coming up, Sophie might just risk going down in camp history as the weirdest kid ever–as long as it means winging her way back to friendship.

My picture book was awarded second place in [writing contest], and three of my short stories have been published in anthologies. I’m a member of PNWA and SCBWI, and a children’s book reviewer for [place]. I also parent a child with sensory processing disorder, who has developed her own set of super-skills in response to her brain’s different way of experiencing the world.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Q38

The query was solid, (although whether to include loglines is always a personal choice.)

I just trimmed some of the plot, to focus on the stakes.

My Revision:

…

All Sophie wants out of summer camp is a best friend. She thought she’d found one in her roommate–a kid who wears a hat with antennae on it and goes by the nickname Banana Slug. Banana Slug even asked her to perform as a team in the camp talent show! But when she learned how to navigate like a bat (by shrieking), the other kids decided she was a weirdo. Even giving away the bat hat that Banana Slug had made for her didn’t get them off her case.

Now Banana Slug isn’t speaking to her and Sophie doesn’t know how to fix things. With the talent show coming up, Sophie got to risk going down in camp history as the weirdest kid ever–if she wants to wing her way back into friends with Banana Slug.

…

Q38 was happy for my input, tweaked her query, and …

Just reported back that she got an AGENT! With this query.

Dear [Agent],

Thanks for accepting my referral! BAT KID AND BANANA SLUG is a 44,000 word contemporary lower middle grade novel for readers who enjoyed Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s Fish in a Tree and Gillian McDunn’s Caterpillar Summer. It has received feedback from sensitivity readers for neurodiversity and nonbinary identity.

Eleven-year-old Sophie knows she’s different – after all most kids don’t wear noise-muffling headphones or barf when they get overstimulated. Plus, most kids have a best friend. Sophie hopes to find a friend at sleepaway camp, but social skills aren’t her strong suit. She spends a lot of time studying bats instead. Luckily Sophie’s roommate – a kid nicknamed Banana Slug – thinks Sophie’s bat fascination is cool and crochets a bat hat for Sophie.

Then teasing drives Sophie to give the hat away, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the new friendship. The only way Sophie can think to fix things is through the camp talent show. But even if she can convince Banana Slug to join her in a performance, there’s the risk that they’ll go down in camp history as the weirdest kids ever. Sophie must convince herself that quirky doesn’t have to mean friendless – and that the Amazing Bat Kid and Banana Slug might be the greatest duo ever.

My unpublished picture book was awarded second place in [writing contest], and three of my short stories have been published in anthologies. I’m a member of PNWA and SCBWI, and a children’s book reviewer for [place]. I also parent a child with sensory processing disorder, who has developed her own set of super-skills in response to her brain’s different way of experiencing the world.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Q38

Let’s all congratulate Q38, and hope their agent finds a publisher soon!

And for the rest of you out there?
Best of luck in the query trenches!

#37 Query Corner – “The Light’s Guardians”

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 3 Comments

Welcome to:

Morgan’s Query Corner:

Fresh eyes for your query quandaries.

Veteran Graham Sharris thought he knew the risks of guarding the monsters in the labs. His partner, recruit Soko, (don’t ask her her birth name) has already managed to earn Sharris’s guarded respect. But when one of the monsters escapes, the pair are dragged into an ancient war for the very soul of the multiverse.

NOTE: If you submit your query to me (morgan.s.hazelwood@gmail.com), and you are selected for inclusion, I will give you a high-level review, in-line feedback, and my own draft of your query. If this is your query, feel free to use or ignore as much of the advice and suggestions as you wish.

[Disclaimer: Any query selected for the page will be posted on this website for perpetuity. I am an amateur with no actual accepted queries and a good number of form rejections. This does not guarantee an agent or even an amazing query, just a new take by someone who’s read The Query Shark archives twice and enjoys playing with queries.]

Overall Impression:

The querier had a fun story, but, as is common, gave some blurb-text, and fell into the trap of talking about the novel, rather than talking about the story story and the stakes.

  • Queries are usually told in the first person, present tense, even if the story is not, focused on the stakes, not the plot. So, I’m just gonna zoom in a bit.
  • If you have 2 POV characters, I’ve found the best thing to do is give them each their own short paragraph and bring it all together in a final paragraph. That demonstrates the equal-nature of their stories without having to spell it out.
  • Trilogies are a hard-sell, they often don’t want to gamble on 3 books when they don’t know how well your first book will do. The standard advice is to tease series-potential… but only if the book can actually stand alone.

As we worked the edits, we ended up having a long discussion about comps — comparison novels.

The ideal comp: STORY_A meets STORY_B, should be under 3 years old, sold well, but wasn’t a run-away success like Harry Potter, and fits the genre and voice of your story, without being even remotely the same story.

This is basically impossible. I try for one recent novel, and let my other comp be: older, “too” popular, a tv-show or movie, or some other reference.

Another way to do comps is calling out an aspect, just try not to oversell. Such as “With a setting reminiscent of STORY_A, and the world-building of STORY_B” or “The fast-witted dialogue of STORY_C”… you see how that works. You can reference more popular works, but this helps the agent understand what you were going for, and hopefully get a feel for your novel.

Queryist’s Original:

Dear Agent,

With fire and ice I stand before the wave of corruption, the last line of defense. We are The Light’s Guardians! Till next they ride!

Graham Sharris and Soko (don’t ask her her birth name) are both junior officers in a corporate owned army. Sharris is a veteran of the corporate armies (called Corpsies) with the physical and mental scars to prove it. Soko is a newer Corpsie though she is badass and had rapidly proved her competence before the story begins. They have a very good working relationship where they relentlessly tease each other but also support each other and get themselves through the horrors they experience. They both have equal in agency in the story. [You’re telling about the characters, not talking about stakes! If this is 2 points of view, show it]

Every day is struggle to survive the experimental monsters of the mad scientists in the lab they are assigned to. Everything changes when something they did not know about breaks out and drags them into an ancient war for the very soul of multiverse. [Vague!] However, it is not a war fought with vast armadas or massive armies, but with two individuals from every planet. These people are enhanced and trained to fight to heal their own world and people from a corruption
seeking to subjugate all people. If Soko and Sharris can survive the training they might just be able to get back to their world and start making a difference to save it from the unchecked festering evil.

The Light’s Guardians is a 90,000 word adult science fiction/fantasy novel and is the first in a trilogy. [Sell one book at a time.]

I am an officer in the Army National Guard which I used for creating several of my characters. I live in the Washington D.C. area and typically write from home.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
Q37

The querier clearly had a vivid world with tons of world building and great characterization. But, the non-specificity made the plot feel like it could describe dozens of stories.

Keep it specific.

Some comps, even stylistic ones could strengthen the query. (Hence the discussion I gave the run-down on, above).

My Revision:

Dear Agent,

With fire and ice, I stand before the wave of corruption, the last line of defense. We are The Light’s Guardians! Till next they ride!

Graham Sharris thought he knew the risks of guarding the monsters in the labs, as a veteran of the Corpsies — the corporate armies — with the physical and mental scars to prove it. But when something from deep in the labs escapes, he and his partner are dragged into an ancient war for the very soul of the multiverse.

Soko, (don’t ask her her birth name) is a newer Corpsie who’s already managed to earn Sharris’s guarded respect. When she and Sharris are chosen to defend their world, she welcomes the challenge as a chance to prove to herself, once and for all, that she’s better than where she came from. [or is she righting a wrong, having let the thing escape?]

To stop the corruption that seeks to subjugate all people across the multiverse, Soko and Sharris must use every skill they’ve learned from a past they’d both rather forget if they’re going to survive the training. Until then, there’s no one back home to keep the festering evil in check.

The Light’s Guardians is a 90,000-word adult science fiction/fantasy novel with series potential. [And comps? Like Punisher meets Lord of the rings. Or With the world-building of Star Wars and the banter of a Jim Butcher novel, The Light’s Guardians is… Only, without such well-known names]

I am an officer in the Army National Guard which I used for creating several of my characters. I write from my home in the Washington D.C. area.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Q37

Q37 was excited to get the feedback and happy to send me an updated draft, here:

Dear Agent,

With fire and ice, I stand before the wave of corruption, the last line of defense. We are The Light’s Guardians! Till next they ride!

Graham Sharris thought he finally had a program to manage the risks of guarding the monsters in the labs. As a veteran of the Corpsies — the corporate armies — with the physical and mental scars to prove it, he was just starting to hope again that he could get his people through this assignment. But when something from deep in the labs escapes, he and his partner are dragged into an ancient war for the very soul of the multiverse.

Soko, (don’t ask her her birth name) is a newer Corpsie who’s already managed to earn Sharris’s respect. When she and Sharris are chosen to defend their world, she welcomes the challenge as a chance to prove to herself, once and for all, that she’s better than where she came from. Soko won’t hesitate to call out stupidity any power that stands before her, along the way.

To stop the corruption that seeks to subjugate all people across the multiverse, Soko and Sharris must use every skill they’ve learned from a past they’d both rather forget if they’re going to survive the training. Until then, there’s no one back home to keep the festering evil in check.

The Light’s Guardians is a 90,000-word adult science fiction/fantasy novel with series potential. It has the world building and in world mythology of Children of Blood and Bone, the banter of Jim Butcher with the aliens, monsters, and gods of Monstress.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Q37

Let’s all wish the best of luck to Q37!

And for the rest of you out there?
Best of luck in the query trenches!