Querying

Getting An Agent – Querying In Batches

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 1 Comment

I talk a lot about the querying process. Maybe someday I can talk about actually working with an agent. But, if you’ve been following me for a while, you know that traditionally published books need an agent and that most publishing houses don’t accept submissions for unagented works. You know, in order to get an agent, you need to send them a one-page query letter, telling them about the story — the characters and the stakes, the manuscript’s stats and comparative novels, and a brief biography of yourself. I’ve talked about how to pick who to query. I’ve even let you know about my worries about when to send that query letter.

But that’s not all you need to think about.

There’s debate about how many agents to query at a time, when to stop, and whether to give up and ‘drawer’ the manuscript or self-publish. I know I have the bad habit of revising my whole manuscript every ten queries or so, which I shouldn’t need to do unless I’m getting consistent feedback or my manuscript isn’t ready.

However, I’ve been running into querying writers who are sending out ten queries a day, without stop, until they’ve queried everyone in their genre, (or at least not opposed to their genre.)

Stop it!

You’re only hurting your own chances.

I agree that queries should be sent out in batches — but of 3-5, maybe up to 10. But then you need to wait. You need to see what sort of responses you’re getting.

If you’re getting form rejections, that doesn’t tell you if the agent doesn’t find your voice or story compelling, nor does it say that it’s not what the market is looking for. It simply means your query (and/or your first 10-pages) aren’t working.

It’s a LOT easier to edit or tweak a query and opening chapter than it is to revise and revamp an entire manuscript. But, industry standards are such that one does not re-query with the same manuscript unless there have been substantial changes — plot, pacing, characters — to a majority of the story.

A slight aside about those opening pages – a lot of publishers and agents and even veteran writers have told me that newbie writers often start the story in the wrong place — even if their writing is great.

Now, back to the query talk. If you query every agent immediately, you’ll never know if the problem is your query and opening, or the story itself.

If you query in smaller batches, you can tweak and adjust until you’re getting requests for more pages, or more personalized rejections. Both mean you’re getting closer. Feedback is useful, but lack of feedback just means you haven’t hit the mark yet (or you’ve been querying the wrong people).

Don’t waste your query chances with your first polished query. Once you’re getting rejections on partial or full requests, it may be time to query more widely, because you’ve got the query just right. Or, it might be time to look at the story. But all a form rejection means on a query is that the query isn’t working.

Slow down your querying. The publishing industry is a slow process, and rushing the querying process won’t do anything but close doors to your current manuscript.

Have you queried a manuscript? What did you find to be the right size for a batch?

Have you mass queried and actually had it work?

What Does a Form Rejection Mean When Querying A Novel?

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 2 Comments

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 / 21 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 / 4 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.

The 10 Types of Queriers

/ Morgan Hazelwood / 6 Comments

If you’ve ever considered traditional publishing, you probably know about querying. In fact, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might have seen me mention it a time or four.

Self-published authors get to skip the query trenches, but know that theirs is a hard road — full of marketing, and advertising, and building their brands — while working on the next novel. Without even the little help that small press or traditional publishing can offer.

But, for the rest of us, we all take different approaches to querying agents.

What type of querier are you?

Goldilocks

This querier follows ALL the query tips. They do enough research to personalize if applicable, then tweaks the query and first pages until the request rate is reasonable.

Then, they send out queries in batches of 7-10, and send out a new query every time they get a rejection or hit a time-out window. After 100 queries, this querier is either agented, planning to self-publish, or shelves the manuscript and has a new manuscript ready to query.

I-Know-A-Guy

This querier knows there’s nothing like that personal touch. She goes to conventions and signs up for all the one-on-ones with the agents in her genre, the ones who represent the novels that make the perfect comps for her manuscript.

This querier only queries agents she’s personally met, because she knows that’ll give her that extra level of attention from the agent. Anything to get ahead of the nameless crowds of the slush pile.

The Perfectionist

This (wanna-be) querier is almost ready. The novel just needs one more round of revisions, but he’s going to query as soon as this draft is done. — Or at least, that’s what he’s been saying… for the last 10 years.

Are The Signs Right?

This querier is superstitious. She only queries on Wednesday mornings, when it’s raining, and the dog let her sleep until the alarm. Each query has exactly 246 words in it, and she hits send while listening to the second verse of Hamilton’s I’m Not Throwing Away My Shot.

The Eager #NaNoWriMite

This querier wrote his first book in November, polished it in January, and is gonna query 3 agents a week until he gets that huge book deal! Who needs a beta reader? Inspiration was with him and this book is so timely!

Oooh, Squirrel!

This querier starts out well — ze sends out a batch. But then? Ze gets caught up in a new project or a writing contest and forgets to query that second batch. But, don’t worry, ze’ll get to it, as soon as this new project gets to a — Oh! Ze just got a new story idea!

The Doubter

This querier knows she needs to get her manuscript out there. She agonizes over her query letter, with about 4 bazillion re-writes, finally hits ‘send’ on the query. Then? She rereads it and sees INSTANTLY where those typos were and how she could have made it better. So, she eats a box of cookies, beats herself up for two weeks, and fixes the letter before she sends the next query.

After the first rejection comes in, she stares at her story. Her manuscript is probably getting drowned in a pile of similar tropes by her mediocre writing. Perhaps another tweak on the first pages? The query OBVIOUSLY could be improved. And maybe the market is wrong right now and she should wait and query later? Maybe another look at the synopsis? Hers stinks…

Sweet summer child

This querier has finally polished his novel and knows that he’s ready! So, it’s time to let the agents know!

He looks online and queries every agent in his genre on Query Tracker in under a week, and reaches out for suggestions on other agents to query — before he’s even heard back from the first agent.

Token Attempt

This querier knows their novel is too niche for the market. They’re gonna have to self-publish anyway. But? They might as well pop a few queries off to their dream agent. It’s okay, they’ve already prepped the manuscript and will hit the ‘publish’ button the day that last rejection comes in.

The Morgan

This querier does tons of research using all the social media — staying just this side of stalking. Rearranges and tweaks the query to the exact specifications of this agent and their tastes.

Then, revises her whole novel every 10 rejections, cause clearly there’s something she should fix.

I think it’s pretty clear which querier I am, which one are you? (Or do you think you would be if you were going to query a novel?)

Let me know if there are any I missed!