Novel Query Strategy

The first bath is away!

Most of the query advice around is what not to do, like mass emailing agents or sending them material they don’t take.  The only strategy I’ve read is:

1. Make a list of all the agents you want to query.

2. Divide them into three groups: Agents at the top of your list, agents in the middle, and the ones who are last.

3. Start submitting to the top names.

This is mine:

1. Pick 3-5 names who take the genre.  In the case of this first submission, I chose them because they wanted the same materials submitted–query letter via snail mail.   The number of names picked is easy for me to handle in a weekend or over a couple of nights.
2. Then I research each agent online–if they have a website, that’s where I go.  Preditors and Editors is, of course, also included for a quick check.
3. I pick at least one more name to research, because I’ve likely discovered an agent is no longer taking submissions; stopping taking that genre; or the information was wrong.
4. As I tick off the first agent’s research on my list, I make up the query letter.  I paste in the agent’s name from the website–no misspelling here!–as well as the address.
5. Record what I’m sending on the idea map and do the printing.
6. Away it goes!

What strategy do you do?

 

Never Give Up

A nice post from Mike Resnick on Last Impressons, on never giving up in spite of rejection.  I’m particularly mindful of this because I’m going to be submitting my query soon.  I expect to get rejections, and that doesn’t bother me.  But what does bother me is when people give up.  I knew a writer a couple of years ago who was convinced that if a novel didn’t sell in the first 15 queries, then there must be something wrong with the book. 

I mean, how did he know he just hadn’t sent it to the wrong agents?  Or that maybe the query wasn’t working right?  Fifteen wasn’t enough, and certainly not in an industry when the agents are receiving hundreds of queries a week.  It’s tough getting the foot in the door, but if you don’t try, the foot’s never going to even get near the door.  All it takes is one agent to say yes.  What if Agent #16 was that agent?

 

The Bio Paragraph

The bio paragraph in a query letter has always had me stumped.  The most common advice I’ve seen includes:

• Include your credits to show you can work with an editor
• Don’t include your credits if they don’t relate to the novel you’re submititng (i.e., you published a science fiction story and are pitching a romance)
• Include only legitmate credits (publishing a story on an ezine created by an unpublished writer doesn’t count)
• Talk about relevent experience and platform (isn’t that for non-fiction?  How do you have a platform with a fantasy?)

Editorial Anomynous has a blog on the bio called The Biographical Portion of Our Program that brings up what to do and answers some of the questions.  Not all of mine, but I liked this idea in particular:

8. If you can’t say anything else, tell me what inspired you to write about this subject, while strictly adhering to rules (1) and (2). Do not tell me that writing about unicorns is your “dream vision.” Do not joke that the idea for your novel about mail bombs came to you after a particularly vexing experience with a publisher’s submission process. Do not tell me you’re writing about china dolls because you have a collection of 379 of them from around the world and they line the walls of your writing room and with them watching you, you “never have to feel alone.”

That gives me some ideas of what I can work with and maybe have a little fun with it (and turn it into another selling point.

I also really like this final point she made:

As I have said before, every query, every cover letter, every submission, is really just trying to get across two big things: (1) How great your manuscript is. (2) What a yahoo you are not.

I remember going to a Washington Independent Writers workshop (now American Independent Writers) that was taught by a couple of magazine editors.  One noted that she received a lot of queries where the writers talked about themselves and not a whole lot about their articles.  Story comes first!

 

High Concept

I like the agent blogs because I often get the best explanation of something hard to understand that’s either not in the h0w-to books or was explained poorly.  Understanding High Concept is one of those things, as explained by the Waxmen Agency.  As I’ve heard in the past–incorrect, as it now appears–High Concept was being able to state your story in one sentence.  That seems, perhaps, overly simplified:

It’s an idea that is immediately accessible & appealing to a large group of people, that taps into the hive-mind if you will, but with the added spark of feeling new (even if it’s as old as the hills).

There’s nothing, of course, to measure the definition by, which is what makes writing fiction so difficult.  It’s not a matter of following a rule and inserting a “high concept” into a story and magic happens.  Some stories may even not lend themselves to high concept.

By the way, here’s an example of High Concept gone awry: Snakes in a Plane.  The concept sold the movie, generated a considerable amount of buzz, and then caused it to flop because everyone knew what it was going to be about!

 

Preparation for Deadline

One of the other things I decided to do for my June 20 deadline (when I have to have my urban fantasy done by; there’s a writer’s conference on that date) is make a list of agents I will submit the query to.

Previously, this is what I did:

• Waited until the book was completed.
• Bought a copy of a literary agents guide (Writer’s Digest puts on out; just lists agents)
• Went through the entire book, crossing out agents who weren’t taking submissions, and flagging ones that took my genre.
• Checked the agents on Preditors and Editors (always do this!)
• Researched the agent on the Web–and usually eliminated some as not taking what the Literary Agent book said they did
• Submitted the query to the agent
• Recorded it on my spreadsheet, and when the rejection came in, recorded that, and filed the letter.

During that time, I even looked at the two online programs, Literary Agent Match and Query Tracker to try to find a better way.  I wasn’t happy with either one; it seemed like I had to do additional work to benefit from them.

So I’m refining my process simplify it:

1. I created a Word document with a three-column table for agent information, date submitted, and done. That’s it.  I’m leaving off information like when the agent responded because it doesn’t help me.  It’s just more work.

2.  I set the goal of adding ten agents to the list each week–five on Saturday and five on Sunday.  Five is a small number and doesn’t take long to research.  Research right now is hitting the urban fantasies on my shelf and reading the acknowledgements, then looking the agent up online.

3.  I’m considering submitting queries the same way as I’m picking them–ten each week while I do other writing.  I can easily look them up on P&E at the same time.

 

How Many Characters in the First Chapter?

When I was working on my co-written book Valley of Bones (no relation to the book with the same title), we opened with an action chapter that had eleven named characters in it.  The comments we got back were along the lines of “We need a scorecard.”  Way too many characters, and ways too many characters being introduced in the middle of an action scene, which made it even harder to keep track.

So I’m trying to figure out how many I should have when I run across A Writer’s Guide to Fiction at the bookstore.  Opened it, and there was the answer.  It said to keep the named characters to three or less.  After I thought about it a bit, it made sense to me.  I know who all the characters are because I wrote the book; the reader is coming it into cold, and the names don’t mean anything to him.  But it was hard because the book project had four main characters, so it required us to rethink how to open the story to introduce some of the characters but not all of them.

We also ended up applying it to the query and the synopsis (five and seven characters respectively) for the same reasons.