Query Letters are the Devil

"Above all, a query letter is a sales pitch and it is the single most important page an unpublished writer will ever write.  It's the first impression and will either open the door or close it.  It's that important, so don't mess it up.  Mine took 17 drafts and two weeks to write."--Nicholas Sparks

Which is exactly why Mr. Sparks chooses to re-write the same book, re-title it, rename the characters portrayed within it, and mix up the disease that ultimately tears a family and/or lovers apart.  Essentially, Mr. Sparks could use the same query letter that way which, lets face it, is a very efficient use of those two weeks and seventeen drafts.  Genius, Mr. Sparks, pure genius.

For the rest of us who choose to mix it up a bit without serving up the same old formula for our readers' consumption, writing a query letter is a tad more difficult.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Mr. Sparks' writing is horrible.  All I'm saying is that I wish he'd change his plot lines a little--to something less predictable, deviating from his niche. My writing varies.  I have a true interest in science-fiction and that is what I've been dabbling with in the trilogy I'm working on.  However, I wouldn't be opposed to mixing it up with chick lit, young adult, horror, or a period piece.  Writing the same story is not something that's acceptable to me  which I  hope my readers will understand. 

Okay, lets hop off the Sparks soapbox. Query letters: Are they essential?  Unfortunately  for us, yes, yes they are.  Why?  Because an agent cannot possibly expend vast amounts of time on manuscripts.  Agents, believe it or not, get thousands of queries each week.  Sifting through manuscripts would require way too much time and effort.  Even if the manuscript was particularly well-written, if it does not fall within the genre that particular agent represents (and there are those authors who amazingly do not research an agent BEFORE querying them) then sending it to them was a waste of your time.

Here is a compliation of rules and guidelines, both written and unspoken, that one should follow BEFORE they begin the querying process:

1.  Research, Research, RESEARCH-do not send out a blind query letter to anyone and everyone.  Take the time to actually learn about the agency you're querying and the particular agent you want to query.  Do they represent your genre?  Are they members of the AAR?  Are they currently accepting queries?  Who are their current clients?  What sales have they made?  Are they Team Edward or Team Jacob? Okay, Okay so the last one bears no significance whatsoever--although, if an agent did mention that--I'd turn tail and run the hell away from them. Research; you get the picture.

2.  Make sure your novel is ready.  This seems so "Captain Obvious" of me, but you would be amazed at the sheer amount of people who query agents with half-written novels or just a concept for a novel. 

3.  EDTI, EIDT, EDIT (yes I misspelled "edit" on purpose)-A first draft is NOT agent-ready.  As a newb, I've made this mistake and have reaped the embarrassing consequences of my utter retardedness (<--If that's not word, it should be).  When you query an agent, you want to make absolutely certain you are putting your best foot forward.  This means going through your manuscript with a fine tooth comb re-reading every single word until your eyes bleed. If you don't take the time to make sure your work is 100%, then agents won't take the time to read it after they've hit the first typo.   Hey, no one ever said being an author was going to be easy.  Unless, of course, you're a celebrity author which is a rant I'll save for another day.

4.  Have a game plan.  Make three lists of ten agents.  Entitle these lists Tier One, Tier Two and Tier Three. Tier One will consist of your dream agents (you know, the ones you really want to rep your book but probably will more than likely reject you within the first five minutes--sorry but rejection is something to be prepared for). Tier Two will consist of those agencies you like, but aren't as crazy about as those in Tier One.  Tier Three, well, you get the picture.  After you've made those lists, make another list of ten or so agents from those you've compiled.  Take a couple agents from Tier One; a couple form Tier Two; and a couple from Tier three.  That way, you have a nice variety of agents to query and you're not blowing through the "A" team all at once.

So you've done all of the above and you're ready to begin your query letter which you expect to have hammered out within the hour.  Of course, I'm being completely sarcastic, there is NO way you can have a decent query letter cranked out in an hour.  My personal experience has proven that a half-way decent query letter has taken me a couple of days to complete and even then it still requires revisions.  In the time it takes me to write a query letter that's acceptable, I've written three chapters in my next novel.  For some reason query letters are harder to write than the actual novels they are designed to pitch.  It's a proven science and I invite you to find out for yourself. 

What I've learned about query letters:

1.  Do not make them longer than one page.  The very first query letter I ever wrote was nearly three pages long and I--GASP--mailed it out to agents.  When I started receiving rejection letters I wondered what I did wrong and then I realized how badly my letter actually did suck and that everything I'd desribed within it could have been condensed to serve a much more efficient purpose. 

2.  Try not to go beyond three paragraphs.  Agents don't have the time to read a bunch of unnecessary words.  They have rejections to issue and dreams to shatter in their efforts to find the next Stephenie Meyer.

3.  Include the genre (science-fiction, young adult, western, contemprary nomenclature, etc...) and word count (rounding to the nearest five-thousand; i.e. if your book is 93,877 words long call it 95,000 words) within the first two paragraphs.  Many rejections are based upon the answers to these two questions.  For those who sent a romance novel to an agent who represents horror, the reading stops here.  Word count may also turn an agent off especially if the word count is excessive (over 120k words) and the author is a first-time, unpublished author.

4.  Devote a paragraph (or two if your book is longer and more complicated) to give a very brief description of what your book is about.  This is the most important chapter or chapters of the entire query letter so don't f*** up the landing and make sure you've proofread/edited the hell out of it or them.

5.  The pitch.  A pitch is a one sentence synopsis of your novel that you would give to an agent in the event you and them just so happened to be standing in an elevator together and they were wearing a name tag proclaiming their profession by shouting in big, bold letters "Hey, I'm an agent, pitch me your crappy book."  Hence the elevator pitch.  For Enigma Black (of which I received one request from an agent thus far), my pitch was "Ten years ago she was the target; now, she's the assassin." 

6.  The "About me" section.  This is the section I loathe as it's, in my opinion, the way an agent really weeds out his or her prospective clientele.  Your "about me" section should state your publishing credits, your awards/recognitions and anything else pertaining to your book and why you are the one to write it.  I never understood the purpose of this section as I think a writer's work should speak for itself, but some agents only care about padding their wallets and first-timers are not something they feel inclined to represent.

7. Personalize your letter.  This goes along with your research.  Find a little tidbit about the agent you wish to query.  Do they like strong female protagonists and your book has just that, then for the love of God mention it.  Agents are looking for query letters that stand out.  If you make the effort to get to know them, they're work and the craft, they'll make the effort to at least take a gander at your blood, sweat and tears.

8.  Do not address your query letter to "dear agent".  Again, take the time to research and address it to a particular agent.  You took the time to write your novel; to edit it; to make certain it was publishable.  What's five more minutes of research?

Query letters are the devil.  There's no if's, and's or but's about it.  However, like the Prince of Darkness, they are an essential evil designed to keep us weary writers in check so that we may strive to bask in the glory of the gatekeeper's judgment. 

Resource:  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/unpublished.html#ixzz1IcAnYdKW

Inspirational Quotational-Words from a literary agent

Although I agree with this quote 110%, I think it's also all too easy for a literary agent to say:

"If you've FINISHED writing a novel you are amongst the elite!!! You ARE NOT A FAILURE IF YOU CANNOT LIVE OFF YOUR BOOKS. You only fail by NOT TRYING." - Nadia Cornier

Enigma Black--Launching to an Ebook outlet near you soon...

After thoughtful consideration, research, and reading blogs from other authors such as the following repost from Joe Konrath, I have decided to complete revisions to the Enigma Black trilogy, bypass the gatekeeper completely and go straight to the horse's mouth (figuratively speaking, of course). Yes, I've decided to go the route of the e-book (Kindle, Nook etc).   As such, this would mean that the launch of a (hopefully) new career could be just a couple short weeks away.  Obviously, I'm not going to quit my day job as I don't anticipate it being lucrative, but to realize a dream is still exciting in and of itself.  When Enigma Black publishes, I will keep you all posted!


Joe Konrath's Blog reposted with link:


Ebooks Ain't A Bubble

 

 

Elsewhere on the internets, I've heard the current ebook boom being described as a bubble. One that will eventually burst.

That's incorrect.

A bubble is when people invest more money in something than it is actually worth. Real estate, technology, dot com companies, housing, the stock market, etc. all are investments that might not pay off, and have been called bubbles.

Ebooks aren't an investment. We're not dumping money into them, hoping we can sell them at a profit later on.

Rather, ebooks are more like a commodity. But not quite, because they don't conform to the rules of supply and demand, as there is an endless supply. But I believe there is also an endless demand. I come to this conclusion by looking at other digital media, and seeing the never-ending, constantly regenerating market.

An ebook is forever. Forever is a long time to find readers. I'm selling over 1000 ebooks a day, but it would take me forty-one years to completely saturate the current Kindle-owner market (assuming there are currently 15 million Kindle owners.)

However, people read ebooks on more than just their Kindles. There are Kindle apps, Nooks, Kobos, smart phones, computers, tablets, and so on. I could sell 10,000 ebooks a day, and it would still take the rest of my life to saturate the current market.

But the market won't stay current. Ebooks will become the dominant format for reading fiction. They'll proliferate the US and Canada, the UK and Australia, and eventually the world.

There's no ebook bubble. There is only unlimited potential sales. I referred to it in an earlier post as a Gold Rush. But, unlike a Gold Rush, where there is limited gold available, I don't see this gold vein ever running out. The gold is readers, and there are billions of them. It doesn't matter how many miners are trying to get rich. There is enough for everybody, assuming writers work hard and stick with it until they get lucky.

Now, while I consider the ebook forecast for the next few years to be bright, with a high chance of riches for me (I'm currently earning $1300 a day), there is a tech precedent that might show otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

That article is worth reading, because it shows what could happen in the ebook world once there are no longer any gatekeepers. If the market gets flooded with crap, consumers could stop buying ebooks and instead do something else with their time and money, just as they did with videogames.

But there are some key differences.

First, there is now unlimited retail space, and consumers and etailers have made it easy to find the worthy books.

Second, while there are competing ereading devices, authors can make their work easily available on all of them without an extra time or money investment.

Third, there is no boom/bust bubble, because we don't have to dump money into development, advertising, or speculative stock trading. We don't have to spend money to make money.

Also, even though the 1983 video game crash ruined many companies and temporarily soured the public on videogames, by 1985 videogames were back, and they've been growing ever since. Videogames now make more money than Hollywood.

I've also seen some authors who are doing both self-publishing and legacy publishing, calling it diversification.

That isn't diversification. It's buying a ticket on the Titanic.

I could make a logical, persuasive case for chain bookstores disappearing (as chain record stores and video stores have), and then draw the obvious conclusion that ebooks will replace print as the dominant format, but I've done that often enough to bother repeating it all here. Go back to April 2009 and read my blog from then until now if you want a blow-by-blow report of how the publishing industry is collapsing and ebooks are taking over.

Instead, I want all authors reading this to ask themselves two questions.

1. Will ebooks eventually outsell print books? (hint: they already are in many cases)

2. Do you want to give up 70% royalties and instead accept 14.9% royalties by signing with a legacy publisher? (assume you'll be locked into the contract forever, because you will)

How you answer those questions is how you should approach the next legacy publishing deal you're offered.

For years, I've talked about the importance of luck. You can't succeed without it.

But writers need to fight Stockholm Syndrome and escape the siren song of legacy publishing. For decades they were the only game in town, and trying to get accepted by the gatekeepers has become imprinted on our brains. Getting lucky meant finding a publisher.

These days, signing with a publisher, who will give you an advance in return for the majority of all your royalties, forever, isn't lucky at all. It's like signing a balloon loan, where the payments get bigger every year. Or a life insurance policy, where you keep paying more annually for fewer benefits.

A much better route to take is self-pubbing. At least there, if you get lucky, you get to keep most of your money.

 

Source:   http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/03/ebooks-aint-bubble.html