Query advice from a former agent’s intern
July 11, 2011 6 Comments
[Today's guest blogger is Jazz Sexton. Jazz holds a BA in Fiction Writing and a Certificate in Children’s Literature from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Certificate in Publishing from NYU. She blogs about books and writing at www.jazzsexton.com, and offers editing services and query letter critiques at www.wordsmadefresh.com. Thanks for joining us!]
Slush readers are looking for any reason to reject you so they can get through the pile faster. I spent the first half of this year as a slush reader for a literary agent, and saw the same query letter mistakes day after day. Here are five of the most common faux pas you should avoid at all costs. Your writing career depends on it!
1. Love Thy Genre
Don’t act like you or your genre is better than other writers and their genres, and don’t assume your book is better than the others within your own genre. Agents tend to rep many genres running the gamut from literary fiction to commercial romance. They don’t want to work with someone with blatant disdain for the genres they rep or someone who is full of herself.
2. Stay in One Genre (Nominally)
You know how one of the first things you learn about the craft of writing is to use active verbs rather than a string of adjectives? It applies in your query letter, too. Though your novel may be a romantic mystery magical realism piece with religious undertones, you’d do yourself a favor to decide which one stands out the most. Listing so many genres gives off the impression that you don’t know what your book is about. If you can’t decide which one to use, just call it a novel. Don’t point out that you think it is genre defying. If you want to sell the book in stores, it will need a genre label.
3. Keep it Short
Unless an agent has specific instructions in his or her submission guidelines that request a story synopsis, keep your pitch to a paragraph or two at most. Someone who can’t pitch a story concisely doesn’t come across as someone with strong writing skills. The best use of your two paragraphs is to introduce the main character and a relevant defining characteristic (her job, she only has one arm, etc.), her conflict, and a hint of provocation to whet the reader’s interest (in other words, don’t give away the ending).
Make sure your bio is also concise. No one wants to know that you’re a 40-year-old dad with a loving wife, 3 teenagers, and a stable of horses. We want to know your writing credentials. Your bio should be pertinent to what you submit. If you are submitting a YA dystopian, let them know you are a member of SCBWI, and leave out being a member of RWA.
4. One Agent at a Time
This one is about courtesy. I immediately delete any queries sent to more than one agent because I know a writer sending the same query to ten agents at once has not done his research into which agency is best for him.
First of all, you shouldn’t send your work out to ten agents at once. Sending the same body of work out to ten agents simultaneously could lower your chances of getting an agent. Think of it this way: If you realize after six months of querying that you need to revise, you’re going to have fewer new agents to send your work to once you’ve improved. You can query the same agents again, but they or their slush readers might remember your work, and might be biased against the older version.
Second of all, if you just can’t stop yourself from all of those simultaneous queries, you need to open 10 separate emails. Sending bulk emails could send your query to the spam folder, and it is plain unprofessional. We have eyes; we can see all those names you queried.
5. Do Not Bribe The Agent
Not only did an aspiring author offer massages, he also asked if he could provide gift cards to my boss’s favorite restaurants, stores, etc. This isn’t cool in any way. Why would you want an agent to rep your work if they take you on bribes rather than on your talent and craft? I don’t see how anyone could respect an agent who would do that or how authors could respect themselves.
You might say, “But I just want to show how appreciative I am that agents look at my work!” All you have to do is thank them for their time and consideration at the end of the query.
Even if you don’t think any of the above sounds like you, take a hard look at your query or get a second opinion from someone with querying experience. Good luck!
About fvanhorne
Good advice, Jazz. It pays to look at the agency requirements. This goes for publishers as well.
You wrote: “No one wants to know that you’re a 40-year-old dad with a loving wife, 3 teenagers, and a stable of horses. We want to know your writing credentials.”
What about the second career writer whose education is not from within the field of writing? For example, I have a Master’s Degree in Nursing.
It would be pertinent to mention your degree if your story takes place in a hospital, your characters work in the medical field, etc. If the story has nothing to do with medicine, mentioning your degree won’t kill your chances, but it won’t help, and will seem out of place in your query.
I understand about not sim-subbing full manuscripts to publishers (they get pissed off if they show an interest and have invested some time in a project already and the author turns around and says, oh, sorry, just gave it to that other guy over there).
But QUERIES? SERIOUSLY? I might have done my market research and found six or eight or ten agents whom I thought were fitted for the kind of stuff I produce. I am writing a QUERY letter. If one of those agents answers me with a request for a full MS and an exclusive I am more than happy to grant an exclusive – for a reasonable time. But at this point, at the query point, all the author is doing is sending out a question, and that author is entitled to ask a question of several people without waiting six weeks or six months for an answer. All the author is asking at the query point is, “Are you interested in knowing more?” If the point is reached where an agent IS so interested, then we can talk about exclusivity. Any writer with a hope of having a career in what’s left of this century is hamstrung enough by the fact that some publishers take up to a year to say no to a project. You cannot seriously expect them to take six months out of their lives for every. Single. Agent. Query. They. Send. Out. Courtesy works both ways. After all, the agent is jockeying for 15% of the writer’s income, and that is all – and while I do understand that good agents are swamped with queries the criterion should be whether they are interested in the material being presented and not in whether someone else in the agency business has been asked if they are interested, too. At this point, there has been no commitment, no money has changed hands, no contracts have been signed. Multiple queries to likely candidates are the only way left to an author to keep a career on SOME sort of an even keel…
I’ve found that agents are quick to respond. If they aren’t, they are interested. They don’t have time to sit on a query and won’t.
“Second of all, if you just can’t stop yourself from all of those simultaneous queries, you need to open 10 separate emails. Sending bulk emails could send your query to the spam folder, and it is plain unprofessional.”
There’s the solution. Not that one has sent to several agents, but that they have done so in a bulk email. If each is individually sent, with some tiny feature that shows the writer is interested in each agent individually, it’s probably the best bet to send to several. The reason pertains to odds; basic math. Even the best writers on the planet are likely to be rejected by the first ten (at a minimum) they send to. Almost every decent writer I know, who has sent to an agent, managed to get one (or none) either by knowing someone or by sending out massive numbers of letters. And, while it might be convenient for the agent to not have to hustle for that good writer who has managed across his or her desk four months ago, it is definitely in the interest of the writer to up the odds and get the job done before they are 250 years old.
Agents are bombarded, but they also are in competition, whether they know it (or care) or not. The act of being bombarded has made far too many of them comfortable, not to mention a bit arrogant and presumptuous upon the time of people who, 99% of, they will not serve an iota. Be clear here. The standard of sending to one agent at a time is set by agents. One has to ask, what do they have to lose, compared to the artist? Well, I contend that perhaps they have the next decent writer to lose, but it’s hard to see that amongst the pile.
This should be a give and take business. Writers should show respect, and be as honest and helpful as they can, but the business isn’t designed around the convenience of the writer. Writers do well to know this and plan accordingly.