A literary agent sells your book for you. More specifically, they know all the editors at all the publishing houses, big and small, who want to publish a book like yours. They maintain those relationships so that when the perfect book (yours!) comes up, they are a trusted source.
Agents are also up to date on the direction of the market, and they'll advise you on what to write next, or how to best revise your work to receive the right audience.
They'll also negotiate your deal, usually getting you a lot more money than you could have gotten on your own. An agent is your advocate, the person who is on your side. Most of the big publishing houses won't take your submission without an agent, and even smaller houses prefer agented manuscripts.
Now. How do you go about picking one?
Start with the big resources:
Query Tracker
Publisher's Marketplace
Agent Query
Compile a list of agents who are active, accepting submissions, and represent your category and genre. This list will be very long. Hundreds of names. Now you'll narrow them down based on your own personal criteria. Some of the more common criteria:
- Have they made a sale to a publishing house you know and respect in the last year?
- Are their current clients experiencing success?
- Do they respond in a reasonable amount of time? Even after you've been signed?
- Are they reputable?
Those answers can be found on sites like Preditors and Editors as well as the Absolute Write Water Cooler forums. Just google "absolute write <agent name>" and you'll be taken right to the page where everybody else is talking about this agent.
Once you narrow the list down once, you can go a little further based on your personal preferences. Some things to consider:
- How tech-savvy are they? Do they expect you to be the same?
- How communicative are they?
- Her personable are they?
- Do their reading tastes mirror your own?
To find this info, you'll need to dig deeper. Twitter, blogs, personal websites (most agents will maintain a blog or tumblr in addition to their agency's official website). Find interviews they've given. Most agents will get featured on Writer's Digest or even on smaller blogs and websites.
By this point, depending on how picky you are, you'll have a list that's somewhere between ten and a hundred names long, and it's time to start querying :)
Showing posts with label Querying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Querying. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Queries: A Do and Don't List
When writing a query letter, DO:
- Use the same voice and tone of your novel. A funny, quirky query sets up expectations of a funny, quirky novel. Dark query, dark novel. Look at your adjectives and verbs in particular. They should show you the tone of your story. Try giving your query to someone who hasn't read your book and ask them to tell you what they expect based on the blurb.
- World build just a little. Enough that we understand it's a fantasy world or a contemporary one, but we don't need names of all the places, especially if they're weird.
- Use specific language. Look at this example:
- Clearly state your genre and category using universally accepted terminology. You didn't write a YA/Adult crossover romantic suspense horror fantasy. No. You didn't. Define your work.
When writing a query letter, DON'T:
- Give away the ending. The letter is supposed to entice people to read more. Find the climax of your story, and stop just before that point in telling the story in your query.
- Ask rhetorical questions. It's too easy for a busy agent to answer them flippantly, and your query then gets ignored.
- Use outliers as your comp titles. Do this exercise: List the first ten books you can think of in your genre and category. Ask a reader who is not a writer to do the same. Don't use any of those books. Twilight, Harry Potter, Eragon, Hunger Games, The Help, etc. Any of those books that "everybody" has read, any books that people say "I don't usually read, but I loved that book." are not good comp titles. They're too exceptional - the rules don't apply to them. The rules apply to you.
- Make predictions about your own success. This goes both ways. Don't predict that you'll be a mega-bestselling-genius, and don't predict that you'll be a bargain-bucket-dwelling-loser. Just don't mention it. Let your writing sell itself.
- Insult anybody. Ever. Not the agent, not yourself, not other writers. Never.
- LIE. Never. Not about anything. Don't lie about how many sales you've had or where you've published or the importance of your role in writing organizations. Don't lie about where you went to school and who you studied with. Don't lie about meeting an agent at a convention, don't lie about awards you've been given, or places you've been published. Don't lie. There are plenty of first time authors who get published without ever having any credentials.
- Use the same voice and tone of your novel. A funny, quirky query sets up expectations of a funny, quirky novel. Dark query, dark novel. Look at your adjectives and verbs in particular. They should show you the tone of your story. Try giving your query to someone who hasn't read your book and ask them to tell you what they expect based on the blurb.
- World build just a little. Enough that we understand it's a fantasy world or a contemporary one, but we don't need names of all the places, especially if they're weird.
- Use specific language. Look at this example:
When <character name> learns of an evil overlord threatening the safety of his world, he is determined to defeat him. After multiple narrows escapes, <character> learns of a prophecy that tells him he is The Chosen One and is the only person who can defeat the Dark Lord.Along the way, <character> meets some new friends, including a very pretty girl, and is sorely tempted by a mysteriously powerful object. Many of <character>’s friends fall or betray him, including his mentor.Finally, <character> faces the Dark Lord, the fate of everyone resting on his ill-prepared shoulders. Will he manage to escape yet again?What story is that? Try guessing the comments. I bet you'll be right, since it describes about a hundred different stories. Vague descriptions are useless.
- Clearly state your genre and category using universally accepted terminology. You didn't write a YA/Adult crossover romantic suspense horror fantasy. No. You didn't. Define your work.
When writing a query letter, DON'T:
- Give away the ending. The letter is supposed to entice people to read more. Find the climax of your story, and stop just before that point in telling the story in your query.
- Ask rhetorical questions. It's too easy for a busy agent to answer them flippantly, and your query then gets ignored.
- Use outliers as your comp titles. Do this exercise: List the first ten books you can think of in your genre and category. Ask a reader who is not a writer to do the same. Don't use any of those books. Twilight, Harry Potter, Eragon, Hunger Games, The Help, etc. Any of those books that "everybody" has read, any books that people say "I don't usually read, but I loved that book." are not good comp titles. They're too exceptional - the rules don't apply to them. The rules apply to you.
- Make predictions about your own success. This goes both ways. Don't predict that you'll be a mega-bestselling-genius, and don't predict that you'll be a bargain-bucket-dwelling-loser. Just don't mention it. Let your writing sell itself.
- Insult anybody. Ever. Not the agent, not yourself, not other writers. Never.
- LIE. Never. Not about anything. Don't lie about how many sales you've had or where you've published or the importance of your role in writing organizations. Don't lie about where you went to school and who you studied with. Don't lie about meeting an agent at a convention, don't lie about awards you've been given, or places you've been published. Don't lie. There are plenty of first time authors who get published without ever having any credentials.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Query Letters
In order to get your book published, you need to write a query letter. You'll either write this to an agent or to a submissions editor, depending on the publishing path you're taking.
A query letter is a brief letter (less than one page long) that does the following things:
1. It introduces your book in a way that makes it sound enticing to read.
2. It demonstrates your ability to write coherently.
3. It introduces you as an author.
4. It provides agents and editors with a means of contacting you.
That's it. It does NOT:
1. Make predictions about how well a book will sell.
2. Insult anybody, ever.
3. Tell all about your life and your passions.
4. Do anything except for the four things listed above.
There are a few different formats on query letters, and every agent and editor will have a different bit of advice for you, but this is basically how it goes:
And that's it. That's the basics of it. Write the query letter first, and then go diving into some of the following resources to help you fix it. Why do it in that order? Because you can't fix something that isn't there.
Agent Query - How to Write a Good Query
Query Shark - A real, live agent takes real, live queries and tells you why they suck and how to fix them. Read the archives. This is why you need to have your letter written first. As you dig through the archives, you'll see things that you did. And you'll fix them, one by one. And then you'll do more things wrong. And you'll fix them.
The Girl with the Green Pen - a veteran slushpile reader will critique your query for free. Three times. And then if you pay her only $15, she'll fix it as many times as you need. Even a hundred. She's legit, too. I wrote a post on MMW about Taryn's Query Day: She read hundreds of query letters, critiqued them all, and tweeted the best bits of advice all day long.
Kristin Nelson also wrote a fantastic post about query letters.
A query letter is a brief letter (less than one page long) that does the following things:
1. It introduces your book in a way that makes it sound enticing to read.
2. It demonstrates your ability to write coherently.
3. It introduces you as an author.
4. It provides agents and editors with a means of contacting you.
That's it. It does NOT:
1. Make predictions about how well a book will sell.
2. Insult anybody, ever.
3. Tell all about your life and your passions.
4. Do anything except for the four things listed above.
There are a few different formats on query letters, and every agent and editor will have a different bit of advice for you, but this is basically how it goes:
Dear Agent's First and Last Name,
This is a brief blurb about my book. It is told in third person, present tense. It doesn't name too many characters or use too much world-building jargon, and it is clear and concise. It sounds a lot like the blurb on the back cover of a novel. In fact, many back-cover-blurbs have been lifted directly from query letters. This blurb should also match the tone and voice of your novel.
The blurb can be one or two paragraphs, but probably not three or more. You will introduce your main character (or both main characters if you're writing romance) and what their main goal and conflict is. You will not reveal the ending, but you will also not leave it with a rhetorical question. You will write in a normal font, of a normal size. You will use standard industry formatting.
This next paragraph will be about the book. The title will be in ALL CAPS. You will list the category, the genre, and the word count (rounded off to the nearest thousand and written like this: 95,000 words). You might mention that it's part of a series, but always emphasize that this title stands alone, regardless. If your agent or editor of choice specifically asks, this would be a good place to list comp titles.
The very last paragraph is about you. Your writing credentials, starting with the most relevant first. If you don't have writing credentials, you can either skip this or talk about your writing platform or social media presence, but do so briefly. There is not one agent who cares more about your twitter followers than they do about your book.
Thank you for your time and consideration (this is your only option here, do not vary from this),
Your First and Last Name
Phone
Website/Blog
And that's it. That's the basics of it. Write the query letter first, and then go diving into some of the following resources to help you fix it. Why do it in that order? Because you can't fix something that isn't there.
Agent Query - How to Write a Good Query
Query Shark - A real, live agent takes real, live queries and tells you why they suck and how to fix them. Read the archives. This is why you need to have your letter written first. As you dig through the archives, you'll see things that you did. And you'll fix them, one by one. And then you'll do more things wrong. And you'll fix them.
The Girl with the Green Pen - a veteran slushpile reader will critique your query for free. Three times. And then if you pay her only $15, she'll fix it as many times as you need. Even a hundred. She's legit, too. I wrote a post on MMW about Taryn's Query Day: She read hundreds of query letters, critiqued them all, and tweeted the best bits of advice all day long.
Kristin Nelson also wrote a fantastic post about query letters.
Monday, August 26, 2013
7 Steps to Writing a Query Letter
A query letter is a letter sent to an agent or publisher, asking them to take a look at your work. There's a TON of info out there on writing queries, so I'm going to be giving you a lot of links today. Be prepared.
1. Your book must be finished. If you are writing fiction, your book must be finished, revised, read by others, revised again, and again, and again before you even think about writing a query. If you look at the traditional publishing process, you'll see that after the querying process, everyone will expect your book to be done. It needs to be done. You do NOT want to blow off an agent by saying, "Thank you for your interest, but I'll need six to eight more months to get this finished. KThanxBai!"
If you are writing non-fiction, you'll need a solid outline, serious source material, a built-in platform, and your first three to five chapters completed and revised before you write a proposal. We'll talk more about proposals later, but let's just call them non-fiction query equivalents for now.
If you're writing memoir, even though it is non-fiction, you will need to treat it like a novel. Unless you're, like, Jon Bon Jovi or something. But us mere mortals need to prove ourselves before an agent will take a bite.
2. Understand your genre and category. No, you do not have a genre-bending stories for all ages. Precisely one person has done that in the history of forever and she was the first billionaire author, ever. You're not her. You won't be her. If your goal is to be her, you need to spend a lot of time talking to published authors who are not her. Again, us mere mortals have to play by the rules. You need to know who you're selling your book to, and you need to know why. You need to understand what agents and publishers will be interested in your work, and you need to know how to talk about your work intelligently.
3. Read other query letters. Galleycat has a collection of 23 letters that worked, across different genres and categories. Query Shark has archives of query letters that made the cut. Writer's Digest has a whole blog tag dedicated to query success stories, with commentary from agents about why those letters worked.
4. Read the techniques of query letter writing. Agent Query has a great post about the basics of query letters. Nathan Bransford has a great post on how to write the letter, mad lib style. (note: please do not leave your letter in your mad lib format, this is a jumping-off point) The Query Shark has tons of archives showing the evolution of query letters as they are revised, moving from garbage to gold.
5. Write your query letter. There's really no way to do this, other than to do it. Get it down on paper (or screen). You can't fix it until it exists.
6. Send out to other people. Send it to people who have read your novel (it's finished, remember?) and to people who have not read your novel. Let them make notes and tear it apart. After, ask the people who haven't read your book to answer a couple questions.
7. Revise. Repeat. If you dig through those Query Shark archives (seriously, go read them), you'll see that the first draft of a query letter usually looks nothing like the one that finally got a bite from an agent. This is not a light revision, slight alteration of word choice and spell check. No. This is like revising your novel. Hack, cut, expand, revise, change, delete, move. (If you didn't do that to your novel, you're not ready to query.)
There you have it. Seven steps to writing a query letter. Questions? Comments? Concerns?
1. Your book must be finished. If you are writing fiction, your book must be finished, revised, read by others, revised again, and again, and again before you even think about writing a query. If you look at the traditional publishing process, you'll see that after the querying process, everyone will expect your book to be done. It needs to be done. You do NOT want to blow off an agent by saying, "Thank you for your interest, but I'll need six to eight more months to get this finished. KThanxBai!"
If you are writing non-fiction, you'll need a solid outline, serious source material, a built-in platform, and your first three to five chapters completed and revised before you write a proposal. We'll talk more about proposals later, but let's just call them non-fiction query equivalents for now.
If you're writing memoir, even though it is non-fiction, you will need to treat it like a novel. Unless you're, like, Jon Bon Jovi or something. But us mere mortals need to prove ourselves before an agent will take a bite.
2. Understand your genre and category. No, you do not have a genre-bending stories for all ages. Precisely one person has done that in the history of forever and she was the first billionaire author, ever. You're not her. You won't be her. If your goal is to be her, you need to spend a lot of time talking to published authors who are not her. Again, us mere mortals have to play by the rules. You need to know who you're selling your book to, and you need to know why. You need to understand what agents and publishers will be interested in your work, and you need to know how to talk about your work intelligently.
3. Read other query letters. Galleycat has a collection of 23 letters that worked, across different genres and categories. Query Shark has archives of query letters that made the cut. Writer's Digest has a whole blog tag dedicated to query success stories, with commentary from agents about why those letters worked.
4. Read the techniques of query letter writing. Agent Query has a great post about the basics of query letters. Nathan Bransford has a great post on how to write the letter, mad lib style. (note: please do not leave your letter in your mad lib format, this is a jumping-off point) The Query Shark has tons of archives showing the evolution of query letters as they are revised, moving from garbage to gold.
5. Write your query letter. There's really no way to do this, other than to do it. Get it down on paper (or screen). You can't fix it until it exists.
6. Send out to other people. Send it to people who have read your novel (it's finished, remember?) and to people who have not read your novel. Let them make notes and tear it apart. After, ask the people who haven't read your book to answer a couple questions.
- Who is the main character of my book?If your friend cannot correctly answer all those questions based solely on your query letter, you need to dig in and seriously fix some stuff.
- Who is the villain?
- What is at stake for my main character?
- What kind of tone do you expect my book to have? Funny? Scary? Romantic?
7. Revise. Repeat. If you dig through those Query Shark archives (seriously, go read them), you'll see that the first draft of a query letter usually looks nothing like the one that finally got a bite from an agent. This is not a light revision, slight alteration of word choice and spell check. No. This is like revising your novel. Hack, cut, expand, revise, change, delete, move. (If you didn't do that to your novel, you're not ready to query.)
There you have it. Seven steps to writing a query letter. Questions? Comments? Concerns?
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