What I'd tell you on an author call: Query edition

I probably don't have time for a call these days, but here's what I'd say if I did

Photo by Nadia Rudenko on Unsplash

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, y’all let me lament about why it can be frustrating to be frequently asked to work for free and why it also might not be as helpful as one would think. A lot of people seemed to both appreciate the post and the resources shared within, so I wanted to go a bit more in-depth with even more good stuff, this time all about querying your novel.

So here it is, pretty much exactly what I’d tell you if we did have a call. Except there will be no barking dogs and wailing babies in the background. You can read it at your leisure and share it widely, because I do think everyone should have access to this sort of info.

Oh, hi. You’ve done a really big thing.

This is what I always say first because so many people forget just how big this is. Like, you wrote a book. A lot of people can barely sit through reading a book. You wrote one. You did the thing (millennial forever, sorry). This is huge. You should be proud of yourself. Whatever happens with this book, you committed, you did it, and you learned a lot about writing (and yourself) in the process.

Your book might not be ready yet, even if you think it is.

Before our first novels, a lot of us haven’t written anything longer than a college term paper, if that. That follows a pretty standard process. Write, get feedback from the class or an advisor, revise, work in feedback, polish, turn in. Writing something that’s 80 to 90,000 words doesn’t—and shouldn’t—work that way. Especially something you are going to ask a publisher to buy, and then hopefully many thousands of readers. Books typically need to be torn apart and put back together many, many times. Especially books written early in your journey. Have you had beta reads? Have you listened to their feedback? Have you read it through in a way that gives you separation from the story (printing it out, loading it onto your Kindle, changing the font, etc.). Have you given it time to breathe? I take weeks to months between drafts because I need things to simmer for me to do my best work.

If you’ve done all these things and really think your book is ready, then rewrite the first five to ten pages.

I’m serious. Give them a BIG edit. Make them absolutely shine. These pages are the key into getting full requests from agents. Make them exciting! End with readers wanting more. Tighten tighten tighten. Move up your catalyst so it appears in these pages. Give agents something they absolutely can’t say no to. A few pages that would have you, in a book store, feeling like you absolutely can’t put it down. If you don’t have that, don’t send it out yet.

All right, now write an incredible query letter.

Novelist and pal Andrea Bartz has done the heavy lifting here and compiled a list of SUCCESSFUL query letters. Read them. Read them all, actually. Absorb the format. A query is like a cover letter but a million times more exciting. It’s short, to the point, gets the pitch across and just a little bit about yourself. Here’s mine:

Hi AGENT,

I’m querying you based on your interest in character-driven suspense along the lines of CLIENT BOOK. I recently parted ways with AGENT and am currently seeking new representation.

First, a little background on my publishing history. I’m the author of four YA novels, including THE ROMANTICS (Abrams, Nov 2016), developed in conjunction with Alloy Entertainment and published in several countries worldwide, and my forthcoming original novel, LOVE AND OTHER TRAIN WRECKS (Harper Collins, Jan 2018), which has received starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal, as well as praise from Publisher’s Weekly.

I’m currently shopping a partial of my debut adult psychological thriller, BROKEN PEOPLE. Escaping an abusive boyfriend, 28-year-old Lucy King trades Brooklyn for nearby Woodstock, NY, but her upstate dream becomes a nightmare when, lonely and desperate for support, she develops a twisted, codependent relationship with her new neighbors, John and Vera. The enigmatic couple soon lure her into an intricate plot to fake John’s disappearance and escape their own small-town secrets, but all goes south when John turns up actually dead just a few weeks later, forcing Lucy to find the killer before she goes down for his murder. It’s BIG LITTLE LIES meets Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER, only the women are in charge this time.

Per your guidelines, I’m pasting the first ten pages of BROKEN PEOPLE below. I have an 80-page partial and synopsis available upon request.

Thanks so much!

Leah

Yes, you need an elevator pitch. Yes, you need comps.

Your book has to be pitch-able in a sentence or two. See above. The shorter, clearer, the pitch, the better. I love reading movie loglines to get ideas. You can find them on IMDB. What you’re aiming for is something that makes people say “Oh sh*t I WOULD READ THAT!” Like, imagine someone comes up to you and says, “hey there’s this new book about someone who finds a way to bring back dinosaurs into an amusement park and then everything goes wrong.” Who is going to say no?

And here’s the big thing: If you find you absolutely can’t distill your book into a few sentences, then it’s probably not ready yet, and I’d suggest going back to it and doing another revise.

You’re also going to need comps. My favorite format is old classic meets new. At this point, movies and TV shows are OK, too. So you’ll see how I worked that above, as “BIG LITTLE LIES meets Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER, only the women are in charge this time.” Adding a little flair at the end like I did really sets you apart, too.

If you can’t think of any comps because you don’t read in your genre, change that! You should at least be loosely aware of the market you’re trying to pitch in.

P.S. This should go without saying, but please god do not use ChatGPT to write your query letter.

Make a great query list.

This shouldn’t take you long, maybe a day or two of dedicated work. You can find almost every agent listed for free at agentquery.com, where you can drill down by your genre, etc. Another trick that’s served me incredibly well is picking out books written in my genre that I love, flipping back to the acknowledgments, and seeing who their agent is (agents are always thanked there, if not listed on an author’s website). A trip to your local bookstore or library can take care of this if funds are tight. This is how I made the query list that got me a bunch of offers in a matter of days. And then, it’s pretty easy to write an opening line tailored to your agent. See above.

It’s not a numbers game. Query smartly, rather than widely.

I do not think you should have to query dozens or hundreds of agents. Make a list of 10 to 12, and include a mix of big names and newer agents who are at big, established agencies. Offers from newer agents are easier to get—they just are—and you want to set yourself up for success. But DO NOT put anyone on your list who you would not be happy to work with.

Send out your queries all at once. Follow the guidelines to the letter.

Yep, do it all at once. That means if you have a competitive situation you can quickly inform all the other agents on your list that you’ve received an offer, and they will be able to prioritize reading if they’re interested.

Query EXACTLY according to the rules on the agency’s website. They will vary slightly from place to place. DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT veer from this at all. Interns are likely fielding these emails and they are looking for reasons to say no. Not following the rules is an easy one.

Don’t query multiple agents at the same agency unless someone specifically refers to to a colleague.

It’s bad form!

Watch out for scammers. Never pay an “agent” a single dime. If someone demands you accept their rep immediately, run.

Agents DO NOT charge money. EVER. If someone alludes to anything of the sort, they’re not a real agent. Agents also do not demand you say yes right away. If you have multiple offers, they should be fine with you taking a week or two to let the remaining agents read, set up phone calls, and make your decision.

If you get an offer of rep, ask for a call. And ask to speak to clients.

Don’t be afraid to ask for a call and come with questions. You are hiring THEM, not the other way around! Ask to speak to other clients. Ask them about their most recent deals. Any agent worth their salt will happily provide all of this.

You shouldn’t have to query hundreds of agents.

This might ruffle a few feathers because there is a lot of talk out there of the “query trenches” and it being a numbers game. In my experience, the people I know who have gone on to be working writers haven’t had to do this. Maybe they go multiple rounds, maybe they need to pull their book and revise it, maybe they need to scrap the book and write something new, but I think it’s pretty rare that you need to run through that many agents. I don’t think it serves you well as a writer, either. It sounds very very grueling and emotionally heavy.

There is no harm in hitting the pause button.

If you are not getting full requests, or you ARE getting full requests but then not getting offers, it is totally okay to hit pause and revise. Whether you decide to work with a developmental editor or incorporate some of the feedback you’ve received from your rejections, returning to the manuscript might be good for you. You can always go out again, but if you burned through all your top agents in multiple rounds, you might not be able to (typically if agents want an R&R, or revise and resubmit, they will tell you). Pause and revise I think is always better than spending many months or years querying the same manuscript without changes.

This might not be the book that gets you an agent. Or it might not be the right time for your book.

This is the hard part, because publishing isn’t fair. It’s way too white, way too straight, tends to take male authors more seriously than women, and gets obsessive about the flavor-of-the-week genre (hi, Romantasy!). All of this sucks. There is no way around it. It needs to change. All that said, we are working in this deeply flawed business, and if you want to traditionally publish, there is only so much you can do. So if it’s not working for you, moving on to another project is sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself and your career.

Letting a book go DOES NOT make you a failure. You still did the thing. You still learned a lot. You could not write every book you WILL write during the rest of your life if you had not written this one. That is a fact. I have let books go. My friends have let books go. It is in fact more unusual to never have had to do this.

The people who stay in this wild industry are the ones who choose to KEEP WRITING. I can’t say this enough.

I might be wrong about ALL of this.

None of what I’ve said are hard and fast rules. You really might know someone who did need to query 300 agents and then became a wild success. Or a friend who said “f*ck comps” and still got her dream representation.

But this is what I’ve found to be true for me, my friends and my colleagues, and so this is what I would tell you if we had an author call ;)

Happy reading, writing and querying!

Leah