Bad Query

I was searching through old emails in one of my accounts recently, trying to find a password.  While searching, I came across an agent's reply to a query letter I wrote over a decade ago.  The query was for a terribly-written fantasy novel I started when I was in college.  At the time, I thought I had a fairly good idea for what a query letter should look like, based on what some books were telling me.  It's such a bad query letter, I felt like I had to share it (and comment on its hideousness).  Here it is (with the agent's name hidden):

Dear Mr. [redacted],
    I found your listing in the 2000 edition of "Guide to Literary Agents."  I'm excited that you're actively seeking commercial fiction and that you "know the book business from both sides of the table."  I have recently completed a fantasy novel titled [redacted], and I'm seeking an agent interested in finding new writers who can find the right publisher for my work.
    In the year 412 solum-ruina, a sorcerer named Shaelox orders his army, under the leadership of General Cynag, to forcefully take control of Ortello, an abandoned fortress inside the borders of Derunate.  The sorcerer makes allies of the ogre tribes, and the western lands of men become a vast battleground.  Shaelox seeks the fortress because of a great beast that dwells inside.  Its name is Chonossar, and it is the product of the world's first source of evil – Omrontus.
    The beast will only adhere to its master or to any who possess the Jewel of Omrontus.  This jewel is fused to the Torguscept; a conglomerate of two staves in one.  The Torguscept also holds the Jewel of Prospotos, which would allow its user to destroy the beast.
    Aeril, a prince in disguise and cousin to Shaelox, travels to the city of Mystic in the east in order to retrieve the Torguscept and destroy Chonossar.  He teams up with Dergous (a self-proclaimed scholar) and Diana (a strong willed daughter of Litas' only sword-maker) as well as two dwarves in a quest to rid the world of the remnant of Omrontus' evil.
    I am currently a monthly writer and editor for a newsletter with a circulation of about 300.  I have also taken two creative writing courses at [redacted].
    Please contact me if you would be interested in reading my synopsis or sample chapters.  If you have further questions, I can be reached through email or by phone ([redacted]).  Thank you for your time.  I look forward to your response.

 

-Matt Wuertz

His response was, "No thanks."  Really?  You're not interested in a quest to find the Torguscept in order to stop Chonossar?  Perhaps you missed the plot through all of these esoteric names.  It's a wonder he could even type a response between fits of laughter.

I think I'm better with query letters now.  At least, I hope so.  Time will tell...

Submission Follow-ups

After we submit a manuscript to a magazine, we wait for a response. That duration varies depending on the market, among other factors, and we should follow-up with the editor of that publication if there hasn’t been a response in a reasonable amount of time.

What’s a reasonable wait? We can find reported response times for established markets through websites like Duotrope and The Black Hole. Some magazines also post slush updates or statistics on their websites. Newer magazines tend to be fairly quick at first because they don’t have a backlog of submissions to sift through (unless they opened to a private group of authors first).

Once you’ve calculated the average response time over the past few months, add that time to your submission to figure out a due date. (For example, if you submitted on June 1 and calculate an average response time of three months, expect a response on September 1.) When you reach the due date, check Duotrope and The Black Hole again to see if other authors have posted submission updates. If the magazine responded to authors who submitted after you, that should be a yellow flag. If not, you may need to adjust your due date based on the latest statistics.

My due date is here, so I’m ripping the editor in half! Don’t be so hasty. Check the magazine’s website to see if they have any news about their slush pile. Also, look at the submission guidelines. They may specify that you not contact them about unanswered submissions until a certain time period has passed, one that is likely past your due date. (Look for taglines such as: “Do not send a follow-up query until after 90 days.”)

If all sources, from the tracking sites to the magazine’s site, indicate that you should have received a response by now, be kind in your follow-up. Letters get lost in the mail, spam-guards kill emails, and editors get side-tracked. In any case, assume this was not malicious on the part of the editor. Just send a quick note or email stating the date of your submission, the title of your story, and ask if they received the submission.

Hopefully the editor will respond within a few days, and I usually like to allow for at least a month for a response. If you don’t receive a response to your follow-up, you may want to send an additional follow-up or choose another market for your work. Don’t waste a year waiting for a response from a market that typically replies within three months. Something happened. Move on.

Agent Stats Final Update

One of the agents I had previously selected seemed to go out of business (as far as I could tell) before I could submit, so I ended up querying only 19 agencies. Here are my final stats:

19 queries submitted (11 electronic, 8 postal)
5 assumed rejections
13 rejections received (10 form-letter rejections; 3 personal rejections)
1 letter returned to sender unopened (I'm not sure what happened with this agency)
1 request for additional materials
Average response time: 21 days

Agent Stats Update 5

I don't have many more queries to send. I would have sent more, but I ran out of envelopes.

20 Agents Selected
15 queries submitted (10 electronic, 5 postal)
9 queries awaiting response (average wait time: 26 days)
6 rejections received (4 form-letter rejections; 2 personal rejections)
1 request for additional materials
Average response time: 10 days

Agent Stats Update 3

I was only able to get one additional query out last week, but hopefully more will go out soon.

20 Agents Selected
8 queries submitted (6 electronic, 2 postal)
4 queries awaiting response (average wait time: 25 days)
4 rejections received (3 form-letter rejections; 1 personal rejection)
1 request for additional materials
Average response time: 10 days

Agent Stats Update 2

Not much has changed, but I thought I should post an update anyway:

20 Agents Selected
7 queries submitted (6 electronic, 1 postal)
4 queries awaiting response (average wait time: 22 days)
3 rejections received (2 form-letter rejections; 1 personal rejection)
1 request for additional materials
Average response time: 3 days

I will be submitting more queries next week.

Agent Stats Update 1

Below are my latest stats from contacting agents:

20 Agents Selected
7 queries submitted (6 electronic, 1 postal)
4 queries awaiting response (average wait time: 5 days)
2 rejections received (2 form letter rejections)
1 request for additional material
Average response time: 3 days

Queries Away!

I queried seven agents, and I’ve already received back my first rejection (no comments – possibly a form response). I might send one more query out next week, and then I’m going to wait for a while. I want to see what kinds of responses (if any) I receive from these first few queries. It takes me a lot of time to prepare each query, and I’d rather not prepare all twenty queries at once. I think I’d like to keep the number of open queries below ten. So far, here are my stats:

20 agents selected
7 queries submitted (6 electronic, 1 postal)
1 rejection received
Average response time: 1 day

Stay tuned for more updates as I have them.

Almost Ready

I am getting everything ready to go: synopsis, author’s bio and a quick intro to be used in the query letters. It’s all coming into place before I start contacting agents.

My list of agents stands at twenty. I took the time to find agents who are open to new writers (meaning no previous novels published) and handle the category of fiction this novel fits under. I think it’s common among newer writers to submit to all the wrong places, and I find that to be such a waste of time and money. Taking just a few minutes to read through an agency’s website can reveal quite a bit.

Writers who bombard every agency in America with their novel are no different from someone who shows up to a limo company looking for work as a pig farmer. It is up to us to sift through agents, looking especially for these two phrases: “I am looking for” and “I am not looking for.”

Twenty agents does not seem like very many, and perhaps I’m more stringent in who I select than other writers. But just as an agent examines the materials sent to him or her before deciding to represent an author, so must we examine each agent to decide if that agent should represent us. The difference is that we should be doing this BEFORE we make contact.

I will start sending out queries through emails and the postal service shortly. It will take me some time to get through my list because for me, each query is personal. I take the time to share why I selected the agent and to make sure that he or she gets the exact material requested (in the specified format) for a first contact. To me, this is no different than sending a resume to a company I’m seeking employment with, and I do this with as much professionalism as I can muster.