by Anne R. Allen
Bloggers sometimes feel like Rodney Dangerfield. We get no respect.
This week, we heard how Amazon is banning 100s of book review bloggers and removing their reviews. Some of the bloggers may be violating “affiliate” rules, but others have no affiliation with Amazon and are having all their reviews removed anyway.
Of course this is devastating to authors as well as book bloggers, and no explanation has been given
Amazon, like much of the rest of the world, doesn’t seem to get how important bloggers are to contemporary commerce. These days, a great review on a major book blog can do as much for your sales as an ad in the New York Times.
The banned bloggers are talking about posting their reviews to Kobo, B & N and iTunes, which I think is wise. If they do it in large numbers they can balance out the power Amazon reviews have in the marketplace, and healthy competition is always a good thing. I urge everybody to spread their reviews around.
Amazon may learn that disrespecting bloggers is not a smart thing to do, whether you’re an author, publicist or even a giant retailer.
Unfortunately a lot of people who query us don’t seem to get that. They don’t realize that querying a blogger isn’t any different from querying an agent or publisher.
They pop us a DM on Twitter or FB or a leave a comment on a Google Plus post, offering us “free content on the subject of your choice,” ask for a review, or otherwise show they’ve never looked at the blog.
Most of our queries come from authors or publicists who want a blog tour promotion, interview, or a book review (none of which we do.) Some people want us to give free critiques or edit their work (sorry: we don’t edit or have time to offer free work beyond all we do for the blog.) And we often hear from people who want us to advertise products, websites and software or display their infographics. (We don’t do that either.)
We also get lots of queries from newbie writers who hope to collect some writing credits by guest blogging. That’s actually a smart thing to do. But you need to visit the blog first. Most of our queriers make it obvious they haven’t read the blog—or they’d know we usually have high-profile guests and only take 12 guest posts a year.
I’ll be writing more next month on guest blogging for visibility and building platform.
Writing a good query isn’t rocket science. But you do have to learn the rules. Here’s the most important thing to remember: publishing is a business and a query is a job interview. Give it 100% or don’t do it. Picture the real person behind the company, blog, or agency you’re querying, and talk about what you have to offer them.
Whoever is reading the query is looking for a reason to reject you so they can move quickly through the inbox. Don’t give them one.
Do a little homework and you can avoid most of these pitfalls. We were all newbies once, and some of these are just typical newbie mistakes. But if you educate yourself and learn to be respectful, you can avoid them.
Top Ten Ways to Write Self-Rejecting Queries
10) Send a query via anything but email (or snail, in some more conservative pockets of the world.)
Do not send a Twitter or Facebook DM or @message pitching your book to agents, editors, bloggers or readers—unless it’s in a specific Twitter challenge set up by an agency or blog.
Direct Messages are intimate and come across as disrespectful if you don’t have a prior relationship. I talked about that in my post on How NOT to Sell Books. I know there must be some “gurus” out there telling people to send an auto DM in response to a follow, demanding that people like your FB page and buy your book. Do. Not. Do. This. Please! Never send a DM in response to a follow. It’s rude.
Just this morning I got a DM in response to a follow that said “I know you hate DMs. I do too. Now follow me on Instagram.” Seriously. What was this person thinking?
If you feel you must thank somebody for a follow–which comes across as overkill on Twitter, and is certainly not required–at least make sure your “thanks” doesn’t come with spam or demands, and send it in a regular Tweet.
Book review bloggers are especially annoyed by tweeted queries. Review blogs are hard work, and the reviewers deserve the respect due to any other professional.
9) Skip the Proofreading
The e-query is a great boon to authors. No more double envelopes and return postage and trips to the Post Office with those expensive manuscript boxes.
But the e-age can lull us into a false sense of informality. An e-query is just as formal and official as a paper query and needs to be composed with just as much care.
This is true whether you’re querying a top agent or a lowly blogger. If you want to guest post, you’re not going to get a spot if you look as if you don’t know how to spell, and no reviewer is going to take on your book if you apparently use apostrophes as random word-decorations.
Remember to watch out for your headers, too. I remember working for weeks on a query and then sending it off to my potential dream agent with a whopping typo in the header (misspelling my own title.)
Rejection came within minutes. Yup. I’d self-rejected.
8) Advertise your failures
Agent Alex Glass reminds authors to “Avoid a sentence such as ‘This is my third (or fourth, or fifth, or sixth) unpublished novel, so I am clearly very dedicated and hardworking’…”
No: you’ve clearly failed a lot.
Everybody fails—that’s how we learn. But we need to keep the failures quiet in a query.
I feel the same if somebody queries me saying: “Nobody is buying my books so you have to help me by giving me a guest spot.”
My first thought is going to be that maybe your books aren’t selling because they’re as unprofessional as your query. If so, you will lose us subscribers and reduce our stats.
Writers who tell us they are no good at drawing an audience are rejecting themselves.
7) Verbosity
A query should be one page. Preferably less than 200 words. Anything more is just an advertisement of your lack of self-editing skills.
The query is your vehicle. Make sure it’s streamlined and modern looking. This means it’s short, hooky, and has lots of white space.
Most agents these days want a synopsis that is one page as well. They want it to read like book jacket copy—only with the ending included. Anything else is old fashioned and gets skipped. Don’t write a long synopsis unless it’s specifically requested. Here’s my post on how to write a synopsis. And here’s a great one from Jane Friedman.
Yes, I know you’ve taken all those creative writing classes that tell you it’s all about your talent and passion and descriptive writing ability.
But a query uses a different kind of writing skills—skills you’re going to need whether you publish traditionally or not. Every author needs to know how to write good blurbs, hooks, and product descriptions these days.
Learn those skills before you query.
And if you want a guest blogspot, show you have the writing chops to carry it off. If you write one big hunk of text in your query, you show you don’t get 21st century writing.
Thus auto-rejecting yourself.
6) Forget the hook
It doesn’t matter if you’re querying a newbie blogger asking for a review or pitching your screenplay to Steven Spielberg, you always need a HOOK. Make what you have on offer enticing.
A simple formula for a novel hook is “When X happens, Y must do Z, otherwise LMNOP happens.” It’s a one or two sentence overview of the plot that needs to be dynamic and show what’s at stake. For a more literary work, you might want to state the theme or setting and whatever makes it unique.
For a blogpost or nonfiction book, the hook only needs to answer the questions: why this book/post? Why now? Why you?
Or make people laugh. Humor is a great hook for selling a blogpost.
Yes, I know it’s hard. But we all need to work on our skills as “hookers”. Here’s a good simple piece on writing a hook from agent Natalie Lakosil of the Bradford Literary Agency. And here’s my post on Hooks, Loglines and Pitches.
5) Lie
Don’t tell me you read my blog regularly and then say you know how much I like to review Bigfoot erotica. All you’re telling me is that you’re a liar.
Agents feel the same way. Don’t say “I met you at the Southeast Montana Paranormal Romance Writers Conference-and-Gun Show” if you weren’t there. Maybe the agent was scheduled but cancelled at the last minute. Maybe there were only four people in her workshop.
And if you say “I love your client’s work,” at least read the “look inside” of a few of the titles. If you say “I see you rep Zorian Q. Weatherbottom, so I know you’ll love my work” make sure you know what Zorian Q. Weatherbottom writes.
If it turns out Mr. Weatherbottom writes Christian end-times thrillers, you’ve just self-rejected your steamy vampire/werewolf M/M romance.
4) Act arrogant
You want to sell your story or blogpost, not convince people you’re an asshat.
I don’t get very far into a query that starts with “I’m a bigshot. Here are all the fabulous things I’ve done…” and then goes on for paragraph after paragraph of “I’m so special”. I don’t care if you’re Shonda Rhimes. If you don’t tell me why you’ve contacted me and what you have on offer, I’m going to delete.
And here’s a secret: people who really are bigshots don’t have to tell people who they are. When Anne Rice contacted me to talk about cyberbullying, her name in the address was more than enough to make me ignore everything else in the inbox and jump to open it.
And even if you’re not that famous, just one or two major achievements are much more impressive than three pages listing every prize you’ve won since you got the trophy for good penmanship in third grade.
Here’s how agent Shira Hoffman put it:
“I dislike it when a query letter focuses too much on the author’s bio and doesn’t tell me what the book is about. Make sure you include essential story details.”
3) Don’t bother to do your research
- Agents say the number one reason for rejections is that most writers query them with books in genres they do not represent.
- Reviewers say the number one reason for rejections is that most authors query them with books in genres they don’t review.
- Our number one reason for rejections is that most writers query us with posts on non-writing-related subjects.
See a pattern here?
I realize everybody starts as a beginner. I don’t mean to make fun of novices.
But anybody can visit a website or blog. And read it. It’s not hard. It just means taking the time to be respectful.
And not look like a doofus.
You need to learn about the industry you want to join. The best way to get general info about publishing is is read a few current books on the industry, like, ahem, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE.
If you want an agent, then read agent blogs, especially in your genre. The #AskAgent hashtag on Twitter is also a great resource for up-to-date agent info.
There are some fantastic websites for agent-seekers that are must-reads: Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents, AgentQuery.com, QueryTracker.net, and QueryShark. If you write YA, check Literary Rambles, too.
AgentQuery has a searchable database. You can go there and put in the genre you write and choose the agents who are open to queries.
But don’t stop there. Visit the agent’s website. If the agent says, “I don’t rep paranormal romance or Young Adult,” believe her. Even though she may have sold the genre three years ago and several of her clients write in that genre, it’s counterproductive to send her your teen vampire romance now. She is not going to be so blown away by your brilliance that she’s going to “make an exception.”
If she says she doesn’t rep that genre, she means she doesn’t know any editors who are buying that genre right now. She probably can’t even sell the books of her existing clients who write in that genre. Genres have fashions, and what’s hot one month can be untouchable the next. Even if you have the storytelling skills of J.K. Rowling, that agent will not be able to sell your book..
People who query asking me to review a book—no matter the genre—are just wasting their time and mine. This is not a book review blog. It’s not what we do. A quick glance around tells you that and it’s clearly stated on our CONTACT US page.
These things happen because the queryiers think their time is more valuable than the time of the people they are querying, so they don’t bother to research. Not a good way to start a business relationship.
2) Ignore guidelines
NEVER ever query an agent or publisher or blogger without reading the guidelines—the ones on their actual current website, not in a library copy of some book on agents from 10 years ago.
Oh yeah, and then you have to FOLLOW the guidelines. I don’t know how many times I have heard authors say “this agent says she wants a one-page synopsis, double spaced, but I have a book (published in 1987) that says a synopsis should be at least 7 pages, so that’s what I sent.”
You just self-rejected.
I don’t care if the agent says she wants the synopsis written in Sanskrit. Just go to Google Translate and do it.
If you don’t like her guidelines, don’t query her. But otherwise, you’re only wasting electrons.
We state in our guidelines: “Pieces must be informational rather than promotional, and we prefer a light-hearted tone. Your piece should present a fresh take on writing craft or a current publishing industry issue. 1500-2500 words.” When people send me a heavy-handed, 300 word promotional piece about their latest book, all they’re telling me is they didn’t bother to read the guidelines.
1) Amateurish antics
If you query in the voice of your character, write a synopsis from the point of view of her cat, or write your query in glitter on a pair of hot pink panties, you will get noticed, but not in a good way.
Even if your antics are wildly clever, this is like wearing an evening gown to a job interview. You are advertising yourself as an amateur who doesn’t know how things are done in the business.
Listen to the agents:
“Queries are business letters. Agenting is business. Publishing is business. I try to be nice and friendly and funny and all, but the bottom line is that I expect those with whom I work to be professional and take what they’re doing seriously.
—Linda Epstein (Jennifer De Chiara Literary)”
“Treat [a] query as a job interview. Be professional. Be concise.”
—Nicole Resciniti (The Seymour Agency)
A lot of people overestimate the value of raw “talent”. If you’re a clueless amateur, an egotist, or a pain in the patoot, nobody will want to work with you even if you have the talent of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Jane Austen all rolled into one.
So don’t reject yourself before you even hit “send.” Learn to write a professional query, whether it’s to an agent, an editor, or blogger. Show respect. It opens an amazing number of doors.
For more great quotes from agents about queries, check out Chuck Sambuchino’s blogpost Literary Agents Sound Off.
And for a comprehensive survey of what agents don’t want to see in queries, read J.M. Tohline’s 2010 blogpost The Biggest Mistakes Authors Make in Querying Agents.
For more on queries, here’s Nathan Bransford’s classic post on how to write a query.
by Anne R. Allen @annerallen April 10, 2016
How about you, Scriveners? What mistakes did you make when you were first querying? As bloggers, do you get outrageously inappropriate queries? What’s the worst query you ever saw?
Yes, we’re still here on WordPress. My tech person has evaporated. Next week we’ll have a great guest post from Cat Michaels on building online community (essential for sales these days.) But whether the post will be here or on Blogger is still up in the air.
If you want to make sure you don’t lose track of us, you might want to subscribe to my book blog, annerallensbooks.blogspot.com. You’ll only get a notice if there’s a new post. This week I’ve got a post on 10 Reasons Why Short Fiction is Hot at the book blog.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
…Mary J. Caffrey
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| FREE! |
Narrated by C.S. Perryess and Claire Vogel
***
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
Literary Death Match 250 word Bookmark Contest. Judged by Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket). Must be under 250 words. $1000 first prize. All finalists will be invited to read at LDM events near where they live. $15 for one entry $20 for two. Enter via submittable. Deadline May 16th, 2016
Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Contest. First prize: $5000. Entry fee $15 poetry $25 prose (Early bird prices) Enter your poem, story, essay, magazine article, play, TV or film script. Lots of prizes. Early Bird Deadline May 6, 2016
Strangelet is a paying journal of speculative fiction that is looking for flash fiction, short stories and comics for their September issue, edited by Bill Campbell of Rosarium Publishing. They pay .01c a word, with a minimum of $5. Deadline for the September issue is April 30th
Sequestrum Reprint Awards. Finally a contest that actually wants previously published short stories and creative nonfiction! Entry fee $15. Prize is $200 and publication in the Fall-Winter issue of Sequestrum. The runner-up will receive $25 and publication. Finalists listed on the site. Deadline April 30th, 2016.
Platypus Press. A new UK small press is looking for literary novels and poetry collections. No agent required. Though your manuscript must be complete, the first three chapters of a novel will suffice when submitting. It must be previously unpublished, but work posted on a blog or personal website is acceptable. Accepts simultaneous submissions.
Rejection is like everything else: you gotta start somewhere. Why not ignore Anne’s good advice and never find out what you did wrong. You can then move on to getting rejected by agents, editors, movie producers and book sellers. Welcome to the writer’s world. lol
Ruth–Haha! Onward and upward with the rejections, people! Yes. Don’t forget the booksellers. Stomp into a tiny bookstore and demand a big book-signing event. That’s always fun!
What a list! I kept telling myself “hey you’re doing great on this one”- then I’d remember it was a How NOT to article…
Have to admit, I’m in a very odd place right now for the whole marketing side of the vocation. My sense is I’ve grown to a certain point, probably need help and to spend time on how to break through to another level. But right now (the last year plus) I’m not as enthused. I keep writing, that’s of course the main thing. Not averse to new ideas and this one will get salted away for whenever the hunger grows. Right now, plenty of writing to do.
Querying was how I started out, and of course it was an O-for, which turned out to be good news. Go back one day? Maybe, something for the blog, but I doubt it for the books.
Right now, I think about what I’d really like in terms of exposure and marketing and what comes back is “a shout-out”. Folks have been saying nice things about the books, and you gave me a wonderful ping yourself a couple months back, which was a highlight of my career seriously.
Will–Nice to know the mention here got you some good traffic! Save those good quotes and use them in your pitches.
There’s no doubt queries are a pain. Recently I was going through a file drawer and discovered my old agent queries from the 1990s. Soooo embarrassing. I’d cram 400 words on the page in an 11-pt font. I had no idea how to write a pitch or a hook. I’d put in tons of irrelevant information and I’d even pitch three or four books in the same letter. These days we have the Internet, so we can learn this stuff before we waste years of our lives writing self-rejecting queries. I dumped that file into the recycling after about five letters. I couldn’t stand it.
But we need to learn to write queries and pitches no matter how we publish. It’s how we get reviews and readers. Our Amazon pages need the basic information, pitched in the same way we would do to an agent. I’m not pretending it’s fun, but it’s a necessary part of our skill set.
If someone sent me a message on hot pink panties, I might take notice…
“Nobody is buying my books so you have to help me by giving me a guest spot.” – Hey, I’ve had some of those! All from people who don’t follow my blog, which is one of the qualifications I state in my guest post guidelines.
Most of that is so common sense. People just don’t think anymore.
Alex–I’ll bet your blog gets targeted a lot, since you have such a big readership. I tell people blog commenters get priority, too, but that’s in the guidelines, and in order to read the guidelines, they’d have to visit the blog. And they don’t want to be bothered. It’s so weird that so many people think this is a good idea. I keep wondering if there’s a misguided book or website out there that is telling people to do this stupid stuff. So often the queries have similar wording.
What read AND follow directions! What is this world coming to. I kid, I kid. For real. The query may not be rocket science, but it’s kind of feels like calculus. 😉
H.R–Haha! I guess it is kind of like calculus. Or maybe it’s like writing a sonnet. There is a very prescribed format and we need to adhere to it closely.
I know right! It’s like when I go to the day job and they expect me to work! 😉
Queries are a science and take some learning.
Patricia–They do have a formula. Nathan Bransford’s post I linked to has some great info on that. I took a class from him at the CC Writers’ Conference where he taught querying using a template. It really works.
This: “Picture the real person behind the company, blog, or agency you’re querying…” Yes. Also, I agree with this but something struck me here that is often left out of articles. “the e-age can lull us into a false sense of informality.” This is huge. Great post. ?
Sarah–It’s amazing how often things come down to the Golden Rule isn’t it? Just being kind and respectful. It’s true that people forget that even though we may be home in our sweats, we’re still doing business and we’re not dealing with family or the dog. Maybe we should picture ourselves wearing a suit before we hit send. 🙂
Anne, you wild woman. I had no idea you had a fascination for Bigfoot erotica. And I thought I knew you!
Thanks for another fine post.
CS–I was so appalled to find out that was a thing. I mean ewwwww. Haha!
I don’t know how you do it, Anne, but you always have tons of good advice for us. Another great post on do’s and don’ts. I agree “writing is a business,” and if we hope to find an agent or a publisher, we have to approach them in a professional manner. I always check my queries for grammar and spelling. Sometimes a little weasel slips by me, but I try to be as polite and courteous as I can. Even when I get a rejection, I respond and thank the person for taking time to read and review my work. You never know. The publisher or agent might like the next thing you send them. I think I’d add “Don’t burn your bridges,” to the above unless it’s there and I missed it. Great post, Anne.
Paul–Very good advice about the bridges. Always be polite–you never know when you might run into the person again. The publishing industry is a smallish one. And people need to remember that bloggers are part of the industry and deserve the same respect as agents and editors.
So true. When I won a contest on a big, big, big blog site, I sent a snail mail thank you note on thank-worthy stationery to the guy who sent me the prize money.
Made. His. Day.
He said….
Katharine–A snail mail thank-you! I’ll bet it was an amazing surprise. 🙂
Two things stand out in regards to queries. While reading one of those annual Writer’s Digest Writer’s Market book (I think that’s what its called), one particular guideline caught my attention from a Midwestern literary agency: No stories about cats should be submitted. Makes me wonder whether they put it in because they don’t like cat stories or because they wanted to see if anyone actually read the guidelines.
The other was a prime example of someone being seriously obtuse. Got an e-mail from a book review some 8 years ago who wanted to review a book of mine. So I started scanning the list of questions until I came to one that said: “When did you first come up with the story idea for Cedar’s Mountain?”
I sent a polite e-mail stating that Cedar’s Mountain was the name of my blog, not the name of my book. She gave me a snotty response, which in turn made me delete her e-mail and block her.
GB–Most reviewers have to fight off offers of books to review, so I can’t help wonder if that reviewer was running some kind of paid review scam. She must have done precious little research. You were well out of that. Thank goodness she self-rejected!
Too funny about the agency with the “no cats” policy. Some people are uncomfortable around cats. Still, it’s odd to ban all books with cats in them. Sounds a little narcissistic I think that agency was self-rejecting, too.
OR: they were having a “bad cat day”, meaning they were sick and tired of receiving cat-queries?
Haha! Love the idea of a “bad cat day”! Yeah, there are a lot of cat cozies out there. Maybe they already have 4 clients writing cat cozies.
Anne, I can see you wrote that post with fury in your heart! Ay, I get a lot of cack-handed approaches at Writers’ Village too. From would-be guest posters who want me to link in their essay writing service, quasi-criminal. From amateurs who populate their emails with syntax errors, yet offer me a post showing people how to write. From shills, who have never read my blog, but who seek to run a sponsored link on my site. “Our budget will run to $10 per month.” (What zany would wreck their site with a toilet-wall of ads for dating agencies, casinos or vanity publishers in return for a few dollars of commission? Yet folk do it.)
I get these emails every week. If I was daft enough to respond, my own suggestions would be unprintable.
As for approaches to agencies, there’s only one fireproof rule. Sign your email Dan Brown. That works, if nothing else does. (And little else does.)
John–Obviously we are on the same mailing list. 🙂 I used to send a polite canned response, but now I just delete. Those college essay-writing people are the worst. And the ones who don’t know how to write are pretty sad. Yesterday I ran into a nasty one-star review of a book I’d enjoyed. It claimed the book was full of bad grammar, which was simply not true. I checked the reviewer’s website and one of the menu items was “about my blog and I” . ‘Nuff said.
The thing about literary agencies is they usually get 100 queries a day and take 2 new clients a year. Even Dan Brown probably couldn’t get into most of them.
True, Anne. I was once privileged to have an off-record talk with Luigi Bonomi, who runs LBA, Britain’s top literary agency. He told me he gets 6000 submissions a year and takes on only two new authors annually. The ratios are much the same for every reputable agency, he said. Even if we have 50 agents to approach, who specialize in our genre, the chances of making a hit are dismal. One solution is to find a small hard-working independent publisher who’ll accept unagented submissions – they still exist – then promote the hell out of that book, when they publish it. A lot of Booker Award short-listed novels have arrived by the independent publisher route.
John–That’s exactly what I’ve done. Most of my books are with a small press. It’s mostly like being an indie as far as marketing, but I have a fabulous editor and some people “on my side” so I’m not working in a vacuum. I suggest people try the small press route. You’ll never get rich, but you have a team.
Okay. I like this idea of a small press. How to tell if a press is small? And if it has a team?
Great piece, Anne, with lots of detail and helpful comments. Just getting ready to query again. So this is right on time. Beth
Beth–Best of luck with the querying! And keep in mind what I said to John above: the odds are against you, so don’t take the rejection personally. Just keep at it.
Anne and Ruth – a direct hit again this week! Thank you very much for sharing so many truths with your audience! I’m in the process of writing up the results of my second survey of book bloggers. This one has 502 responses – the answers range from funny to heart-breaking to brutally honest. I have the stats from the book blogger side to back up what you say and I’ve personally seen examples of all your 10 points over my years of book blogging!
Barb–I’ll be very interested to see the results of your survey! Book bloggers deserve respect!
Facing 20 manuscripts to mark from Crafting a Novel this week, and what do I get? A synopsis of 6 pages. (The assignment stipulated one page.) Manuscripts clearly not in standard manuscript format (taught in class, and stipulated for the assignment.) I am tearing my hair out, Anne! All these would be rejected by an agent or publisher right off the mark. WHY won’t people read instructions and guidelines? Why invite rejection?
Melodie–I do not envy you those 20 ms. Or the six-page synopsis. (That happens when people don’t have a clue what their book is about, so they just tell the whole story, only shorter and more boring.) And why don’t people follow the standard format? It’s been the same for about 100 years. I would have no hair left if I had your job. 🙂
Melodie, it’s a sign of the times. I recently taught an extensive class on one topic, and today mentioned the main premise from the class to the star student and she had that blank look…and said, “Not to say we didn’t study this, but I’m drawing a blank…”
Anne, as always, a wonderful post. You’d think such advice would only need to be presented once, or maybe twice, but that just isn’t so.
I often help my author clients with their synopses and query letter. It’s a painful undertaking when few know how to shift gears and write for business purposes. But the lack of clarity about their own story is the most unnerving part…
I’ve had the fortune of being asked to do two guest posts in the past couple years. I wasn’t looking for them and hadn’t queried, well not about guesting anyway. I had emailed the blog owner with a query about a post topic that had reminded me of another, related issue. I had checked archives, but not found it addressed, so asked if they might consider doing a future post on that topic. I really wanted to hear their thoughts in both cases, but instead they asked me to write a piece for them on it.
I underline the ‘be respectful’ part on sending out a query. Just because we’re nervous or might be a little less confident doesn’t mean our query has to reflect that insecurity. But then, that goes into that ‘writer thing’ everyone has (points at self): fear of failure. :-))
Can’t wait for next Sunday and the next installment of the Anne and Ruth show!
Thanks for your endless support and advice.
Maria D’Marco
TigerXGlobal
Maria–It’s true that switching writing “gears” is tough for a creative writer. We can’t get the distance from our own work to say what people need to hear.
Good point that a query needs to be respectful, but confident. “I am so unworthy” queries are just as bad as the “I’m a bigshot” ones.
I’m so glad you find our advice helpful. I hope we’ll be able to keep bringing it to you, wherever we post it. Thanks!
Anne!
Thanks for all the words and all the links! I’ll never finish reading and re-reading this, but I am so thankful for this site! I bless Jim Bessey for showing me your extensive work here and cannot wait until I’ve learned all you have shared here! (PLEASE don’t change any rules until I get it!) Ha!
Katharine–I’m so glad you’ve joined us. I promise the rules won’t change. Because the only real rule of social media is the Golden one. Social media is social, and if you treat people the way you’d like to be treated, (instead of as “target demographics” and faceless prey) you’ll do fine. 🙂
I like to think all of those people who can’t be bothered to do it right only makes me look better! But I probably did blunder badly in one query (several years ago). That’s because I thought of the agent as my friend, since she had e-mailed me several times on previous queries saying she loved my writing and would be interested in future work. The next query was probably not all that professional (I treated her like a friend) and I never did hear back. Wasn’t sure if she ever got my e-mail or if it was a no-response means rejection. I was too afraid to reply back when I realized my blunder. Now I know–always be professional and tell them what the book’s about. 🙂
Stacy–I think that’s 100% true. I think some agents asked for my manuscripts just because I wrote a polite query, not because they were all that thrilled with my premise. Of course that led to disappointment down the road, but I did have those precious moments of hope. 🙂
I’ve had the exact experience you talk about and it wasn’t really a blunder, just not understanding how literary agencies work. They tend to have high turnover with interns. So your email arrives with the other queries and there’s a new intern who doesn’t know you, so they think you’re being pushy and never pass the email on to the agent. Solution: quote from the original email and put “requested” in the header.
Fortunately, I can’t say I’ve ever been guilty of some of the more egregious examples of self-rejecting queries. (Submit a query on hot pink panties??? Oh Dear God!) But to the point about newbie errors, I have definitely slipped on one or more occasions (spelling errors, maybe not reading the guidelines as closely as I could have, etc.). One experience I have had over the years, though, that has helped me develop the kind of professionalism helpful for the writing/publishing industry is, quite simply, having a day job. Many writers aspire to making a living writing and getting the Hades out of the workforce, and that’s great. But I feel it also underestimates the value of learning. Unless you can interact professionally and respectfully with others, you are not going to succeed in whatever kind of work you do. I know as my role and responsibilities have advanced at my day job, it has placed an increasing demand on my ability to prioritize, to communicate effectively and to work together with colleagues and to just, overall, become a high-functioning professional. I hope writers who ARE struggling to get their work published (either with a traditional publisher or with a blogger) consider some of the self-rejecting behaviors they may be guilty of, while also recognizing opportunities to develop other skills (such as professional behavior) that can help their writing careers in the long term.
Jay–Thanks for the eloquent argument for why an author needs a day job. I think you’re absolutely right. Most authors do have day jobs, but they may consider them a hinderance rather than a help. But they are a help, in so many ways beyond simply paying the rent. They require us to behave like grown-ups. When we’re in creative mode, we may slip into childish behavior–great for creating art, terrible for selling it–and the day job keeps us balanced with our mature selves. Thanks!
This is a great post. You really summed it up when you advised writers to read posts about writing. I learned a helluva lot by following (and reading) blogs by people who have been around and know way more than I do. This is one of those blogs. I know I’ll get good, solid advice. You know what you’re talking about. Many of the examples are hysterical because I can’t imagine someone actually doing those things. I know they do; but some of this is common sense which I guess many people lack no matter whether they’re a writer or not. Proofreading your own query letters is such a basic and obvious rule, one would think that, of course, everyone does it. I’ve read posts with words spelled incorrectly, titles with errors, etc and sometimes that’s enough to turn me off. Therefore, I’m sure an agent or blogger would do the same.
Thank you for this post and for the fun way you present advice.
Patricia–I have to admit I made up the bit about querying on hot pink panties. 🙂 But agents have complained a lot about glitter inside query envelopes. And most of this other stuff–yes, people do them every day. They think they’re being “creative,” but a query is one place where you do not want to “think outside the box.” I’m glad to hear you enjoy our humor and advice!
It’s so crazy to do all the work of writing, rewriting, and editing a novel, and designing its cover, and then drop the ball. It’s the same as dropping a ‘clanger’ (in a conversation) – once uttered it hangs there in a speech bubble. And where’s a time machine when you need one?
Your post comes in handy this week because it’s that time again. I have query letters to ‘compose’ for a new novel, and each letter has to be custom written.
I need a quiet space to think – the equivalent of clearing off a cluttered desk. My first efforts will be as awkward as the first draft of a manuscript. I always go in thinking this time I know what to say, but I hit the same brick wall. Notice, it’s the actually the wall hitting me, but it sounds friendlier to think I might have penetrated it with a brilliant sentence in the perfect place.
Since agents receive so many queries, I wonder if we authors aren’t thoroughly culled during an obstacle course a bit like a computer game with several levels of aptitude. But our query letter only has one ‘life’ and we have to make it through several rounds of play before the person we’re actually querying even sees it… they being the last person in a long line of interns with a checklist of absolute deal breakers.
Veronica–Comparing the agent-query process to a videogame is brilliant. Yes, your query has to go through many levels of “play” before it hits the agent’s desk. And those deal-breakers are what keep us from ever getting read by the agent.
Anne – another wonderful post. I’d be interested to see the age range of some of the queriers (yes, I think I made that word up) who ignore assignment directions. My students do it all the time, to a level that astounds me. It’s like they are putting together Ikea furniture, and the directions only have to be consulted if something goes wrong. Of course, by then, it’s too late….
A question – I’m not Jonny Base-level on tech stuff, but if you need help getting moved back to your old site I might be able to help.
Thank you again for another wonderful post!
Nicole–I like the analogy to Ikea furniture directions! But it’s not just young people. I know lots of older writers who have been querying for decades who are sure they know everything about it because they read a book on queries in 1987. The possibility that different agents (or reviewers) might have different requirements does not exist in their world. There is One Right Way–the way they’ve always done it–so they ignore all evidence to the contrary.
Thanks for your offer. I may take you up on it. I’m still keeping fingers crossed that he will resurface before the blog simply disappears.
Fingers crossed here, too! And fingers crossed.
This was great. Chances are the ones who’re professional at this are the ones reading and nodding, and the ones who really need the advice don’t bother reading any craft or book blogs. I definitely need to come back when you write about guest posts. I have very little idea how to find a well-trafficked blog or how to figure out what kind of guest post they’d like. I find the whole thing very intimidating!
Lexa–You’re right that most writers don’t bother to learn much about the business they’re trying to join. That’s why Catherine Ryan Hyde and I wrote a book about this stuff. 🙂 There’s also detailed information about helpful blogs and guest blogging on our “resources” and “guest bloggers” sections, here, including “how to get your book published”. And I will have a post on guest blogging on May 1st. Social media is all about being social and blogging is a social medium. A lot of bloggers don’t get that.