Are You Weary of the Query?

Questions and Lessons from the Land of the Query

There comes a time in your writing life when its time to publish, to put your novel’s package on paper. Think branding. Like Tide.

It was never enough to write a book to sell. Now you have to sell the book you wrote. You declined work, abstained from lunch, recommitted to caffeine. You discarded thoughts of becoming the next Cheryl Sandberg or Strayed.

You wrote the shitty first draft, and shitty seconds and thirds, because your concept morphed over time. Think Frankenstein. Or Play dough.

You chased family from the house by steeping lapsang souchong tea, which they claimed smelled like a tire fire. You closed the door instead. You made practice runs five, six, seven times, to show and not tell.

Now, you’re tired, and the biggest hurdle lies ahead.

You ask friends in the writing world and they advise to query an agent. Publishers are busy. You’re competing with bloggers who want a book in PRINT and celebrities who have celebrity platforms. You connect instead through an agent. And with DSL speed, you can disseminate queries with ease.

You learn it’s not enough to write a well-developed query, a succinct synopsis, a comprehensive outline, a long biography, and a short one. But your biography should include your author platform, which should include your Facebook, Twitter, and social media presence, which should include blogs you write and follow, and websites that relate to your platform. The circular logic makes you want to give in.

In your platform, you document how you have sold your soul, and how much is left for sale. The platform proves a) you are qualified to write this book because you already did, b) you will present well and not lapse into Pig Latin while giving a talk and c) you have people, other than your mother and mothers-in-law, who will buy your book and recommend it. Think influential, powerful, media. You’ve drunk bourbon with an early morning reporter. She counts. 

You evaluate Facebook friends, email contacts and Twitter followers as potential promoters for your book. But as you analyze the list, you find five names out of 327 that might have influence and wonder why you are friends with the other 322. You think of time saved no longer communicating with less influential types. 

When you have categorized life events into short biography, or long, you follow Twitter, Facebook and other social media for agent announcements and query contests. You follow agents who post using #MSWL (Manuscript Wish List), so you read up on hashtags. The second, you submit your 140-character pitch accepted only during 9 – 5 Central Time, at 7 a.m., EST. You decline to bid for an agent with proceeds going to a non-profit. You would like money dedicated to your interests, which feeds your platform, which surely the agent should understand.

Everything you say and do, including distinguishing yourself as a daily flosser, becomes your platform.

But it’s not enough to keep up with revisions, work in your field, teach writing, write about writing or generate blog posts which feed the monster of the platform. Now, you follow agents on Twitter, to learn what you already know. Make it shine. Make the first sentence intriguing. Work harder, faster, better. You should be at work, not on Twitter.

You begin querying. You discover agents ask for queries in different formats, in particular for online submissions. Place title + genre in subject line. Wait, what is your genre? Romance + Women’s + Book Club Fiction? Place title + word count in subject line. Place last name of your grandmother’s first boyfriend in subject line.

You research what to submit. Query letter only. Query letter and synopsis. Query letter and three chapters and short bio in body of email. Query letter plus synopsis plus first twenty pages, but send as attachment, or send as attachment and double space first fifty pages.

You note response times. Four weeks. Only if it’s positive. Four to six weeks, but if you don’t hear back, send a reminder. When Northeasterners have dug themselves out from underneath the last winter storm. Opening Day. Whichever comes first.

The online process is so different from printing and mailing a letter, where you review your package one final time because your eyes are old.

You hit the send button THEN spot an error. Or you have written, in a conclusion to one agent, what you said about another. Or the agent asked for the first thirty pages and you sent the first twenty. You accept the process is about attention to detail. But you used up your attention to detail in the novel. You have no reserves. Ask the dog, whom you forgot to feed in the morning.

But you admit, the process has made your book stronger. Your novel is told in alternating timelines and perspectives. You started with one POV, but after writing your query, you saw the logic of beginning with the second POV, and switched the order of the ENTIRE novel. 

You worked on the query and discovered what the heck the book is really about. Then you asked, do I like the theme? If not, which do I change, the novel or the query? And, do I have enough lapsang souchong?

Likewise, once you created a synopsis, you noted some events stood out. You revised the novel to reflect this. Or vice versa. You asked, how strong are the characters, how would they respond to the query process?

You miss waiting by the mailbox for rejection letters to line your office.  Instead, you receive a brief reply easily discarded by Gmail. Canned replies don’t offer the same incentive – you can’t burn them later.

You used to have brown-blonde hair, but you gave up on highlights. You hair is turning gray, in time for your photograph, though no one asked for a photo in your author platform.