When we started the process of writing AMBER HOUSE, we had an agent. Or thought we did. When the manuscript was finished, we sent it to my mother's 80-something-year-old agent in New York, who told her he no longer handled children's literature because everyone he knew in that field had either died or retired, and that he himself was retiring to pursue producing Broadway musicals.
So here we were, with a finished book we were in love with, and no one to send it to. (Luckily, the story evolved in the time between that day and the day it finally sold to a publisher, and it is better for it.) It was at this point I, in my blissful ignorance, sat down and attempted to untangle the Gordian knot that is breaking into the modern publishing industry.
Let me just say, if I had known how maddeningly difficult it would be, I would never have tried -- would never have insisted we write a book in the first place. But we had a book and I'd be jiggered if I didn't do everything possible to get it onto shelves.
My mother thought she knew what she was doing, but I soon discovered that there are a lot of misconceptions about what is required, what isn't required, who you send what, when, and that sort of thing.
I Googled around a bit (I just can't tell you how much I love that that is a verb) and decided a few things:
1. To get a book deal, you need an agent. (Well, that's arguable. Technically, you don't, but I don't think AMBER HOUSE would have made it without one. And I personally adore our agent. She's a fighter. That's what a good agent should be -- someone who will fight tooth and nail for your book. More on this later.)
2. To get an agent, you need to query.
3. To query, you need a query letter, a finished, polished manuscript, and some idea of who to query, and how to do this.
Querying is the most byzantine process imaginable. It takes forever, most cases. And the most aggravating part about it is no two agents want exactly the same thing from you, so you can get confused or anxious about what's expected, what's only requested, that sort of thing.
There are websites where people just dissect each other's query letters. (One I can remember is Miss Snark's blog -- although out of commission, still so useful -- I'll link to all the best sites at the bottom of this!) There are authors who try to get their books published for YEARS and can never get anyone to even look at their manuscript because the agents or editors decide the query letters are no good. I mean, it's GRIM. Go to the "Query" board on Absolute Write Water Cooler and look at some of the topics there. It's soul-killing. Like a Dementor just sucking your dreams out your mouth the more you scroll down the page.
But, anywho --
STEP ONE: You need a good query letter.
And this is hard. I'm just warning you. Our first rejections were because our query letter did not follow the format. I completely admit we had no idea what we were doing. And this was a very stupid way to go about things, because often atuhors' top-choice agents are the ones they query first! Believe me, you don't want your first picks to be the ones you're doing a "trial run" of your query on. You just end up looking like such an unprofessional noob, and you don't get any re-does once you've figured out a better letter later.
In fact, my advice is to query agents mid-way down your list, just to see if anyone bites. (As long as you're upfront about the fact that you are querying others at the same time.) That way, you can quickly figure out if your query is a dud or not.
The query letter is a nasty little word puzzle. In less than a page, you must convey the premise of your story in words that show you have literary flair without taking up any more space that you possibly have to, proving to the agent that you are a master of the English language as well as a savvy professional who knows the nitty-gritty reality of this business.
Time is money. Length is time. There are websites that will swear on a certain maximum number of words or characters for a winning query letter. I'm just going to highly suggest you keep things under five (two- to three-sentence) paragraphs.
There is a standard query letter format. You can deviate from this format if you desire, but agents expect to see certain information contained within the letter, regardless of placement. It commonly goes thusly:
After the salutation (Dear Mr. or Ms.),
1. A PARAGRAPH ENDEARING YOU TO THE AGENT.
I used to refer to this as the "brownie points" paragraph. You say something like, "I am querying you because you represent [AUTHOR], and [AUTHOR'S BOOK], and I am hopeful you'll be interested in [MY BOOK]." You can also say something like, "I am such a fan of your blog, and in it you mention you are looking for a [paranormal romance, middle-grade fantasy, etc.], so I am hopeful you'll be interested in [MY BOOK]."
The logic behind this paragraph is agents get mass-emailed by lazy authors all the time, and they want to know that the book you're sending them actually fits with the rest of the titles on their list. Sci-fi agents don't want to waste time reading mysteries, and vice-versa. And by comparing your book to one of the agent's titles -- even if your pitch sounds like something he wouldn't immediately associate with that genre -- means he might be more inclined to take a look because you have assured him it is similar to that title.
But, more importantly, this is a way to pet the agent's ego. If you compliment his blog, he will like you better. It's like complimenting someone's sweater at an awkward holiday party where no one knows each other -- it makes you seem friendly, sociable, and confident. It establishes a comfortable atmosphere. It makes you a human being, not just another query letter in a pile of query letters.
2. A PARAGRAPH THAT PITCHES THE WORK
This is the "Hollywood pitch" paragraph. Despite your desire to shower the agent with all the clever details of your book, all the subplots, all the emotional ups-and-downs, this is where you must restrain yourself, and prove you are a business-savvy professional.
When I say Hollywood pitch, I don't mean you have to shave down your "Lord of the Rings" epic into a single "it's Die Hard meets the Brothers Grimm" sort of sentence. What I mean is, you define the genre (YA, middle-grade, fantasy, science fiction, what-have-you) and supply the word count (** more on this below), and introduce the WHO, WHAT, and WHY of your story.
I read somewhere that your pitch should read like the blurbs on the back of a DVD case. There's an opening line -- i.e. "John Doe is running out of time" -- that establishes the basic tone, the basic premise (man racing against time to finish something), and introduces your protagonist. Then, over the course of a few supporting sentences, you supply the agent with enough information to get some sense of why John is running out of time, and whet the agent's appetite to LOOK at your manuscript. That is the whole goal here. You're not trying to SELL anything. You're just trying to persuade someone to read your writing.
If it's a high-concept premise, or you have a multiple-narrator story, or something that requires a little more backstory, you can push it to two paragraphs worth of pitch. But this is the maximum, in my humble opinion. Anything more, and you're pushing your luck.
3. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PARAGRAPH
This paragraph is non-essential, if you ask me. Some agents on some blogs seem to insist upon it, but if there is truly nothing particularly remarkable about you (which was always how I felt), then you don't need to take up space trying to make yourself sound interesting. However, if you are thirteen years old and just wrote "Eragon" or something, or your romantic-comedy novel is centered around a world-famous chef and you happen to be a world-famous chef, or you are a prolific blogger with a huge following, or you were born with an extra leg just like your plucky heroine, this is where you mention that.
4. THANK THE AGENT FOR HIS TIME AND CONSIDERATION
Again, I repeat: THANK THE AGENT FOR HIS TIME AND CONSIDERATION. Agents are busy, busy people. They accept queries because it's fun and rewarding to discover new authors, new works -- but they can be inundated with people who do not know what they are doing, and, as I'm sure you can imagine, dealing with people who do not know what they are doing can be grating and stressful. Agents appreciate it when you acknowledge that their jobs aren't easy. It feels good to be appreciated, no?
** The word-count should be shoe-horned into the query somewhere, but it doesn't need to go into the pitch. Agents want to know your book is within the acceptable range when it comes to length. For example, a YA book should usually not exceed 80k.
STEP TWO: When you have a query letter you have worked to a crisp, clean, airtight quality, you will need a list of agents to send your query to.
This was the most time-consuming part for me, not because it was necessarily hard to track down agents who represented books similar in style and genre, but because I had to double-check that:
- the agents were accepting queries
- the agents wanted queries emailed or snail-mailed
- the agents wanted just a query letter, or possibly the first chapter or a synopsis
- the agents were looking for titles in my genre
On top of all that, I had to research each and every one of them so that the personalized paragraph could be written in order to get those oh-so-important brownie points!
I compiled so many lists of agencies and agents and email addresses and mailing addresses and query requirements, organizing the lists by order of preference of agency. I remember one time I sat down at 9:00 or so at night and didn't get up from the computer until 6:00 in the morning. It was ridiculously time-consuming.
1. If this is your first book (or even just your first book in a given genre), make sure it is COMPLETELY finished before you send it out.
_____
1. Miss Snark, the literary agent
link:
http://misssnark.blogspot.com/
2. Nathan Bransford, author (and former agent)
link:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/
link to Natahn's "mad lib formula" to writing a query letter, which I highly recommend:
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2008/03/query-letter-mad-lib.html
3. Pub Rants (agent Kristin Nelson)
http://pubrants.blogspot.com/
4. Absolute Write Water Cooler
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/
The "Beware & Background Check" section will help you avoid scam lit agencies and unprofessional agents:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=22
5. Very useful Yahoo Answers post regarding illustrated children's books:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080419173015AAtebEB
