You’ve sent off a big packet of query letters. Your mind is numb from editing and re-editing a one pager that’s supposed to define months/years of writing. And let’s not even mention the pains of getting that synopsis down to two pages. I’ve had bad dreams about it myself.
But what now? It’s going to be a while before you get a bulk of the replies, and you might not be that happy when you do. It is inevitable that your querying days will not end with the first battle and you should do all you can to prepare yourself for the next. Usually, it turns out to be a long war.
1) Revise your query. If you’re just starting out, chances are you don’t know what it is about your query that will decide its fate. Was it the joke you made in the beginning? Did you spend too much time describing the plot? Even though you read a template that said to put a general introduction in the beginning, maybe you are wondering if starting straight with the action will work. In the end, different agents have different tastes, and varying your product can help you gauge those tastes.
2) Look in to other agents. I’m assuming that your first round of agents was based on a detailed search. For example, if your story is a thriller than you probably queried a lot of agents who specialize in that genre. There are two main reasons to now consider broadening your search. The first is that you’ll be less likely to run out of agents, and the second, more serious reason, is that interest is very subjective. For example, I recently queried an agent and, curious, looked up some comments about him on agentquery.net. One person said he rejected them saying that horror is too hard to sell right now, and isn’t really his thing. This was back in May. Earlier this week, that same agent requested a partial on my horror novel. Point is, an agent out there who specializes in mystery could still fall in love with your romance (see what I did there?). It’s all subjective.
3) Read a good book. Now that you’ve started the process of looking for an agent, it could be helpful to delve back in to the land of the reader with a more critical eye. Knowing the process of query preparation,ask yourself how you might pitch a certain book. The plot is already proven to be publishable, so the only real hurdle would be getting an agent to read it. Think about these things. That, and if you’re reading, you’re less likely to be harassing your e-mail account. Which leads to…
4) Have a friend change your e-mail password. In the days of the smart-phone and the mobile devices, people can check their email every minute of the day if they want to, and some do just that. If you’ve been sending out email queries (and you should, some agents take only e-mail these days), you may turn in to one of these people. This just adds to the stress. Try to refrain from checking the old inbox any more than you normally would. Or better yet, set up a filter so that you know, specifically, when an agent has e-mailed you back. Otherwise, every ‘You’ve Got Mail’ (does AOL still do that? it’s been a while for me…) sound-byte will take about a year off your life.
5) Plan your next attack. Maybe for the first wave you used a basic template and sent out about 40 queries in a week. Sure, you made sure to address each to the right person, and maybe even allude to a book or two a certain agent has under his or her belt. But, much like trying different query styles, you should reconsider your approach as a whole. Might it be worth your time to only send out one or two queries per week and really research each agent, get familiar with their likes and dislikes, maybe even read a book of theirs or two? Probably. In the end, sending out 40 at a time may very well get you more responses, but how are you going to know if you don’t try.
6) Read agent blogs. There’s a lot of information out there, plus it can take the edge off the waiting process to read how human these people handing out rejections really are. They aren’t much different than you or I: they want to make an impact in the literary world, only for them that quest means sorting through hundreds of projects a month. Imagine if every time you wrote a paragraph you were forced to stop and think about 20 totally different ways to write it. Yeah, it’s something like that.
7) Compile feedback. Agents are busy, busy people, and instead of being rude to the many rejection letters you are destined to receive, try the ‘kill them with kindness.’ And this doesn’t mean beg. Simply a reply to the rejection (unless they specifically request no replies) stating that you really appreciate their time and are wondering they can share any specific feedback on why they passed. You may get a lot of silence but even if 1 out of a 100 gives some good advice, it’s all worth it, right?
WRITE. Don’t get so caught up in the stress of finding an agent that you forget to do what you love. Sending off a significant amount of queries can be satisfying, but also quite halting. It’s like you’ve traveled hundreds of miles just to end up at a brick wall to wait for an unknown amount of time for someone to drop you a rope. Starting a new project (or revising an old one, even the one you’re querying) will make you feel like you’re progressing towards something again. Not to mention, every writer needs the practice.
9) Frame your first rejection letter. (Okay, maybe you’d want to wait until you’ve actually reached success to frame it, but at least keep it somewhere where it can safely await the framing ceremony.) I’ve heard of some people making necklaces out of balled up rejection letters. Personally, I don’t think it’s fashionable.
A lot of these are things you can (and should) be doing before you start querying at all, but getting through that first attempt adds a different perspective. No one writes the perfect book the first time, so why should you expect to write the perfect query? Learn from your experiences, but don’t forget to keep it moving.
The edges of a bunker carved into the mouth of an inactive volcano glisten brightly in the morning sun. Within sits a large box-like machine draped in a shapeless cloth. Men in white lab coats and frantic countenances mill around the device, pencils scrabbling across clipboards. Suddenly a siren pierces the air; the scientists look up from their clipboards in unison, some in fear, some in awe. As the lights in the bunker blink to a pulsing red glow, three burly men reach for the cloth and in one swift movement whip it from the now-naked device, revealing the TOP SECRET PROJECT:
If there’s anything I’ve learned from being a frequent employer of writers for my various projects, it’s that writers need portfolios, and a blog is not a portfolio.
I often place ads looking for writers to write for me. Too often writers will send me fragmented writing samples in obscure formats, or a link to a shoddily-designed, hard-to-navigate web site that looks like a throwback to 1996. More frequently nowadays I get links to their blog, often filled with rambling, wordy posts on what their cat ate that morning.
As a hiring employer, all of these are a huge, huge turn-off. And I can safely tell you: a blog is not a portfolio. I don’t have time to read a 10,000 word screed on the merits of ketchup versus tomato paste when I have 100 other applicants to sort through.
As a writer, you need a professional, focused, and effective portfolio to show off your work. As an employer, I have limited time in my day to read writing samples. The easier you make it for me to access them, the more professional your portfolio looks, and the more relevant your samples are, the more likely it is that I’ll hire you.
That’s why I created Scribblefolio. It’s a service that instantly sets you up with an elegant, professional writing portfolio web site that you can send to clients and editors. There’s no computer skill or techno-babble required. Just sign up, fill in some basic info using the easy-to-use dashboard, and pick from a choice of classy designer themes. You’ll get a link like yourname.scribblefolio.com (or you can use your own domain, like yourname.com) that you can use to showcase your best writing in a sleek and, most importantly, professional way.
If you can click a mouse and type on a keyboard, you can create a gorgeous portfolio with Scribblefolio. After all, you have better things to do than figuring out how to make web sites.
Check it out at http://scribblefolio.com
The best way to get the word out about a new site is to get bloggers to cover it. If you want to write a review of Scribblefolio in your blog, be it a glowing review, a bile-filled one, or just a big meh, I’ll give you a free lifetime Scribblefolio upgrade.
If you’re interested, sign up for a free portfolio, then use the ‘drop us a line’ link at the bottom of Scribblefolio to send me a note with a link to your blog. I’ll then upgrade your account. You must have a well-established blog—no fair creating one just for this offer!
This offer ends on Monday the 6th.
Like Scribblefolio and want to upgrade your portfolio from the free plan? If you’re already a Scribophile Premium member, I’ll upgrade your Scribblefolio portfolio for just $5/month. That’s almost half off of the regular price, for the lifetime of your account. If you keep your portfolio for a year, that’ll save you almost $50!
To take advantage, sign up for a free portfolio, then use the ‘drop us a line’ link at the bottom of Scribblefolio to send me a note with the email address you use to log in to Scribophile. I’ll then verify your membership status and send you a link that will let you upgrade for the discounted price.
This offer is only good for a week, so it ends on Monday the 6th.
I have a problem. Two problems, actually. I think everyone likes the same things that I like; and I tend to let these things I enjoy seep into my work. What do I like? Books about books and movies about movies. Since I’m a writer, the creative process fascinates me. I love to read about the craft of writing. I love to watch movies about the art of making movies. The problem with this is, most people reading books or watching movies just want a story. They don’t particularly care about the creative process. They want to be entertained. So, yes, this is a big problem for me.
When I write a story, my first instinct is usually to make one of my main characters a writer, because I know all about writers. But you know what? The majority of people on this planet are not writers, and couldn’t care less about the life of a writer. My second instinct is to make my characters megalomaniacal directors or egotistical actors or troubled artists. It’s sometimes hard for me to write about a guy who works at a factory, comes home, puts on a dress and drinks beer. Or about a housewife trying to keep her family together. Or a schoolteacher trying to shape a band of misfits into knowledge-craving kids. I always want to write characters who do creative things. This troubles me. I want to write about police officers and firemen and waitresses and garbage collectors and accountants. But it’s hard.
So, I am constantly telling myself: “Ervin, not everyone is interested in the creative process. Just write a damned good story.”
I love movies-within-movies. I adore stuff like Overnight and Adaptation and Gods and Monsters and Living in Oblivion. When I’m working on a screenwriting project, I must fight hard against the temptation to tell a story of characters who want to make a movie. I love it, but I shouldn’t be writing about it. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with the occasional story of a writer or director or actor. But I’m always tempted to tell the tale of a bad B-movie actress, because then I can include bad movie titles and bad clips from bad movies inside my script.
Yes, this is a problem.
I recently read a book about the making of Breakfast at Tiffany’s called Fifth Avenue, 5 a.m. by Sam Wasson. The book is wonderful, and I loved every page of it. No problem there. At the same time, I’ve been working on a horror story. Here’s the problem: Breakfast at Tiffany’s is creeping into my scary story. I have a character named Holly. I have a character named Audrey. I have the main female saying, “Every day can’t be Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” I reference a character named Dolly Golightly. I had to recently go back and edit my work and remove some of these references, most of which I wasn’t even aware that I’d made. The story I’m working on has nothing to do with making movies, but still, because of the book I’d been reading, because of my fascination with moviemaking, my horror story inadvertently started to become an ode to Truman Capote and Audrey Hepburn. I did keep one or two references, just a tiny nod to where my head was at while writing the story.
We all have passions. We all love certain kinds of books and movies. We all have certain types of characters we love to read and write about. But we must remember that not everyone loves what we love. Maybe you love horses, or serial killers, or “Happy Days,” or orchids. Whatever it is you love, if you’re including it in a story make sure it’s appropriate, and please, don’t let whatever book you’re reading at the moment creep into your current writing. I’ll bet you don’t even know you’re doing. Most of the time, I don’t know that I’m doing it.
As writers, we all want to tell stories with varied characters on varied subjects. But we must try not to write too much about what gets us off, because, chances are, it’s not going to get our readers off.
I’m certainly going to write stories in the future that include characters who write, who act, who are creative, but I must not get lost in those things. Audrey Hepburn should not be a part of all my stories, even if I wish she could. And I, the writer, should also not be a part of all my stories. My brother who builds houses is worthy of a character. My mother who raised five children on her own is worthy of many stories. Politicians and homeless people and coffee shop owners and toll collectors are just as worthy of stories about them.
Here I am, freely admitting my problem. Do you suffer the same? Do you find yourself always writing about a certain type of character or a certain type of story? I’d love to know I’m not alone.
Mostly, I write what I know, because that’s what I’m comfortable with. I observe, jot down interesting details about my friend’s dysfunctional family, and turn them into stories.
Sometimes I write a story based on a dream I had, or I write a rendering of my own life had it gone a different way. Writing, for me anyway, is nearly always my reflections on life gone very right, or very wrong, and my best work is done when I am emotionally immersed in my own story. Being detached doesn’t work for me; if I don’t put a piece of myself or a piece of something I experienced into my stories, my prose comes across as stilted and, well, detached.
The trouble with stealing scenes and characters and dialogue from real life, of course, is the fear that someday down the road I might make someone angry, or (even worse) hurt someone’s feelings. And this fear, which so far is completely unfounded, holds me back and often causes me to turn down one great idea for another less personal (and therefore safer) idea. I hold back.
My fear is the reason why I rarely use “certain language” in my fiction. What if my mother reads it?
It’s why I’ve never written the story of my first kiss. What if she finally finds out I kissed her boyfriend?
It’s why I tread lightly when I portray close friendships and sister relationships in a piece. Because I don’t want to spoil any real-life friendships with depictions of imaginary ones. I don’t want to offend someone I love with my character’s thoughts on religion and sex. And most of all- I don’t want anyone believing they have a portal into my soul- believing that my protagonist is, ultimately, a portrayal of me. Even if she is.
Because the protagonists I want to write about have messy lives. They occasionally think nasty thoughts. They don’t always like their mother-in-laws, they fake orgasms during sex, and they have major financial difficulties. And though some of these things are definitely derived from my own personal experience, a lot are not: mostly they are amalgamations of circumstances and of people I know, or they are completely made up. Just figments of my imagination.
There are writers who don’t have this problem at all. Not only don’t they care what people think, they write to shock- to shock their parents, their professors, their friends, etc. They overload their prose with passion and particular purpose. This, too, can be problematic. If you put the essence of your entire being into a character, can that character ever develop as a separate entity?
Everything in moderation.
The thing is, my fiction is not a diary. And once I instill this bit of truth into my subconscious, I can be more honest in my writing. I can imbue real life into my character. I can make my fiction breathe.
How much of yourself/ of your personal life do you put into your fiction? Does this ever create problems for you?
You have a novel. Your friends have read it, your teachers have read it, even your dog went through the first few chapters before returning to his daily crotch-lick. You’ve edited the second draft into the third, the third in to the fourth, and then burned the fourth and started a new first that you then edited in to the sixth. After the insanities, it’s time to stop designing the platform and to start playing the game!
The first level of that game is querying agents for representation. I’m not going to spell out what your query should look like and what kind of template to use. If I did that, I’d be plagiarizing, as that information exists a million times over along the World Wide Web.
What I will do is put these ‘rules’ in to perspective and show you that no template can replace hard work and a lot, a lot, a lot of deep thought.
While the topic of this post was inspired by my own process of querying agents, I owe its contents to a recent discovery. I came across the blog of an agent I sent a query to, Thoughts from a Literary Agent, and was further directed to the blog/page of Nicholas Sparks. There, you can find the query he sent out for The Notebook, the book turned movie that’s single-handedly responsible for the spike of tissue-box sells. Read it here, or forever be confused (or, at least, confused for the next 300 or so words).
When I first saw that (yesterday), I said to myself….hmm. That doesn’t look anything like the sample query letter near the front of my Writer’s Market. Or the many samples I found searching the internet. Those formats were as follows: state your novel and work-count and its genre, two-three small paragraphs for the mini-synopsis, why this book is perfect for the agent/agency, why you are the qualified to write the book, and maybe a persuasive word or two about why your work will sell like hotcakes.
Nicholas had these elements, but in different amounts. He opened up almost as if he were selling his old book, and then goes on to describe the background to why he wrote it for a long time. Honestly, if Sparks had taken this to a querying workshop, I imagine he may have received suggestions to cut some of the explanation down and shorten up the synopsis. But it worked for him. It won’t for everyone. For example, if your book is about an invasion and you spend two paragraphs talking about how one day you thought you saw a UFO and it inspired you, you’re probably going in to a slush pile.
And what’s going on with that PS? I’ve never seen any template with a PS: area to fill in. It makes you wonder if he labored over the best strategy to include that tidbit and dawned on genius or if he just had no where else to put it. But, again, it works. If you don’t believe me, notice the part where The Notebook is a book and a movie.
Crafting an excellent query letter, in some ways, is just like crafting an excellent story. There are rules, within which you can create something truly awesome, and then there is venturing outside of those rules. Letting your creative genius decide when it’s not only okay, but beneficial, to wander off the beaten path. When writing a query letter, remember one thing about all: the only purpose of a query letter is to make the agent want to read your work.
Don’t get me wrong. There are certain things you definitely must have, and if you look closely enough, Sparks’ letter has them all. But if you think about it, that’s just another piece to the goal: make them want to read. An agent is a businessman (or woman), and showing you have put in the effort to know what an agent wants to see will make said agent more likely to want to put in time on you. But there is a balance. I’m sure agents appreciate queries which follow templates to the T, as they are easy to read, digest, and move on. You want to stand out amongst the 70 other requests received just that day, and thus your query, in the end, should more follow the spirit of your story, rather than the other way around.
The best way to get to your query letter close to perfection is to revise, revise, revise. On Sparks’ website, he said he went through 17 drafts in two weeks before sending out his query. Start with a template. Make sure all of the essentials are there: story synopsis, genre, word-count, similarity to other, successful works, why the agent should represent you, a little about yourself, etc. After reading over and over and enhancing each element, you may find that one part works particularly well closer to the top of your letter. Or that if you add this little tidbit, it simply completes the package. Just like you writing, let the query guide you through its drafts and mold in to its own style.
And when you’re all set, it’s time to get rejection letters! 
Thoughts?
See that guy to the left? The jerky-looking cartoon fellow? Don’t be him. He’s The Angry Writer.
Freelance writing is not for everyone. For instance, freelance writing probably isn’t a good idea for bad writers. You’ve got to be good or else no one is going to hire you. Well, they may hire you once. Once. Although, you might be able to get away with a bit of bad writing if you write like a machine. “Geez, the work was pretty lame, but he sure can make a deadline!” If someone knows that you’re always on time with your work, and there’s a project due yesterday, you might just get a call even if you aren’t exactly their first choice. Still, bad writers rarely make successful freelancers. Conversely, if you’re a great writer, but a slow writer, you might have a hard time securing future work. Slow writers often turn in lovely, note-perfect projects, but rarely meet deadlines. “My goodness! This article on ‘The Joys of the Christmas Season’ is fabulous. What a shame it’s March now. If only we’d received it in December, when it was due. Pity.”
The worst freelancers, though, are what I like to call “jerks,” because they are jerks. They complain about deadlines, they complain about length, they complain about payment, they never let the person who gave them the job rest. If you’re a successful writer selling hundreds of thousands of books, by all means, be a jerk–you can probably get away with it. But if you’re a freelancer trying to make a living, trying to secure future work, trying to gain positive references, jerky behavior will be the end of you.
Half of freelance writing is the work, the quality, your ability to do the job and do it well, to be a dependable, excellent provider of wonderful words; the other half is building a base of people willing to pay you for your work. People must like working with you; people must not dread giving you a call; people must want to work with you, people must hear good things about you from your previous clients.
So don’t be an asshole.
I am someone who is slowly but surely acquiring better, higher-paying assignments. How is this accomplished? By being good, and keeping my cool. Recently, I came in 2nd place in a writing contest. It sucked not winning, because the people running the contest claimed that they couldn’t decide between the top two stories. Weeks passed. “We just can’t choose between these two terrific entries.” Essentially, my story and the other story were both good enough to win. The 2nd place prize: Nothing. Winning was everything.
Well, I didn’t win. Maybe my story just wasn’t as good as the other story. Maybe they flipped a coin. Who knows? What did I want to do after losing? Write an e-mail and say, “Come on! I was so close! You’ve got to give me something!” What did I do? Nothing. I thanked them for the opportunity. I was nice, I was gracious, I accepted my loss and moved on. A few weeks later, the people that ran the contest sent me an e-mail and offered me a short-term writing gig for a great deal of money (a great deal of money for me, anyway). Granted, it would be hard work, but I was thrilled to be offered the assignment. They gave it to me because I came so close to winning the contest, and they saw that my work was of a certain quality, and because I was gracious. If I’d been a sore loser, there’s no way they would have offered me this great gig. The other benefit is: If I do exceptionally well with this assignment, and everyone is pleased, I can almost guarantee myself more high-paying work.
Nothing I can tell aspiring freelancers is more important than this: Be great, and be gracious.
Editors talk. Maybe they talk like this:
EDITOR ONE: “I have this client who’s quite the talented writer, and he’s good with deadlines, but…”
EDITOR TWO: “But what?”
EDITOR ONE: “Well, he’s a big-time douche. Just awful to work with. Like a breathing Black Plague. Talking with him makes me want to bash my cell phone over my head.”
EDITOR TWO: “That bad, huh? So, you wouldn’t recommend him?”
EDITOR ONE: “ For you? No. For a colonoscopy gone horribly wrong? Sure.”
Simply put, you have to treat people with respect. If someone doesn’t treat you with respect, sure, defend yourself. But kindness will get you far. Kindness will get you work. Jerkiness will get you standing in the unemployment line, wishing you’d treated people better.
