Persevering in the Query
Trenches (taken with a Dose of Reality)
This post first
appeared as part of WriteOnCon 2017, in February 2017
Perseverance—my favorite word
Today, I’m
talking about Persevering in the Query Trenches. It’s one of my favorite
topics. Every time I have the opportunity to talk to authors just starting out,
I will eventually get to this subject. First, my own story.
I was first
agented in February 2011. It took 67 queries, spanning about 2 years, for a YA
contemporary that was near and dear to my heart. This was after a failed
attempt to query agents for several picture book manuscripts over two years
prior to that. My agent left the field about sixteen months later, leaving me
agentless. I was sad at first, then determined to get back into the query
trenches. She’d given me a handful of referrals, and I began the query process
again. A month later, I had an offer. After 25ish queries. Alas, my second
agent parted ways with her agency about a month after I signed with her,
leaving me agentless a second time in just over four months.
I might have
had a glass or two of wine at that point. I won’t lie. It was frustrating. I
felt like my career was stalling through no fault of my own. But life happens.
If you quit, you won’t get where you want to go.
Here’s where
the part about perseverance comes into play.
I started
querying again. This time I had two finished projects. And several more in the
works. I’d met agents through conferences. I had author friends with agents. I
focused my search. I asked for referrals. I made connections. I had done it
before; I knew I could do it again. In August 2013, I signed with my third
agent, Kathleen Rushall. Kathleen had seen previous work of mine, we’d stayed
friendly, and when the right project crossed her desk, she signed me. (And I
love her for it every day, three and a half years later.)
The book I
queried her with hasn’t sold yet. But we’ve sold two other projects; a digital contemporary
YA to Bloomsbury Spark published in 2015, and a Middle Grade time travel novel to
Simon and Schuster/Aladdin (which I cowrote with Jen Malone), coming out in
2018. My overnight success story only took 15 years.
What does this mean for you?
The
complaint I hear most often from people who are just starting to query is that
it’s hard to take rejection. Not to mention writing the actual query letter.
Let’s start
with the part about rejection. Let’s just put it out there. Rejection sucks.
It’s hard. It’s hard to put your words out in the world and have people reject
them. It feels personal.
Can we all
agree not to call it rejection? Let’s call it what it is: A Decline. An agent
declines your work. They pass. That’s all. They aren’t rejecting you as a
person.
You have to get comfortable with agents declining your work. Rejection implies a judgement on you. As
with anything creative, not every work of art is going to appeal to every agent
(just like not everything you write is going to appeal to every editor). When
you get a decline, take whatever you can learn from it—and then move on. Don’t
burn bridges either, because maybe your second or third project might be the
best fit for someone who previously declined. Take it from me, it happens.
But that’s
the game. There are literally hundreds of agents representing children’s books
(or adult romance, or science fiction). At any one time, half of them may not
be accepting submissions. (note: I made up that statistic. I have no idea
exactly how many agents are representing any genre or how many aren’t accepting
submissions at a given time). They might not rep what you write. They may be
looking for something super specific. This is not rejection. This is them looking
to add to their own client list. This is them passing. Declining, not
rejecting.
I wanted to
share some data I collected for this blog post. The raw data of the survey is available
upon request, but here’s my analysis.
I asked five
questions of agented authors.
1. How many
queries did it take to sign with your first agent (and any subsequent agents,
if you're not still with your first.)
2. Are you still with your first agent?
3. Were these queries all for the same project? If not, how many different projects did you query?
4. How many months/years were you in the query trenches before signing for the first time/second time, etc.?
5. Since signing with an agent, have you published the work queried? Have you published a different work?
2. Are you still with your first agent?
3. Were these queries all for the same project? If not, how many different projects did you query?
4. How many months/years were you in the query trenches before signing for the first time/second time, etc.?
5. Since signing with an agent, have you published the work queried? Have you published a different work?
Data Analysis—Reality Check Time
Now it’s time to get real.
Forty-nine
people answered the questions through a private Facebook page and through a
survey posted on Twitter. Please understand this survey is not scientific. And
I can’t share personal anecdotes, just the raw data, so it’s difficult to get
any nuance from this. Also, don’t try to figure out who the authors are—even I
don’t know, as it was an anonymous survey.
Here’s the
down and dirty:
Number of queries sent before signing
ranged from one to one thousand (you read that right, from 1 - 1000).
Takeaway?
You might be in this for the long haul. Get comfortable with the word “decline”
(see above).
Of the forty-nine (49) respondents, sixteen
(16) are no longer with their first agent – that’s a little over 30% who aren’t
with their first agent. This survey did not ask why—but reasons can range from
agent left the field, to the relationship not working out, or not having a
sale. Remember, this is a business relationship that either party can sever.
Takeaway? Having had multiple agents
does NOT make you or the agent with whom you parted ways a bad person or a bad
writer. No one thinks this and you do NOT need to be ashamed of having had more
than one agent.
Of the forty-nine (49) queried, twenty-six
(26) queried more than one project. Underscore this: More than half the respondents queried at least
two projects over the course of their process. Out of those twenty-six, seven
had four or more projects.
Takeaway?
Write something new while you’re querying.
Length of time in the query
“trenches” ranged from one day to ten years, and lots of variation in between. There
is no rule of thumb here. Your process can be short or long; and is in no way a
judgement on you as a person or a writer.
Takeaway?
If you keep working at it, you can (and will) go on to sell your book.
Overall, those who have a second or
third agent took less time to query and fewer queries for the second and third
processes.
Takeaway? It gets easier
the more you do it.
Twelve out of the forty-nine haven’t
sold their queried project, though some have sold subsequent projects. (And
that means that thirty-seven SOLD the project they queried. YAY!)
Takeaway? Having an agent doesn’t mean
you will sell your project, but the odds are that you’ll sell something else.
Don’t toss out the baby with the
bathwater
For me, the biggest
takeaway is that whatever your expectation of the query process is, you need to
toss it out the window. We love to think that we’re going to be the
exception—that we’ll be the one person who sent one query and signed in a day
(and great, if you are!). But realistically, the odds are that it’s going to
take longer. Honestly, it should take longer—you need to vet potential agents
as much as they vet you. The person who sold their eleventh project in the tenth
year of querying, is a New York Times best seller (and yes, I know I said it was anonymous, but this person made themselves known to me). If that person had quit in
year eight, we wouldn’t have those amazing books.
Some of the
results might be skewed by personality types—it’s hard to know, but someone who
holds onto a manuscript longer, revising multiple times, and then querying, likely
has fewer overall queries. Others might query too early, with a MS that isn’t
ready, adding time and numbers of total queries to their process.
In conclusion
Your query
process is yours alone. It won’t resemble anyone else’s. Take these results
with a grain of salt—they are not meant to depress you or overwhelm you. My
goal is to demonstrate, with real data, that the process is different for
everyone. As long as you don’t quit, you keep practicing your craft, and you
PERSEVERE in both your writing and your querying, you will achieve your dreams.
My simple
rules of thumb are: keep it short (one page or less), talk more about your book
than yourself, and make every word of the query count (no need to dwell on
backstory and be sure to include the stakes for your main character).
I’m taking
questions here on this blog post—let me know if this has been helpful, or if
you want to chat! I wish you all the best of luck—if anyone is going to be at
New England SCBWI in April, please be sure to say hello!
If you’re
looking for someone to critique your query letter, I do that under the guise of
QUERYGODMOTHER.com – find me there for details.
