Rant: querying unfinished novels

Only after I emptied the coiffure-sized fire extinguisher on my spontaneously combusted hair, did I realize my NO!NO!NO! shriek reply on Twitter wasn't self-explanatory.

So, why is querying an unfinished novel a TERRIBLE idea?

Do I need to tell you it's harder than it looks to finish a book? If I do, this is your first book. More times than I care to remember has an "almost finished" novel been administered last rites and laid to rest in the steamer trunk.

You're querying something that hasn't been revised. If you finish and send it within a short amount of time, you haven't allowed enough time for revision. When I read it, I will know. And most likely you'll get a pass with "not fully cooked" as the gist of why.

Notice neither of these have to do with concept or execution. Or the writing. You can really shoot yourself in the foot by querying EVEN A GOOD NOVEL too early.

You're starting out on the wrong foot. I request the full, you reply with "it's not ready yet" and the implied "I just wanted to test the waters" means wasting my time is ok with you. Also ignoring the very specific guidelines that are there to help you avoid rookie mistakes like this.

Those are NOT qualities I'm looking for in a client.

You're free to ignore any guidelines you want. The QueryPolice will not show up at your door. There's no Ignored the Guidelines Blacklist. But, it's also not effective.

Your goal isn't avoiding the QueryPolice; it's getting an offer of representation.

For the love of all things holymoly, please send me what I ask for

I'm on the hunt for good material, so I'm in my queries regularly, and requesting a lot more material than usual.

This is really good news for you since projects I might have previoiusly passed on at the query stage are now getting a longer look.

Some of you are shooting yourselves in the foot with an elephant gun. Stop it.

Here's what you're doing.

You've got an ok or so-so query. It's not bad, but it's not grip-the-lapels compelling. I think "hmmm, let me check the pages. And you don't have them, or you included a synopsis, or worse a brief synopsis.

It's 7am when I'm reading your query. I've got another 20 to go. I'm just as likely to hit the pass button as dig around for the pages.


There's a reason I ask for pages and ONLY pages. I want to see how the story starts. I want to see what the story IS. I want to hear the voice that's in the story.

A synopsis is by definition pretty dull. It's about the elements of the book, rather than the narrative. It doesn't have much voice. It's certainly NOT what I'd give someone to entice them to read the book (after all, that is exactly what a query is supposed to do.)

When an agent asks for pages include them. It's not a trick, it's not intended to see if you can follow directions, it's not a test. It's the only way I can see what your damn book is going to be.

If an agent wants a synopsis send that. Not all agents want the same thing. Sorry about that, I know it's a pain in the ass, but it's just one of those things you have to deal with.




PS: If any of you clever readers out there want to check my website/s or other online sources that reference my submission guidelines and verify that I ask for 3-5 pages in the body of the email, please go ahead.  If it's not clear I'd like to know, and a second hundred set of eyeballs on something seems like a good idea.

Bonus content: actual email received by actual agent

Hello Janet,

Before I invest the time in preparing a submission, I wanted to confirm that you have time to review it.

Thank you.


Kind Regards

Dear Mr Regards,

I'm very sorry I do not have time to review a submission you haven't written. I'm currently occupied with editing a manuscript I haven't received.

Yours truly,

Rant: Not A

I've been getting a lot of email lately with subject lines that start: NOT A (query) (question) (something else.)

I've tried not to be annoyed by this because really, it's pretty minor, but c'mon guys. Do you really think I need to be told that something isn't a query? That it isn't a deal memo? That's not a notice from Shark Week that I've been selected as guest of honor?

Do you think I can't actually read sentences in English?

Amazingly enough, if you tell me what the email is actually ABOUT, it's more helpful than telling me what it's NOT.

It's not a zebra.
It's not a golden ticket.

It's not helpful.

Query question. Except not.

A question for your blog:

Many QueryShark query letters have the form:

Salutation
Query text
Novel title, word count and author bio.


The more common format I have seen is:

Salutation

Novel title, genre, word count and hook in single sentence
Query text
Author bio.

I think the form I see in QueryShark flows better. Is it OK to use the QueryShark format in actual queries to agents, or is it better to revise to the second form?

Do you really think I'd spend five years and 250+ queries urging you to use a format that WASN'T THE ONE TO USE IN AN ACTUAL QUERY??

REALLY???

I'm sorry, I just have to chalk this up to a prank.

Query Question: a rant from your blog writer

Questions: Is it to my advantage to mention that this is the first book of a five book series? (1)Or is this boastful, and ultimately harmful to my yet to be established reputation, since this is my first novel? (2) Also, I realize my email address is extremely peculiar. Should I make a professional email account so people take me seriously? (3) Or is it good to stand out?(4)

Ok, youze guyz. It's becoming clear that you're just firing off questions here and not reading the questions already posted.  I'm pretty sure I've answered all of these before.

If you don't know HOW to find all the other posts here's what to do:

Go to the main page of the blog.

See the blogroll on the right hand side?

That number after *query pitfalls? 266? That's the number of posts I've written on ways to fuck up your query. Click on that link and ALL the posts turn up for your viewing pleasure.

I like getting questions.
I don't like repeating myself.


Here are the answers to the questions above:

(1) No
(2) That's not the reason it's a bad idea, but it's still a bad idea
(3) Yes
(4) The only thing that should stand out is your writing. 

How to disappear forever

While sorting my incoming mail yesterday afternoon I found a query letter from someone we'll just call Felix Buttonweazer to protect the guilty.

Felix sent a query and I opened it for a quick glance to make sure it wasn't for a screenplay (I've been getting a lot of those lately and I like to reply quickly cause I don't handle them at all.)

The query was addressed to everyone at FinePrint in the To: line.  Of course that's not a good idea, but it wasn't enough to get Felix booted out of the query inbox.

Into the stack it went.

Five minutes later, a second query. For the same project. Also misaddressed. I deleted this cause email happens, and duplicates aren't always a sign of disorganization.

Five minutes later, a third. For a new book. Also mis-addressed. At this point I'm a tad impatient with Felix.

And then, a fourth. Incorrectly addressed, of course.

An hour later, a fifth. 

That was when Felix and email address went to the filter. His emails now go to the archive unread.

Here's your takeaway: I rant and rave that I'm looking for good writing and that remains true.  I am. But I'm only willing to work with people who set a high standard for themselves. That means you investigate how things work before the fact.  How things work like query one agent here at a time, and one project at a time (and that means you wait to hear from me before you send a query on a second book.)

I do not apologize for making assumptions about your level of preparedness from the behavior you demonstrate when querying.

There are more publishable projects out there than there are publishing slots, and once you're at that level it pays to be prepared.

If you're reading the blog, if you've actually read and followed the submission guidelines you're going to be just fine. Don't worry.

If however you're thinking what the hell just go for it, well, ok,  you're going straight there.

Question: Agent "failed to reply to my question on twitter"

Is it considered a faux pas to tweet a prospective agent to ask a question? In my case, an agent I follow has my first three chapters, but I've revised based on agent feedback. I sent a tweet to ask if she would like the revised chapters, or if she likes to make up her own mind about what needs revising. I've had no response. Now I'm wondering if I crossed a line. But if I didn't, and she is that dismissive, I'm wondering if this is an agent I want to work with.

That odd snapping sound you hear is my jaw closing in on your derriere.
DO NOT EVER DO THIS.

And by "This" I mean conduct business conversations on Twitter.

Don't ask about your personal queries on Twitter. Don't ask if she's read the manuscript. Don't ask if she's taking queries. Don't ask if she's behind on her reading.

Twitter is a PUBLIC forum. You have no control over how your tweets are perceived.  I cringe every time someone says on Twitter "hey, I sent you an email did you get it" because I think it makes me sound like I'm a slacker about answering my email.  While it's true I AM, do you really have to tell everyone?

The other thing to realize is she may never have seen the tweet, or she may not associate your twitter handle with your name or your email.  You can't make ANY assumptions about her being "dismissive" based on not replying.

If you've made revisions to your partial or full there is ONE and only one way to ask an agent if she wants the revised version: email her. And use the same email address that you used to query her with. Many of us sort by email address, NOT NAME.

The short answer to your question "Is it considered a faux pas to tweet a prospective agent to ask a question" is YES it is. Don't do it.

For the love of godiva, post your email address!

In this most recent writing contest there were at least three entries that made me want to write to the authors to give them a heads up why their entry wasn't picked.

I clicked on their blog ID to get to their info page, and voila: NO CONTACT INFO. I persevered in some cases to their websites: NO CONTACT INFO.

If you're a writer of ANY kind --published, unpublished, hoping to be published, represented, agent stalking, DEAD---You Must Be Reachable.

I don't care how you do it: list an email address, have an email link, whatever, but make sure I can reach you in a NOT Public Way. That means: not Twitter, not Facebook.

The reason it needs to be email and not Twitter/Facebook is that I'm not going to say something to you in public about your entry.  I don't know you, and you don't know me.  We haven't gotten past the requirement to be polite to each other!

Click on your info page NOW.
No contact info?
FIX IT.

Who knows, that might be a requirement to win the next contest! (ok, it won't but honestly, don't you want to hear from me if I have info for you??)

$0

I've given money to a number of crowd-sourced funding projects, many run by people I don't know, or know only tangentially.

Recently I got the worst announcement for a fundraising campaign I've ever seen:

please forgive the spam and be warned that if i have you in more than one of my email accounts, you'll get this more than once

i've launched an indiegogo campaign to raise money to cover my expenses while i transform the script into a book (sic)

If you want to raise money for anything, you need to actually believe in the value of what you're pitching. Calling it spam tells me you don't.

And then actually spamming me (by not vetting your mailing list for duplicates or even for appropriate audience) says you don't value me or my time either.

Ineffective.
Blocked as spam.
Blog post fodder.

Bingo, bango, gone-o

Promote yourself wisely

Sending email to all your contacts about your new book?
Including all the agents you queried before you were published?

I don't know how other agents deal with this, but when you send me an email like that, I add your email address to my spam filter so I never have to hear from you again.

This might not be what you want to accomplish.


At some point in the future you might want to get in touch with me. You might want one of my clients to blurb your book, or invite me to your conference, or even ask a question for Friday Night at the Question Emporium.  If your email is listed as spam, it doesn't go to my spam folder. It gets discarded. I'll never see it.

It's a Very Good Idea to use a mail service to send your promotional emails. At the bottom of those emails are instructions on how to unsubscribe.  If you send me an announcement with an unsubscribe button, I'll click that rather than listing your email as spam.

Send All is not your friend

Recent email from a writer "I'd like to update you on my project!" followed by all sorts of news that if I was actually interested in the project might be useful.

Of course, I'd passed on the project some weeks back, so this email was not only useless it was annoying.

When you are querying agents there is absolutely NO circumstance, up to and including your death, for which you will email every agent on your submission list.

Send All is the tool of the devil and is designed to consign your email to a fiery pit, and if I had my way, you'd be following.


The problem of course is that this blog doesn't reach the miscreants who do this. I know this for an ironclad fact because the queriers who are paying attention are the ones I talk to during the Chum Bucket experiment and every last one of them does it right. Even if some of it's wrong, it's never this wrong.

But just in case some errant new querier sees this, here's how querying works:

1. You send a query
2. I respond

2a If I ask to see pages you send them
2b If I decline to see more, that's IT

No replies to 2b. Not even thank you, although that doesn't annoy me quite as much as other replies do.

Any questions?

My new sales strategy!

Gleaned from the incoming mail today, this brilliant new sales strategy.  Why I didn't think of this before I do not know!

To whom it might concern: my name is REDACTED and i wrote a REDACTED. I would like to use your publishing house, but first i would like to receive a copy of your contractual agreement, for my review and consideration. If you are so kind to send me one via email, i will be deeply grateful. 

I'll have to tweak it a little of course:

To whom it might concern:
Dear Keith Kahla,

my name is Janet Reid and i wrote I represent a 216,000 word novel in verse about sword-wielding poodles who vacation in Paris I would like to use your publishing house, but first i would like to receive a copy of your contractual agreement, for my review and consideration.

If you are so kind to send me one via email, i will be deeply sort of grateful.

truly yours, something

Telefonita questions

Dear Ms. Reid:
I have contacted a (very) small press about my novel and we have gotten to the point where they have requested a full. In the event they accept this manuscript, would it then be all right for me to telephone an agent (maybe even you, perhaps) to negotiate the contract?

Nooo.
no no no.



no phone.

In this circumstance you will EMAIL an agent to inquire if they are interested in helping you negotiate the contract. (a good example can be found in this BookEndsLLC blog post)

And probably you're not going to find one who will because 15% of a small advance is usually not enough money to make it worth while.  Most agents or agencies have standard contracts with publishers with whom they do business on a regular basis.  We don't have to renegotiate most of the terms and conditions on each deal.


With a new publisher and a small press, much of that has to be negotiated and it's time consuming as hell.


If you get to this point and you can't find an agent to help you, email me again and I'll give you the name of a contract review specialist who charges by the hour and can give you advice on which clauses you can/should negotiate with the publisher.

Harlequin to Janet Reid: "Drop Dead"

Regular readers of this blog may recall the name Kristan Higgins.

I've blogged about the first book of hers I read (it was a ploy by the slithery Barbara Poelle to keep me from my reading).

Other times, Kristan Higgins' books have been a respite from a dreadful day.

In other words, I'm a fan.
And I say so.
Pretty loudly.

So, when I saw the chance to get a galley of the newest Kristan Higgins novel, I leaped! LEAPED.

The offer was through NetGalley, a service that helps publishers distribute galleys to bloggers and reviewers electronically. I'm a happy and satisfied NetGalley user. I've gotten some terrific books from a lot of interesting publishers via NetGalley.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I saw this:

You recently requested to view a title from NetGalley's Public Catalog. Unfortunately, the publisher has declined to allow access to the title based on the information provided in your profile.

You may want to update your profile to provide more information to the publisher, and try requesting the title again. If you are confident that you should be approved for galleys, please reply to this e-mail and the Publisher will get back to you as soon as possible.

Example of what to include in your profile: a direct link to your book review blog (general life bloggers, infrequent bloggers, and new bloggers will be declined. 100 or more followers is preferred).a direct link to your Good Reads, Amazon, and/or LibraryThing profile page (must have over 100 reviews on any one of these services).

(there's more about what to do if you're a librarian or a bookseller)

Whoa!

Talk about short-sighted!

The one place every publicist dreamed of getting coverage was called off the book page back when I worked in PR.  Off the book page meant places that didn't normally review books.  It was the place you wanted to be because you reached past the usual audience.

Harlequin's galley policy (because it is they who set these, not NetGalley) specifically overlooks places just like this blog.  Places that are not book review sites.  Places where the mention of a book is actually more noticeable because it's not the norm.

And I have no ties to Kristan Higgins. I'm not her agent. I don't think I even know who her agent is. I don't know her editor. I know someone who knows her editor.

I'm a fan. A fan with 8,000 readers and 11,000 Twitter followers.  In other words A.Big.Mouth.

Now, I'm not mentioning this cause I'm annoyed (yes I am) but because if you are an author, you've got to make sure you're in a position to head off this kind of attitude and fix stuff when it goes wrong:

1. Have your name and your book title on google alert.  This blog post will turn up in someone's google alert feed. Most likely tomorrow.  Someone will see it and I'll get a book. Without google alert, not as likely.  If you are an author you want to hear about this kind of thing quickly. Stuff happens. Be ready to fix it.

2.  Talk to your pr department about how they handle galleys.  If you know you have rock solid iron clad fans, make sure they get galleys.  Or are on the approved list.  Harlequin doesn't know me from Bruce the Shark.  They obviously didn't investigate either, but honestly, I don't think I can blame them for that (yes I can.)



3.  If there is a limit on the number of galleys being given out, MENTION IT in the refusal email.  It's one thing to be told "you're not high enough on the food chain, shark breath." It's another thing to say "we're only sending out 25, we hope you understand."

Does this mean I'm no longer a fan of Kristan Higgins?
Hell no!

But it does mean that instead of blogging about her new book I'm blogging about her publisher. My guess is that's NOT what any of us really want.  (Well, we all know what *I* want!)

There's formal..and then there is just annoying

I can certainly respect your desire to be more formal than "Hey Snookums" in a query letter. Truth be told, I'm glad of a certain formality. But "I presently require the services of a good literary agent" isn't so much formal as it is annoying.

And of course, you don't even need to include this kind of sentence in a query letter. It's one of those things I take on faith: if you're querying me, you need an agent.

Other things you don't need to cover: you're a mammal; you're breathing; you're writing in English.

Congratulations! You got my attention...

If you emailed me today about a missing kid, complete with poster and heartfelt plea, congratulations. You've gotten my attention. My full and complete attention for about two minutes. Here's how that two minutes of attention will play out:

1. I copy your email address.
2. I paste it in my gmail "filter" program.
3. I click "bypass inbox, mark as read, delete"
4. I click "apply to previous email"
5. I close my gmail program.
6. I write a blog post about it.
7. I return to work

Net result: nothing you send me ever again will hit my email box.


If you add every address to your address book, you should NEVER hit "send to all."

If you are clueless enough to do this, you're probably not someone I want to work with anyway.

Email is not some new fangled tool that's hard to figure out.

And, honest to godiva, you shouldn't add agents to your address book until they've done something more than pass or rant about you on their blog.

Update:
Tally of email addresses added to the filter: 1 (I don't give a rat's ass about cute animal pictures either)

Phono-daft

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

Don't call a literary agency.

Unless you are invited to call, or you are represented by the agency, stay off the phone.

In case the corollary isn't clear, let me say this next thing plainly:

Don't call an editor either.

And really don't call pretending to call for your (or any) agent.

The only thing this does is give me fresh material with which to torment Moonrat next week.

Elevate foot, shoot same

Ah, the CSI ballistics team is out in full force tonight examining the various ways you've managed to shoot yourself in the foot when querying me:

1. Include a table of contents for a novel
rather than say the actual first page (or 3-5 pages as I've repeatedly begged you for on every single place I post my submission assistance plan). The TOC for a novel is as useless as an agent without a telephone. What were you thinking?


2. Tell me that your book was nominated for an award
when "nominated" means you filled out a form and sent in a copy of your book.
This is ludicrous, particularly when I looked up the book and it was published by iUniverse. (you're not published by iUniverse; you're printed. Yes, there's a difference and I know what it is.)


3. Tell me that your book is like a particular well known author "only better."
You can't tell me this and have me take you seriously. Don't praise your own work in a query letter. I know you think it's the cat's pjs; every author thinks their own work is too. Ego is a requirement for an author but the really smart ones know how to SHOW rather than TELL how lovely those pjs are.


4. Send your query letter, or anything else as an attachment.
I used to reply saying "no attachments." Now I just say no. I can live with the chance I'll miss something fabulous. Chances are though, you will miss connecting with any agent cause most of us do not take unsolicited attachments.


5. Describe your (female) protagonist as "menopausal."
This word is never used as an accolade. It's certainly not the ONLY word one would expect for a protagonist. And, it grosses me out.


6. The old standby "fiction novel."
This is INSTANT rejection and I don't care what else is on the page. If you don't know why this is just wrong (ie not a mistake, not a typo) you need to quit querying and enroll in Grammar 101.



7. Fail to tell me what the book is about,
and then compound the problem by not pasting even a single page of the manuscript in the email. Once I might have replied saying "hey, send a page so I know what the thing is about." Now I won't.


8. Describe what people look like in the query letter. Description is not plot. Blonde hair does not indicate anything about character. Neither does green. I've been both and I'm still the same person I am today with my rainbow colored mohawk, as is my Herpet American assistant. See below:

Oh I get it, you wanted a pierced toe, so you shot yourself in the foot!

Cause that's really the only way these queries made any sense:

1. How do I query you?
Well, uh, lemme see.
On second thought, don't bother. This question demonstrates a frightening inability to do any kind of scouting around at all. This bodes ill for presenting yourself as someone I'd want to work with. By and large my clients are bunch of ferociously talented people who love to dig into things and figure out how they work be they sentences, novels, query letters or vampire shapeshifting mechanics.


2. What can you do for me?
Don't put this question in a query letter. Not even if you have the Nobel prize in literature. You can talk about what you're looking for, your goals etc if you must (but even then, NOT in the query letter cause I really only care about the writing at that point).

IF we get to the point that I would like to offer you representation I am perfectly prepared to discuss the benefits of having an agent in general and me in particular. Until that point, this kind of question is prima facie evidence of a person who is tone deaf about how words work. Again, that bodes ill.


3. I've adapted a screenplay.
I don't care if you adapted a haiku to get the novel. And if you adapted a screenplay my first question is was it YOUR screenplay. You might think that an obvious thing, but it's not. I get fanfic kinds of things in here ALL the time. People don't know they can't write novels about Mickey Mouse becoming Amish and moving to the country with Minnie and Pluto. Well, they can write them, but I sure as hell won't consider them. If you need an explanation of why, let me know.

I think these queries annoy the hell out of me because it's so damn easy to figure this stuff out. There are a gazillion blogs, a myriad of websites, and a dozen books on how to write a query. This stuff isn't even the hard part.

I need a drink.

Thank god for Eric Stone's donation to the cause: