The Great Agent Hunt: The Query Letter

The Great Agent Hunt is like any other hunt.  You must stalk your prey.  You must find it's territory, lay your traps, and bait them with what your prey likes.  This is the article where we talk about Agent bait, AKA The Query Letter.

Before we get into the tips, remember this: anything and everything in this list can be tossed aside if the blog/website of the agent says they want something different.  If the Agent wants your query letter in crayon on lavender paper scented with Chanel No. 5, it's off to the perfume counter with you!  But if they don't specify, here are some quick rules of thumb.

Quick Tips:

Unless specified otherwise, a query letter is an actual, on paper, physical letter.

Get the salutation correct. Make sure the name is spelled right and you have assigned the correct gender marker to the agent.

Learn what a real business letter looks like. Business email format, unless specifically requested tends to annoy Agents and their readers.  What you want is a real, old fashioned, indented paragraphs, properly formatted business letter with all the commas in the right place and the closing center justified.

Spell check, grammar check, do it again, and then have someone else do it for you as well.

Finally, make sure your contact information is in there and correct.

None of these seem like a big deal, but get any of them wrong and you can get booted before the reader has even gotten to your plot synopsis.

Less Quick Tips:

Be professional and polite. You are trying to sell your work to this person. Pretend you were going to buy a car. How would the ultimate, best-ever car salesman approach you? What would he do? My guess is he's treating you with a lot of respect, and not trying to make you think the Subaru you're looking at is a Rolls Royce. Unless you're rather atypical, he's not hard selling you. He's just gently, respectfully convincing you that he's got the car of your dreams.

The heart of sales is this:  Your job is to make the person you're selling to understand that he needs whatever it is you've got.  That means showing the Agent that your book is a great match to his area of specialty. It means showing the Agent that you know what that specialty is, and why your book compliments it. For example: if you were querying JABberwocky Literary Agency (Charlaine Harris' Agency) you would explain why your books are similar to (but not copies of) the Sookie Stackhouse books and how they would compliment the portfolio of books represented by JABberwocky. Side note: If you have written a book about a bunch of quirky vampires in the South, it might be a good plan to not query JABberwocky, they've already got the bit of their portfolio filled.

Not Quick At All Tips:

Develop a sharp and witty why you picked this Agent opening paragraph.  Do it without sounding like sycophant or a stalker.

Develop a one paragraph description of your book that is meaningful, engaging, sharply written, and makes the Agent want to see more. Description does not mean back of the book copy, and it doesn't necessarily mean synopsis. You need to get the idea of the book across, but anything from dwelling on the themes of the book to the plot to who the characters are may suffice. Pick whichever aspect of your story best matches the work of the Agent and play that up.

Explain who will buy your book, and no matter what, even if the book is Harry Potter and the Secret Promise of the DaVinici Code the correct answer is not "Everyone!" Take the time to actually research your audience. Now, here's the balancing act, this is not a marketing report. The Agent is not looking for something along the lines of: "According to our polling data this story line is especially popular with Caucasian females ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one in upper middle class homes in the suburbs of moderate sized cities." You are looking for more along the lines of what Amazon does when it tells you that people who liked this, also bought that. So, for example, if everyone who liked your book liked Twilight, you might mention that your book should appeal to Twilight readers. If your readers liked something in specific about Twilight that you can home in on all the better.  For example, the readers who were quite entranced by the Werewolf/Vampire politics of Twilight adored the supernatural realpolitik that showed up in your book. Show the Agent that you have a market, and who that market is.

Finally, tell the Agent why you are the person to tell this story. If you've already got writer cred here is the place to put it. If you don't then talk (briefly) about why you can tell this story well.

Wrap up with a polite "Sincerely" and then send it off.

Don't forget the self addressed stamped envelope!  You want a response, right?

(Oh, and lastly, it should be one page long.)

Next up:  What the letter physically looks like and writing the 'What Your Book Is About Paragraph of Doom!'

The Great Agent Hunt: Part One

So, lets talk about finding an Agent. Like everything else in the writing world, this too is filled with scams. Keep Mr. Yog in mind, if the money is moving in the wrong direction (i.e. away from you) it's time to go running away.

For example: Reading fees, reputable agents don't charge them. They may want to, and I get that, because they have to read a whole lot of stuff to find the good bits and it would be nice to be paid for their time. However, a whole bunch of scammers noticed that authors are willing to toss money around like a man with a mid-life crisis trying to impress nubile blond girls, and opened up businesses that did nothing but charge reading fees. So to distinguish themselves, the real guys don't charge them.

If an Agent is hot for you but wants you to spend money on an editor, or research fees, or placement fees, or writing workshops, or anything other than what you already spent getting his attention, it's time to find another Agent.

From what I can find there's basically only one legitimate expense an Agent will ask you to incur, and that's the cost of sending them a pile of your manuscripts so they can be shopped around. Which, if you're like me and you wrote War and Peace II: This Time It's Even Longer!, that might be a real expense. Otherwise, they should not be asking you to shell out money.

The job of the Agent is to get you money. He goes out and gets a publisher to buy your book. Then you, and the Agent get paid by you selling copies of the book. Agents seem to get 10 to 15% of what you make. When you think about how much work they do for this money it's rather staggering. Supposedly Jane Average Writer will sell 3,000 copies of her book. If she makes 2.00 a copy, then Joe Agent will make .20 a copy. At 3,000 copies Joe Agent just made $600.00. He's doing how many hours of work for you for $600.00? If Joe can sell your book, Joe is a bargain. (We're not going to talk about how much work you did for the remaining $5,400.00.)

So, because of the work they do, and how little they get paid, it make sense to be kind to Joe and his readers and only query Agents who will actually be interested in your project. Nothing will get you rejected faster than sending out a "Dear Every Agent in the Western Hemisphere" letter. Joe's time is valuable. If Joe represents Christian Themed Cookbook writers, please do not send him a letter about how great your new Dresden Files meets the X-Files mystery thriller is. You've just wasted Joe's time and the cost of your stamp.

Go find five books you think are pretty similar to yours. Now, go find out who their agents were. That's where the hunt begins. Hopefully said agents have websites and blogs that will tell you exactly how they want you to send them things. Pay attention to what they have to say on those blogs. Tailor your letter to their specs. You want Joe Agent's reader to know you did your homework and were paying attention when you picked him.

Once you've gotten those first five agents, and mailed out query letters to them, go find another five. Keep doing this. Every time you get a "Dear Writer... We are sorry to say..." letter, send a new query out. If you've cleared out the library of every book even remotely similar to yours, then it's time to invest in Publishers Weekly's or Writer's Market, etc... There are lots of agents out there, and eventually you'll find the right one. (Though after five or ten rejections it might be worth while to rework your query letter.)

Why not start with Publisher's Weekly or Writer's Market? This is just a matter of personal preference for me. It comes down to this, anyone with money can advertise. An actual published book in your hands tells you that Agent was able to sell the book. A bunch of books is even better. On top of that, with the book in your hand you can check with it's Author, did she like her Agent? How well did the Agent do his job? What kind of contract did the Author get? How long did it take?

Once you get a letter back saying please send us more information we're interested, it's time to do more research. Before you sign a contract head over to Absolute Write and look the agent up. Or get on the discussion board and ask around. In addition to scams, there are Agents who just aren't very good. Time to put your feelers out into writer land and see what the others think about the person who just offered you a contract.

Of course, that's the fun part compared to what we'll talk about next: The Dread Query Letter!

Interview with Gregory Blecha

After picking Love in the Time of Apocalypse as the indie published book for August, I tracked down it's author and asked him a few questions as to how we published it and what he was thinking about as he did it. He was kind enough to answer my questions, and I am passing those answers along to you.

KR: I'd love to know why you picked iUniverse, and how many other publishers (both mainstream and POD) you checked out.

GB: When I was shopping for a self-publisher, I evaluated perhaps four other houses in addition to iUniverse. I chose iUniverse because of the Editor's Choice program. The Editor's Choice program indicated to me there was a review process and a standard of quality (whether or not the standard was enforced was a different issue, but at least there was a standard I could aspire to). I also liked the fact that the material belonged to me and I retained the rights to what I'd written.

Apocalypse was published in 2005, and the publishing world has changed substantially in the intervening five years. For my next project I will probably produce all aspects of the book collaboratively, from editing to marketing (I have a lot of out-of-work friends who are involved in the arts and who are very talented). I'm not suggesting that I'm dissatisfied with iUniverse; I just like having more control of the process.

Once I've finished a book, I am more interested in my next project. To me, the finished book is like dried paint; I can't continue to change and adapt it. I prefer the wet paint of a blank page.

KR: How many copies have you sold? How many have you given away? What techniques work best at drawing attention in the form of actual sales to your book?

GB:I have probably sold less than one hundred copies of "Love in the Time of the Apocalypse". My best medium has been Amazon Kindle, although I haven't quite figured out how to determine what my total sales has been on the Kindle. I usually gauge the rate of sales by the book's sales rank, which usually fluctuates between 20,000 and 120,000. My best sales venue has been paid advertising on Facebook.

I've given away approximately two hundred copies. I will frequently leave a copy of Apocalypse at a "Friends of the Library" bookstand (where the sales price is fifty cents) or at coffee shops, subway stations and on park benches. This is a marketing technique known as "shop dropping'. I've found that at a fifty cent price point the demand for my book is seemingly infinite, because I continually have to replenish the stock of books I leave at the library. I have noticed that no one has ever returned a copy of my book to the "Friends of the Library" bookstand, so I hope the book stays on my readers' shelves.

KR: Who is your target audience?

I am my own target audience. I wrote Apocalypse to satisfy myself. I wanted to craft a novel that was in keeping with the novels I've read and enjoyed, such as "The Sot-Weed Factor" by John Barth, or "The Frog" by John Hawkes. Sot-Weed Factor is a dense, multidimensional satire that works as an anti-novel (that is, the book is cross-grained to the formulaic definition of a novel) while The Frog is more of a fable where the characters and story lines are instruments of the author's intent.

KR: Do you intend to go mainstream publication for your next book?

GB: I have enjoyed tremendously the modicum of exposure I've received, having published my own novel. Once or twice a year, someone happens upon Apocalypse, reads it, enjoys what they've read, and then is moved to drop me a line to express what they've appreciated about the book. Of course, with equal frequency someone happens upon Apocalypse, reads it, is convinced that I am a moron and have wasted their fifty cents, and then is incensed enough to drop me a line to to express disdain. I've learned to savor the former and ignore the latter.

Speaking of moments to savor, when I first published Apocalypse in February of 2005, a local book club was kind enough to feature my novel as its book of the month. During the meeting we spent an hour discussing the plot, the characters and the writing style. You can argue that someone who self-publishes a book is not a writer or author in the conventional sense, but for an hour I felt like a craftsman, a weekend hobbyist whose work someone enjoyed and admired. That moment affirmed to me that I made the right choice in publishing my own book.

If you're wondering what kind of reception your DIY novel will receive, let me just share my experience: the praise will be muted and condemnation strident. You'll have to be pretty thick-skinned to put up with the vituperation that emanates (mostly) from other aspiring writers. It's the equivalent of a flesh wound in a pool of sharks.

KR: How did you get your cover design?

An august pair of statues overlooks the Hoover Dam. The statues are the "Winged Figures of the Republic", designed by Oskar Hansen to commemorate the dam's construction. Apocalypse opens in Las Vegas with a trip to the Hoover Dam. The book describes the momument as follows:

"On either side of the pole sat a pair of bronze figures, erect and austere, with daunting wings protruding upward from their shoulders, like kitchen knives."

I was fortunate enough to visit Hoover Dam in 2004 and took a picture of the monument. The black and white rendition of the picture appears on the front cover of Apocalypse.

I enjoy designing my own book cover, and will design the cover of my next book.


If you want to know more about Greg or Love in the Time of Apocalypse you can find him at his website.

Sylvianna

So, by this point, some of you might be interested in what the book is actually about.

Or not, but I feel like writing about it, so I will.

Really though, this is practice for something important to either the query letter, the sales pitch, or the back jacket if I self publish, because, no matter how brilliant the book is, no one will buy it if they don't know what it's about.

So... what's it about? Like most writers I'm sitting here with a manuscript and it's got a lot of things going on in it and trying to get that down to one paragraph (Yes, that's what we're aiming for in Query letter land.) is daunting.

I can condense the entire series down into one question: What if Job fought back? Unfortunately that's not much relevant to the first book. Because the first book is actually the middle of the series.

So, what is it? It's a love story. It's about wrapping up loose ends. It's about free will and fate. It's about forgiveness, and about the things that cannot be forgiven. Most importantly it's about how good people can do some really bad things, and how no matter how good your intentions may be, you can still get burned, and burn everyone you love, in the end.

If you liked Harry Potter but wanted something more engaging to a grown-up mind, you'll probably like Sylvianna. If you liked Twilight, but wanted to smack some sense into Bella and Edward (or wanted some decent sex scenes), you'll probably like Sylvianna. If you liked the Magician but wanted engaging characters who actually did things, you'll probably like Sylvianna. Most of all, if you want a book that starts a series that will deal with complex moral issues without preaching at you, and without pulling punches, then you'll like this series.

Well, there are the themes of the book, and who it's marketed to. Now let's take a whack at the plot.

Sarah Metz just got to college. She went in search of a biology degree. She found a group of wizards on the run from their past. They remember her, she doesn't remember them. Over the next year she'll help them fight off the creatures trying to kill them, fall back into love with the man who used to be her husband, break the heart of her best friend by doing so, and maybe, if they're lucky, not remember who she used to be.

Still needs work, but it's a good first shot.

Say Hello to Mr. Hill

Now, I know traditional publisher/writer types will tell you to never, ever hire your own editor. The publishing company will have it done for you if they like the book. As we've proven in the last column, editing is expensive.

I understand why this advice is given. There are lots of editing scams out there, and even for people who aren't scammers, they might just not know what the book world really wants. (Quick example: Does this editor usually work with technical manuals? He might not really know what to do with a novel in that case.) If you wait for the publisher to provide the editor, then the publisher knows the output will be the sort of thing they can sell.

At the same time, every third person and his mom are now writing books. Which means you've got a whole lot of competition to see who is going to get an Agent, and then the Agent competes against all the books other Agents are shopping around.

I saw the statistic that the average Agent would get close to 10,000 queries a year, and the average Agent would pick up four or five new clients. I don't know if that number is true or not, but I do know that if I've got to deal with that sort of competition, I will make sure my book is as good as it can possibly be, so I'll be hiring an editor.

The other reason for getting professionally edited is this: I'm still not sure if I'll go the agent/traditional publisher route. If I go the self publish route I have to hire someone to edit this thing because I do not want to be another of the self published authors out there who produces a work that doesn't look like it was spell checked, let alone ever had another set of eyes go over it.

So, the lovely Thomas Hill of Launchpad Press will be retained for the job.

Here's how the deal works: I had him edit a sample of my work and send me a price quote. That quote came in at .01 cent a word, and he'd be done in a month. The sample he sent back to me looked good. The turn around time was faster than anyone else who bid. We corresponded by email, and he seems very pleasant and professional. I Googled him and didn't find any complaints or scam reports on him. The terms are professional as well, half at the beginning of the project, half at the half way point. The contract he sent is simple to read but covers everything. No wading through pages of dense legaleese and wondering after you signed if you just gave away the rights to the family farm. Finally the invoice is through Paypal, which is nice because both Paypal and the credit card I'm using to pay for this have buyer protection on them.

So, by Monday Mr. Hill will have Sylvianna in hand, and the editing will begin. I'll continue to post how the editing experience goes.

Editors II

Holy Yog's Law Batman! Editing is expensive!

So, after taking the time to look into this whole editing thing, I got some quotes. Here's what editing may run, one to five cents a word. I got rates back at .01, .03, and .05 a word. (One outlier was charging $.18 a word.) Now, that doesn't sound bad, until I look at my little word count on Sylvianna and see it comes in at 262,130 words. So, at best, I'm looking at $2621.30 and at worst a bit over $13,000.

The sound you hear in the background is my husband telling me to write a shorter book.

To make matters even more fun, this is apparently an area rife with scams.

Now what? Besides encouraging my buddy who is good with grammar to stop teaching writing 101 at the local community college and start life as a book editor.

First off, really read the samples I got sent back. They are good. All the editors have indicated they think the bits of the books they looked at were strong, and wouldn't require massive intervention to make better. However, they are trying to sell me a service, and saying the book sucks and will have to be entirely re-written is not a good way to sell me said service.

.05 a word told me he could have it done in a few months, remarked about how it needed work on making the tale more visually intense, and varying the word choice a bit. The bit he worked on looked good, but he only marked up two pages, so it's a tad hard to tell how much he can add to the project. He's an author with six SF books of his own on the market, so obviously he knows how to write a book that sells. His terms are half up front, half on delivery.

Two main concerns with him. First off, I can't afford to pay for $13,000.00 in editing. (And, if self publishing, I really don't hope to make that much back!) Secondly, his comments were dead on about the weaknesses of my prose, but his fixes don't sound much like me. How much my voice would become his by the time the book was done is an open question. Now, since he's got published, selling books out, whether that would be a bad thing is also an open question.

.03 did a decent mark up as well. This one focused more on grammar and flow than on word choice. No comments about what bits of the writing needed to be improved. He told me he could have it done by August 2011, if I paid for the entire thing up front. Mr. .03 may be a lovely person. He may be a legitimate editor. He's also not getting my business.

.01 focused on grammar and making the story clearer. Things that make sense to me do not necessarily make sense to the reader. He can get it done in a month, and also wants half now half later. Mr. .01 charges extra for something called a story review, in which he and his crew read the thing and go over it with a fine tooth comb to see if it's salable. Mr. .01 also has a list of books he's edited on his website.

Right now I'm leaning towards Mr. .01. Before he gets engaged for the deal, I'm going to see about how well the books he's edited sold, and hopefully track down their authors and see what they thought of his skills.

In the meantime, a decision needs to be made: Pay for editing, or start the agent hunt?

Yog's Law: Editors

Now, by going the self publish route I don't have to shell out as much as $750 dollars in the quest for an agent.

No, by self publishing I can shell out money in the quest for an editor.

Some people have noticed that self published, especially in the not too distant past, was code for, "No one in their right mind would publish this!" Bad writing, insipid plots, grammatical errors, and cardboard characters have been the hallmarks of self published fiction. (This is not necessarily true for non-fiction.) This is often because people who publish their own work don't bother to hire a professional editor.

Want to have an idea of the value of a real professional editor. Read any of the first four Harry Potter books. Then read Deathly Hallows. How much do you want to bet a copy editor got anywhere near Deathly Hallows? Not much? Me either.

I know I can spin a good plot. I write decent, occasionally brilliant, dialogue. I'm not a grammarian. I don't process information visually, so my prose is weak on the what do things look like front. (Actual comment from a beta reader: "Can you make this more visual?" My response: "Probably.") I need an editor. By going the agent/publisher route, they'll pay for an editor for me.

By going on my own, I need to hire one on my own. Fortunately this is the internet age, so editors are easy to find. I've got two professionals who specialize in sci-fi fantasy work, and one who I know through a board I hang out on. All three will get bits of the book to work up, and then they'll send me what they can do with it, and how much it'll cost to do the whole thing.

Keep in mind writer friends, they are doing the first bit for free to show me what they can do, then I pick the best match based on what they send me. Once again, if they want money upfront, it's time to go find a new option.

So, stay tuned for the next Yog's Law Update: Editors II.