Ex Animo Mago

[ID: A page of a play. It reads as follows, "Theseus: Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend. / Herakles: I fear to stain your clothes with blood. / Theseus: Stain them, I don't care." End text.]

Hey all! A while back, I asked people to send in questions about querying, and some wonderful writers and I took the time to answer. This isn’t meant to be an advice post. Instead, it’s a chance for querying writers to share their experiences so others can see what the process is like. Though the answers below the cut are honest and realistic, the thing that stands out the most is the fact that none of us gave up writing after facing rejections. Any suggestions given are based on what works best for us.

The interview can be found below the cut and on my website. Here’s a list of the questions we answer, in case you want to skip to a particular one:

What are you querying, when did you start (and finish, if applicable,) and how many queries have you sent?

If you are still querying, how long do you plan to continue? If you’ve stopped querying, what helped you know it was time to stop, if you feel comfortable sharing?

What materials did you collect before starting?

Other than scrolling through Twitter, is there an effective way of finding personalisation information about agents, such as their MSWLs?

How many agents is it wise to send queries to at once? (Since wise is subjective, we each explained how many we sent at one time.)

What is something super important to include in a query letter?

What’s a warning you’d give about querying?

how important is it to have a pre-existing fanbase for the book you’re querying?

How to balance writing a book for you (as well as the market/industry/audience) and the “damn but if I do this it’ll make thing so much harder when I query!” anxiety?

I’m also tagging people who sent questions, answered questions, or otherwise asked to be tagged!