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Sugar, spice, and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl.

Querying is the process of sending out pitches of your finished manuscript to agents or editors in the hopes that someone believes in your project and will sign you on to help you get it published. I started this process for my manuscript around mid February, so here’s everything I’ve learned since then:

1. Use a spreadsheet

Thankfully I already use spreadsheets for literally everything because it has been soo helpful for keeping track on what was sent when, how long I can expect to wait for a response, and the guidelines etc. for each agent.

Here’s how I’d recommend you set up your spreadsheet:

Column one: Name (and pronouns, if known) of agent

Two: Agency name

Three: Website/link to find them

Four: Specific guidelines for your genre/target audience

Five: Date you contacted them initially, and how (email, query form, etc.)

Six: Was there a follow up?

Seven: Additional info—here I put what other books or authors they’ve represented that I know of, approximately how long they estimate it will take them to get back and if you’re meant to nudge them or leave them alone after the deadline, and also just how interested I was in them—if I thought they’d be a particularly good fit. You think you will remember but you won’t, write it down.

2. Don’t send out 100 all at once,, but do send out 100

I started in a batch of just 10 queries—I wanted to wait before “wasting” too many queries at once in case some might come back with suggestions on improving my letter/synopsis/etc. or I noticed weird random typos that managed to sneak through my 20 readings of it (there were… somehow). Each rejection can be a chance to learn and improve, so I’d recommend holding back on querying your absolute favourite agents/agencies right off the bat until you’ve refined your process and materials through lots and lots of rejection.

Oh, but do expect lots and lots of rejection—like hundreds.

3. Focus particularly on the first 30 pages of your manuscript

While, yes, ideally the whole thing will be without spelling/grammar flaws, the first 30 pages should definitely be without spelling/grammar flaws. I had given mine an extra careful readthrough.. and still missed some stuff. If you can, I’d recommend finding a professional freelance editor to give it a really thorough look over. If you can afford the whole manuscript—great! But the costs for the first 30 pages is a bit easier to swallow and well worth it, (around $200-$350 depending on the editor.)

4. Only query to agents who will actually like your book

There’s about a million places to find agents, but I’d really recommend narrowing down search fields (or searching google, Manuscript Wishlist: (your genre)) so that you can just focus on the agents who would actually like your work. There’s 0 point to querying an agent that only works in horror when yours is a fantasy, or who is only looking for adult when yours is a YA, etc.

Save everyone some time, only query to agents who might be interested in you.

5. Choose smart comps

One section of your query letter is called the comp section, where you talk about books that are comparable to yours. My first query letter, I took this section very literally—I chose books that were similar to mine. The problem with that was that the books I chose were quite old (10+ years), bestsellers (one of them is being made into a movie right now), and were frankly just way out of my league.

While yes, they are similar to my book, the comp section tells an agent/editor these three things:

1. How much should an author be paid for their book 2. What does the current market for this book look like 3. What are the vibes

So you want to choose books that are not only similar in vibes (#3), but importantly are recently published, as in within the last three years (#2) and are worth a realistic amount (#1). They shouldn’t be bestsellers if you are not already a bestselling author—aim for other debut books that have a reasonable amount of success so you avoid looking like you’re asking to be paid like Stephen King or something.

To know these books, you should be reading in your target market while you’re still writing the book. That way, you build a knowledge of your market and can jump right into querying after you’re done writing.

Does anyone else have experience querying? I am always open to more tips!

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happy holidays @nocturna-starr I was your secret santa for the @phandomholidaytruce!!

went with magical boy danny :]

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Lisa Frank Photo Album

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