#pub tip

Originally published on www.LianaBrooks.com

What do you need to have before you send out a query?

THE BARE BONES

Fiction – A finished, polished manuscript that is the best you can make it right now. A query letter. A full synopsis.

Non-Fiction – A proposal and sample chapters of your work, a query letter, and a synopsis that details what you will include in your book.

Picture Books – A finished book and art work if you are doing your own art and a short query letter or letter of introduction.

If you don’t have those, you aren’t ready to think about querying yet. It’s very, very tempting to start looking up agents during the editing process or to try a #PitchWars pitch when you’re almost done with that first draft… DON’T.

Despite the sometimes glacial pace of publishing agents can request pages very quickly. Often within days if not hours of reading your pitch or query. I had one agent request 15 minutes after I sent a query (I just happened to send it while the agent was in their in-box). You don’t get a second chance at a first impression and you don’t want to tell an agent who is eager to read your book today that you need to write another 50 pages.

While you are querying one book you should be working on new projects, including at least one book that is not related to the book you are querying. If an agent likes your style but not the book on query, they’ll ask what else you have. If an agent wants to sign you but can’t sell a book for whatever reason, you’ll need the unrelated book to shop around.

SUBMISSION PACKET FOR FICTION:

A researched list of names to query written down in a document with relevant contact and query information. Verify the agent/publisher is open to queries before sending anything.

A finished and polished manuscript or non-fiction proposal. Not almost done. Not unedited. Not “still tweaking”. Make sure the manuscript is complete and edited before you send any of of the following. Why? Because there is always a chance that, five minutes after sending the query, the agent will ask for a full and you do not want to say, “Oh, I need to write the ending real quick…”

A polished query

A folder on your computer where you keep all of the following data so that sending a submission out is a matter of a copy/paste/attach and you can respond quickly to all requests.

Proper Formatting… Note –  This is the industry standard, but doesn’t make or break anything. Check the submission guidelines before sending. Also, this doesn’t mean you have to write like this. Use any font you want while typing, just format the final document before querying. Personally, I hate double-spaced anything while I'm drafting so I save all that for later.

Manuscripts: 12pt TNR font, double-space, page numbers and TITLE/author name at top

Synopsis: 12pt TNR font, double space between paragraphs only, ALL CAPS the first time a new name is mentioned, TITLE/synopsis/author name and page number at top

Query: 12pt TNR, double space between paragraphs

In the folder saved as separate files for ease of attachment to an email…

Query

Short Synopsis

Long Synopsis

Author Bio

First 5 Pages

First 10 Pages

First 50 Pages

First 3 Chapters

Partial Manuscript

Full Manuscript

Sample Art (if you are an author/illustrator)

It takes about 30-45 minutes to set up your query folder (depending on how many times you get on the internet looking for a distraction) but it means that you can send a query in under three minutes. Once the folder is set all you need to do is copy-and-paste into the email or form. If an agent wanted five pages and requests a partial, it's a thirty second Reply/Attach situation.

Originally published on www.lianabrooks.com

READ THE FULL TEXT HERE 

Things You Can’t Control In Publishing:

– who likes your book

– if a literary agent signs you as a client

– if a publisher makes an offer on your book

– how many copies of your book you sell

That’s the short list. There are other details that you only have minimal control over, like when your book comes out, how the market is doing, and other little vagaries of the industry. You can’t control it all so it’s important to focus on what you can do.

Things You Can Control In Publishing:

– marketing your book to the right people

– sending queries

– accepting smart offers

– how you present yourself to the world

– what you do with what happens

The last one is probably the most important. Publishing, like any creative industry, has its ups and downs. There are trends. There are days – sometimes years – when things don’t sell well. There are slumps. There are unbelievable highs and accolades that take you up the precipice of adoration, the money flowing in, only to find yourself sitting alone and in silence a few years later.

Being the Next Big Thing is only great until someone comes to be the next Next Big Thing.

What a smart author does is look at their goals and modify them so they are actually something you, as the author, can control without help from anyone.

Goal 1: Get Published  ~becomes~> Work Towards Publication

– write a book

– edit the book well

– improve your writing skills

– pick your ideal publication route

– follow that route

Goal 2: Be A Famous Author  ~becomes~> Market My Book Well

– know your genre

– know your ideal audience

– know how your perfect reader finds books

– recognize what you have to offer to the community of readers

– give yourself opportunities to market your book

Goal 3: Sign With a Literary Agent  ~becomes~> Look For A Literary Agent

– research agents

– write the best query possible

– send query only to agents who rep what you write

– continue tweaking your query and sending it out

– continue improving your writing skills

– write the next book

– if Book One doesn’t get an agent, edit and send out Book Two

When you set small, achievable goals that rely only on what you can do you’ll find that you are succeeding more often than not. When you do fail (as often happens when we try new things) it will be because that failure was part of the learning process. It will become a building block of the goal you are reaching for.

Go on.

Set good goals.

The world has great things in store for you.

On branding yourself as an author, particularly if you want to write in multiple genres and categories. Is it possible to write in more than one genre/category? I answer that an more in today's vlog.

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About The Call (vlog)

How to Get Traditionally Published (vlog)

5 Things to Know Before Getting an Agent (vlog)

On Querying (playlist)

Are you a young writer who wants to get published ASAP? Or worried you're too young or old to get published? Today I'm talking about age, publishing, and lessons I learned when I was a teen desperate to get published.

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Writing & Publishing: Does Age Matter?

Should you write sequels before selling the first book of a series? Today I'm sharing my take on a publishing question with no one right answer.

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Depending on the literary agent, they can get anywhere between 50 to 100+ queries per week. With that many queries, on top of their current clients’ work to read and contracts to negotiate, can you imagine how much time they have for each query letter? Maybe thirty seconds, a minute at most.

So how do you stand out in the query slush pile? One of the best ways: personalize your query letter. Show the agent you did your research and you are querying them for a specific reason.

How do you personalize a query letter?

Step One: Research the Agent

Publishers Marketplace, Literary Rambles, Writer’s Digest, Twitter, Google, all these are great resources to research literary agents. Find interviews and make sure they represent your genre (you’d be shocked how often people query agents that do not represent their genre, guess what that gets you? An automatic rejection).

In most interviews, agents talk about what they want to see in their slush pile.

See if they represent any of your favorite authors or popular authors in the marketplace and genre you are writing.

Make sure they like personalized query letters. This is rare, but sometimes you’ll find interviews where agents say they would rather just get to the query letter than have personalization. But trust me—most agents like to see personalization. It shows you’ve done your research.

A lot of queriers don’t do their research. By proving you have, you’re already a step ahead of your competition.

Step Two: Identify What Makes Them The Right Agent For You

By now you’ve read a few interviews, checked out their clients, and probably can figure out at least one reason why you are querying them—even if they don’t have interviews out there, you have to know why you’re querying them, right?

It could be something as easy as their “about us” page on says they are interested in fantasy YA, and you wrote a fantasy YA novel.

Step Three: Write the Personalization

Put the personalization on the top of the query, since the agent is going to be glancing over the query—you want them to see it right away. Proof that you’ve done your research. A connection that shows them yes, this will be a good query for me to actually pay attention to and read through. 

I know that sounds cruel, but the truth of the matter is that agents are extremely busy and well trained. They can usually do a quick 10-30 second glance over a query letter to know if it’s something they are interested or not.

Interview Personalization Template:

“I read in your XXX interview that you are interested in dark, gritty contemporary YA. As such, I thought you might be interested in my 75,000 word YA novel, TITLE.”

(XXX of course should be replaced with wherever you read the interview. For example, “in your Writer’s Digest interview”.)

Client Personalization Template: 

“I am querying you because I greatly admire your client XXX. Since he/she writes dark, gritty contemporary YA, I thought you might be interested in my 75,000 word YA novel, TITLE.”

Profile Personalization Template: 

“I read on your blog/profile/agency website that you are interested in fantasy YA. As such, I thought you might be interested in my 80,000 word YA novel, TITLE.”

There are, of course, other ways to personalize a query, but these are the most common. Personalization will help you set yourself apart from your competition.

If you’re in the querying trenches, good luck!

Interested in a query critique? Check out our services—all full critiques include a query critique! 

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