Feedback on My Query?

My writing career has been taking a really circuitous path over the last couple of years, and unfortunately, there's still no end in sight. As such, I've been working on a new project and new query and would love to hear your thoughts.

Content warnings: mass shootings and suicidal ideation

Dear [Agent]:

It’s been five years since Roxy’s life fractured into Before and After, since her then-fourteen-year-old attempted suicide by cop. This is the lie they told, at least, to hide an even fouler truth, and now the weight has fractured them. She and her husband have divorced, she and her son have relocated, and they never, ever speak about that day, their very worst.

Until her son, who’s now a sophomore at the university, shows up on her townhouse’s doorstep on the eve of winter solstice. He was meant to spend the break in California with his father, but apparently, plans changed; now he’ll be going to an all-night party called The Longest Dark. Roxy’s suspicious of this change—her son’s a classic introvert and not spontaneous at all—but though she questions him at length, she can’t get Nathan to confess.

Roxy’s suspicions are confirmed when she discovers that her gun safe has been opened (broken into?) and her guns have disappeared. She tails him to the party venue, a vast entertainment complex floating, dreamlike, on a lake. Mid-search, a vision seizes her, and Roxy sees the party venue through the would-be shooter’s eyes. When shots break out and others flee, she stays behind to find her son, using her visions as a guide. But doubts creep in as time runs out. What if her son is not the shooter and these visions aren’t a gift? What if she’ll have to watch him die?

THE LONGEST DARK, not yet complete, is psychological suspense with complex mother-son dynamics and a speculative twist. I hope to find an agent who embraces the proposal and would like to have a say in how the manuscript takes shape.

I’m the author of four novels for discerning middle graders (read: they didn't sell that well): THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING (Putnam, 2015), DON’T VOTE FOR ME (Sourcebooks, 2015), EARTH TO DAD (Capstone, 2018), and THE MULTIPLYING MYSTERIES OF MOUNT TEN (Bloomsbury, 2019). I’m also the creator of #PitchMe, a curated pitch event that has allowed me to connect with editors at St. Martin’s Press and Sourcebooks, among several others.

Thank you for your time and especially your consideration.

I know I'm committing a faux pas by querying a manuscript that I haven't finished yet, but if I've earned anything as a four-time published author, I've decided I've earned this.

What Do You Think of This Query for My YA Fantasy?

As many of you know, my agent medically retired toward the beginning of last year. I'd already been struggling to come up with my next project, and this setback didn't help. Gladly, #PitchMe came along, which gave me time to plot and plan. I wrote and revised a PB as soon as #PitchMe was done, then started working on a YA I'd been pondering for months. I've nearly finished the first draft, so now I'm just starting to think about how to pitch this project. It's still several months away from being ready to query, but I would love to get your thoughts on my query in the meantime. This is only the first draft, so I'm open to all feedback:

Dear [Agent]:

As the adopted son of the highest high chief of the Lands, Almundemba’s never felt like he actually belongs. He’s too pale, too paranoid, and more interested in plants than in governing the Lands. But Almund has one use for his political cachet, and that’s to alter the Exchange. For too long, this exercise of trading children like kukuis has benefitted his birth country more than his adopted one; he wants to rebalance the scales.

Relentless as the Tide used to be the only child of the highest high chief of the Lands—until he traded her for the Homish sovereign’s newborn when Relentless was a toddler. Twelve and seven years later, Relentless finally figures out why her adopted mother willingly Exchanged her son: because she needed a daughter to pledge marriage to the heir of her country’s vengeful neighbor. Relentless wants no part of this and hijacks the steamer bound for the Lands and the Exchange to abolish it for good.

This won’t be easy, though. The highest high chief of the Lands doesn’t wish to void the treaty that has kept his nation safe, and Almund has his own agenda. Luckily, Relentless has one more bargaining chip: a biological half sister who resembles her a lot. Setting her principles aside, Relentless kidnaps her half sister to pledge marriage in her place.

When Almund learns they’ve disappeared, he vows to bring his sister back. She’s the heir their country needs. But sisters have minds of their own, and this one has other plans. Now Almund must convince her she requires rescuing before she marries a monster—and he’ll need Relentless’s help.

[TITLE] is a 100,000-word fantasy for young adults inspired by h­ānai, the traditional Hawaiian practice of informally adopting children to bolster alliances. After my previous agent medically retired last year, I spent the next several months formulating the right project with which to secure a new one. This manuscript is that right project and has never been submitted.

Like my main characters, I was adopted as an infant. I’m also part Hawaiian and the author of four middle grade novels, including THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING (Putnam 2015) and THE MULTIPLYING MYSTERIES OF MOUNT TEN (Bloomsbury 2019).

Thank you for your time and especially your consideration.

Querying by the Numbers

Lots of folks have been discussing querying trends on Twitter, so I thought it might be time for another deep dive into my querying statistics. As some of you may know, I decided to query my most recent manuscript, an MG contemporary called SECRETS ROLLER COASTERS KEEP, not because my previous agent suddenly became a bad agent but because he no longer felt like the right agent for me. I was lucky enough to sign with Jennifer Herrington of Harvey Klinger Literary Agency back in April of this year, so that's where these numbers come from.

I'll forgo all the disclaimers I felt compelled to share last time, but you should take these facts and figures for precisely what they are: one writer's statistics querying one manuscript. If your numbers don't look like mine, that is no reason to fret. Every journey is unique, and every manuscript is, too.

I ended up submitting 77 queries over the course of three and a half months. You might think that's kind of high, and the truth is, it kind of is. But I've been around the block, so once I know my query's working, I commit and go all out. Here's how those replies broke down:

Partial requests: 6 (7.8%)

Full requests: 13 (16.9%)

Rejections: 45 (58.4%)

Non-responses: 13 (16.9%)

Offers: 3

(It's worth noting that I had at least twice as many non-responses until I received my first offer. It's also worth noting that some of these 13 non-responses eventually turned into responses, but only AFTER I'd accepted Jenn's offer of representation, so I didn't go back and change those outcomes in my notes.)

Query Response Times (Rejections) depicts the frequency of response times (how many agents responded in zero days, how many agents responded in one day, and so on) for the 45 agents who rejected my query:

If these response times surprise you, you should know I make a point of querying agents who respond to almost every query and/or who respond quickly. Though I do confirm that they represent my category, I pay way closer attention to the response rates and times reported on QueryTracker than to their #mswl. It's especially important to query fast-responding agents when you're getting your feet wet, as you need to figure out how well your query is performing, but I also feel like agents who treat querying writers well will also treat their clients well.

Now for the positive replies. Query Response Times (Requests) depicts the frequency of response times for the 18 agents who requested a partial or full:

The shape is generally the same, though it spikes several days later. Good news takes longer than bad news, at least in my experience, and these numbers bear that out. You may also want to know that the three query responses that eventually turned into offers are embedded in this graph at 1, 2, and 62 days to response.

Here's how the quartiles break down for both rejections and requests. For the uninitiated, the median is the data point in the very middle of the set; 50% are below it while 50% are above. Likewise, the quartile Q1 is exactly halfway between the minimum and median while the quartile Q3 is exactly halfway between the median and maximum.

What exactly does this mean? Look at the Combined column first. The median is 17 days, which means that 50% of the agents who responded to my query did so within 17 days. Now look at the Rejections column. Since Q3 is 39, we can say 75% of the agents who rejected my query did so within 39 days. I like looking at quartiles and especially the median because measures like the average are more influenced by outliers. Case in point: the Combined average is 23.8 days because that maximum response time is so much higher than the others.

Perhaps you'd also like to know what my response times looked like on partial and full requests. Sadly, the next graph doesn't differentiate between them--you can blame my laziness--but I hope you'll find it helpful.

Somewhat surprisingly, the shape of this graph mimics the shape of the first two, which suggests that many agents respond to partials and fulls in about the same amount of time that they respond to queries. I should also let you know that one agent took 102 days to reject my full, but since I'd already accepted Jenn's offer of representation by that point, I didn't include it here. As for where my offers fall, they're embedded in this graph at 3, 33, and 94 days to response. (The 3-day response was to a partial, so the amount of time it took the agent to review my full isn't reflected in this graph.)

Here's how the quartiles break down (and this time, I did log partials and fulls separately):

As you might expect, it generally takes agents longer to respond to fulls than partials. Also, my numbers are skewed because I received an offer roughly three and a half months after sending my first query, which forced the others to respond and created an artificial upper bound. (My query response times are probably also a little skewed for the same reason.)

I think that's it from me! Have you queried this year, too, and if so, what would you add?

A New Query/A New Hope

I know, I know, long time, no blog. What can I say? It's 2020. But one of the many things I've been working on this year is an MG contemporary that I'm rather in love with and that I intend to query. ("Oh, no!" you're probably thinking if you've been around the blog for any length of time. "What happened with you and Brent?" Nothing really, and therein lay the problem. I think we both knew it was time to move on.) As such, I'd love to get your feedback on the first query I've written in almost five years. First draft below!

Dear [Insert Agent Here]:

Twelve-year-old Ingrid Adler really doesn’t like her aunt. She’s a know-it-all, she’s rude, and worst of all, she left the faith. Then Ingrid’s mom passes away, and her aunt nobly volunteers to help her dad take care of her. She’d much rather have her mom.

She avoids her helpful aunt by reading her mom’s diaries. They’re spontaneous and fun, everything her aunt is not. They also reveal a handful of her mom’s last wishes--to help Ingrid know her birth mom and to ride a roller coaster.

Ingrid dislikes roller coasters as much as she hates her aunt, but she also wants to be as courageous as her mom. When her aunt reads the diaries, she doesn’t give Ingrid a chance to weigh in on her crazy scheme, just organizes a massive cross-country road trip on the fly. With her grieving dad in tow, Ingrid grudgingly sets out to ride the baddest roller coasters between here and the Atlantic. But will this roller coaster road trip help her find her birth mom, too?

[TITLE] is an #ownvoices MG contemporary complete at 50,000 words. My previous agent and I parted on amicable terms several months ago, before I finished the first draft. Neither he nor any editors have read this manuscript, and it will be available to submit immediately.

Like Ingrid, I was placed for adoption as an infant and raised in a mixed-race home that was genuine and nurturing. I’ve also recently begun my search for my biological family. Though I’ve identified my birth dad, who was the younger son of a Filipino immigrant and a native Hawaiian, I still haven’t found my birth mom--but I haven’t given up.

I’m also the author of THE SOUND OF LIFE AND EVERYTHING, a Junior Library Guild selection, and THE MULTIPLYING MYSTERIES OF MOUNT TEN, among other MG novels.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

A few other notes: I've included my previous books, including publishers and release dates, in my signature block, which is why I haven't put them in the paragraph above. I just thought this looked less cluttered, but feel free to disagree! Also, while I'm looking for feedback on anything and everything, I'm especially not sold on the last line of the summary. Lastly, if you have any ideas for the title, please, please, please lay them on me. My best two ideas so far are HOW NOT TO FIND YOUR BIRTH MOM and THE SECRETS ROLLER COASTERS KEEP, but I'm not sold on those, either.

All right, then, have at it!

What If Selling a House Were Like Selling a Manuscript?

I've been elbow-deep in house listings for the last couple of weeks, and it's gotten me thinking: what if selling a house were like selling a manuscript?

"Please describe your home in two hundred and fifty words or less. No pictures or attachments, please."

"I'm afraid I'm just not connecting with this house as strongly as I would have liked."

"I liked the exterior, but the kitchen was outdated, the second bathroom was unsightly, and the basement felt too big."

"That said, if you address those issues, I'd love to take another look!"

"I actually walked through this whole house, and though I liked the first floor, the second floor ran out of steam."

"If you decide to sell another house, I'd love to take a look at that one!"

"I love this house. I'm going to run it past my spouse, my kids, my mom, my lawyer, and my accountant. More soon!"

"Unfortunately, my lawyer thinks the market for Dutch colonials is saturated at the moment, so we're going to have to pass."

"We think this home is fantastic and would love to make an offer of seventy-five hundred dollars."

Sold!

Change

It's okay, you don't have to pay

I've got all the change

--Ben Folds, "Still Fighting It"

I don't do change well. I don't think many people do, but since it's becoming clear that change is going to be the theme of our 2016, I've decided to embrace it.

But it's still sort of terrifying.

It started at the end of last year, actually. I'd been feeling like I needed to blaze a new trail, but change is hard, so I resisted. Then, just before Christmas, I realized that the time was right. All of the little loose ends were (finally) getting tied up, so I did the thing I'd been dreading for a while: I parted ways with Kate and wrote a new query for the first time in four years.

I sent my first real batch of queries on the first Saturday in January. Seven minutes later, I had my first request. The next day, the agent e-mailed me with several questions about the manuscript, and the next day, I e-mailed him with my answers. I also told him about a proposal I'd been working on, and he asked to read that, too. Later that same day, he asked to set up a phone call, and during that phone call the next day, he offered to represent me.

I did my due diligence and had some great conversations with two other agents. They ended up offering, too, but I just couldn't get the first agent's enthusiasm out of my head. I was also impressed with his initiative and drive. He didn't have to tell me he'd get the job done because he'd already shown me (and we're all about showing, not telling, in this business).

So now I'm represented by Brent Taylor of Triada US Literary Agency. (If you want to see my query, check out this interview.) He is as fierce as Beyonce and as capable as any agent I've ever met or heard of, and I'm extremely grateful to have him in my corner. As the cogs of another big part of my life start to whir and buzz around me, I can honestly say that I hope these other changes go as smoothly as this one did. To new years and fresh starts!

A New Way to Build a Query List

I've blogged about querying a lot. It's one of those topics fellow writers always want to read about, and if I'm being completely honest, I have more experience than most:) A while back, I covered who to query. Today, I want to talk about who to query when.

Coming up with a list of names is the (relatively) easy part. You can research their track records, their client lists, and their agencies and decide which agents you think you might be interested in working with. But how do you decide which order to query them in? I've heard of people making A lists, B lists, and C lists based on some instinctive measure of how good an agent is, but that's kind of subjective, and no one can decide whether you should query your A-listers before your C-listers, or your C-listers before your B-listers, or some mysterious combination of the three. I'd rather focus on responsiveness, which is a quality I value and can calculate:

overall average response time

response rate

Yes, I said calculate, so settle in and buckle up for your math lesson for the day. I call this happy formula the responsiveness quotient (RQ) because that's what it is--and because calling it that makes it sound cool and scientific. The best place to find the numbers you need to calculate it is on QueryTracker. You can capture the overall average response time in several ways, but the most straightforward one is simply to look at the "Query Response Times" report. This report gives you the agent's average response times broken into two categories, positive and negative, so to calculate the overall average response time, you have to average these averages:

(average positive response time * positive responses) + (average negative response time * negative responses)

positive responses + negative responses

That calculation looks scary, but it's really not. Let's look at an example. Suppose Agent Awesome has an average positive response time of 2 days, an average negative response time of 33 days, 36 positive responses, and 185 negative responses. Then her overall average response time would be

(2 * 36) + (33 * 185)

36 + 185

or 27.95 days.

Now for the response rate. Thankfully, QueryTracker calculates that figure for us. You can find it directly under an agent's contact information on his or her profile page. (For instance, if you look up Kristin Nelson, you'll see her response rate is 89.9%, which is .899 in decimal terms.) So if Agent Awesome's response rate is 77.9%, her RQ would be 27.95/.779, or 35.88.

So what does this number mean? The best way to think of it is in terms of days. It's essentially a weighted average response time, or an expected response time: since Agent Awesome generally responds 27.95 days after she receives a query 77.9% of the time, you should expect to hear back from her in approximately 35.88 days. If she responded to every query, her response rate would be 100%, and her RQ would be the same as her overall average response time. On the flip side, if she never responded to queries, her response rate would be 0%, and her RQ would be infinitely large (which is the mathematical way of saying you shouldn't expect to hear back).

If you're still with me, way to go! But if you started skimming a few paragraphs ago, I don't blame you this is where you'll want to start reading again. Once you've calculated the RQs for all the agents on your list (which really won't take too long once you get the hang of it, especially if you're using a spreadsheet), you can use these rankings to help you decide which order to query them in.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you start with the agent with the lowest RQ and just march straight down your list. Responsiveness may be an important factor, but it's not the only factor, and established agents are often slower to respond to queries because they're selling manuscripts and taking care of their existing clients. That said, I do think it's not a bad idea to query agents with lower RQs, especially at first. If they respond quickly to queries, they'll almost certainly respond quickly to clients, and when you're shopping a new manuscript, you need to figure out how effective your query and first pages are.

Class dismissed!

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About R&Rs

Or at least some things...

Second only to an offer, a revise-and-resubmit--or an R&R, as they're often called--can be a fantastic opportunity to fine-tune or even completely reshape your manuscript. I've collected eight over the years (seven when I was querying, one since I've been on submission), so I thought I'd share a few thoughts.

What's the difference between a rejection and an R&R?

On the surface, an R&R might sound like a rejection. The agent or editor definitely isn't offering, and he even took the time to point out everything that's WRONG. But as soon as he says, "If you end up making changes, I'd love to see this again" or "If these ideas resonate with you, I'd be happy to take another look," it turns into an R&R. Agents and editors generally don't invite you to resubmit:)

How do you decide whether or not to do an R&R?

It all comes down to whether or not your vision aligns with theirs. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't have to throw out half the manuscript and draft dozens of new scenes, but the suggested changes should help you tell the story you meant to tell all along. No matter where it comes from, an actionable critique should make you feel excited to dive back into your story, so if you don't feel inspired by the agent's or editor's feedback, it might not be worth pursuing.

What if you decide to do the R&R but you don't agree with all of the agent's or editor's suggestions?

No agent or editor is going to expect you to agree with her on every point she raised, so I think she'll still be interested in taking another look even if you don't address every little thing. That said, she WILL expect you to at least consider every point she raised, so if you decide not to incorporate a specific piece of feedback, you should probably be able to explain--and defend--your decision.

Do you need to tell the agent or editor that you plan to do the revision?

Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer: Working on an R&R is a chance for both of you to get a feel for each other's working style, so you want to show him that you're a smart, savvy author who knows how to communicate.

How long should you take on the revision?

Less experienced writers might assume that the faster you turn your revision in, the better, but that's not necessarily the case. If you turn it in too quickly, the agent or editor might assume that you didn't invest as much time and effort as you probably should have. (Keep in mind that if she only expected you to tweak a scene or two, she probably would have offered from the get-go.) But if you take too long, the market might slip out from under you. In general (and these are VERY general guidelines--every revision will be different), I'd say that you should take at least a month on an R&R and no more than three or four.

How likely is it that an R&R will turn into an offer?

It's hard to say. As I mentioned above, I've received eight R&Rs, but I only pursued six of them. Of those six, only one turned into an offer (but luckily, that one came from Putnam!). Based solely on my experience, you might estimate that you have roughly a one-in-six chance of receiving an offer on any given R&R, but there are way too many factors that go into the result to be able to extrapolate from such a tiny data set. Take your time, do the very best job you can, and you'll have no regrets.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask them in the comments!

On Comparison and Confidence

Now that I have a little time for blogging (read: now that I finished my latest revision), I've been thinking about what I might say, and the thing my brain keeps circling back around to is comparison. YA Misfit Maggie Hall blogged on a similar theme not long ago, and I want to add my voice to hers.

The truth is, I've blogged about comparison before. If you click on that link, you might notice that I wrote that post in the first month of this blog's life. You'd think I would have figured at least a few things out in the last four and a half years, and the truth is, I did. There was a time when I was querying when it honestly didn't bother me if other writers got agents or book deals or fill-in-the-blank. I was confident in my own writing, so I knew that, sooner or later (probably later), things would work out for me, too. I just had to stay the course.

But then I signed with Kate (which was FANTASTIC) and went on submission (which was less fantastic). As the days turned into weeks and those weeks turned into months, my confidence dried up. The depression I'd struggled with as a teenager came back in full force, gobbling up the inner calm I'd worked so hard to achieve, and suddenly, I felt like I was right back where I'd started, jealous of anyone's success and secretly satisfied with anyone's failure.

In making this admission, I realize I'm opening myself up to criticism. Even if you're willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, you're probably thinking, "Gosh, Krista, you've sold a manuscript--no, two--for heaven's sake. You should buck up and be grateful!" And I should. Some days, I even think I am. But I'd be lying if I said I haven't felt jealous lately, and at least in my opinion, the only thing worse than feeling jealous is lying about not feeling jealous.

It's occurred to me as I've written this that, at least for me, the reason I feel jealous is because I've lost the confidence I used to have. Now, I don't mean the confidence that looks down its nose at other people and puts itself on a pedestal; I mean the confidence that comes from knowing you've done your best and being satisfied with that. THAT'S the kind of confidence that allowed me to reach out to other writers with genuine warmth and well wishes, and that's the kind of confidence I want to find again.

The great thing about this quiet confidence is that you can acquire it at any step along this path. As I already mentioned, I felt the most quietly confident before I had a book deal or even an agent. I was going through rejections like most people go through toilet paper, but it didn't even faze me. I knew my time would come, and I was content to wait it out.

I haven't managed to lay hands on that quiet confidence again, but I know where to look for it. For me, it usually springs from God, who, when I'm quiet and listening, never fails to reassure me of the infinite worth I have in His eyes. You might also find your quiet confidence in God or in the friends and family who love and support you no matter how many rejections you rack up or manuscripts you set aside. They believe in us.

Now, we just have to figure out how to believe in ourselves.

There Is No Secret Ingredient

You know that scene in Kung Fu Panda when Po's talking to his dad just before he fights Tai Lung? Po's freaking out about the fact that the legendary Dragon Scroll was blank, that he has to figure out how to defeat the vengeful Tai Lung on his own. In this moment of fear and indecision, his dad finally reveals the secret ingredient in their family's secret ingredient soup.

There isn't one.

Two or three years ago, when I was still slugging it out in the query trenches, I poured over every kidlit book I could get my hands on, determined to ferret out the secret of its success. I eagerly anticipated the release of books from bloggers I admired, certain that their words would reveal the mysterious X factor that mine were so obviously lacking. But the more I searched, the more discouraged I became. I honestly couldn't figure out what their stories had that mine did not.

But that's because there really is no secret ingredient. If you've been trying to get published for a while; if you've had multiple agents praise your work and tell you it's not you, it's them; if you know what to do with feedback and no longer fear revision, then YOU'VE ALREADY ARRIVED. The only difference between your stories and mine--and all the others on the market--is that my stories have been fortunate enough to land their big breaks. I simply queried the right manuscript at the right time to the right agent, who then managed to submit it at the right time to the right editor.

You'll notice how much of that process had nothing to do with me. Of course, if you're the sort of person who likes to be the master of his or her own fate, that may be hard to hear. But on the other hand, the good news is that it really has nothing to do with you. You're already there. You're good enough. Now you just have to wait for lightning to strike...

The One Piece of Advice I Give Writers with Offers of Representation

I've said this, like, twenty times in the last couple of months, so I thought I'd say it here and get it out once and for all:) There's only one thing I tell writers with offers of representation (besides congratulations, of course), and it's this:

Before you make your decision, you MUST correspond with at least one of their clients.

You can read interviews, follow blogs, stalk Twitter feeds, and even comb the deal listings on Publishers Marketplace, but the only way to find out what agents are really like is to talk to the people who work with them day in and day out. Here are some questions you might think about asking:

--What are some of the agent's greatest strengths?
--What is the agent's greatest weakness?
--Is the agent more or less editorial? (For more commentary on this question, check out this post.)
--How often do you generally correspond? Does the agent prefer to talk via phone or e-mail?
--On average, how quickly does the agent respond to your e-mails/calls? (Anything longer than forty-eight hours should worry you; most agents I know respond to their clients' correspondence in less than twenty-four.)
--If you knew then what you know now, would you sign with this agent again?

Last but not least, if you can work up the courage, I'd ask to talk to TWO clients, one published and one not. Most published authors are going to give their agents glowing reports, but you'll probably glean more information from their unpublished clients. And information is precisely what you need to go into an agent-author relationship with your eyes wide open.

Query Widely/Wisely

We always tell writers to query widely. You never know who’s going to love your work, we explain, so get that manuscript in front of as many agents as you can. It’s a numbers game, after all, and you’ve got to give yourself every opportunity to succeed. That’s true (to some degree), but the flip side of that coin is that even as you’re querying WIDELY, you still have to query WISELY.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but agent proliferation has reached epic proportions. Editor Molly O’Neill tweeted the other day that she received submissions from nearly 200 agents last year, and it seems like every other week you hear about some other new agency put together by two more agents you’ve never heard of. Now I’ve no doubt these agents are eager, hard-working people who love books, books, and more books (they must be, since they certainly can’t be in this for the money), and most of them, I imagine, have only the very best of intentions.

The problem is, a lot of these eager, hard-working agents haven’t the slightest idea what they’re doing, so here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. First off, I'm not talking about junior agents at well-established agencies. The way to become a literary agent is fairly straightforward: You intern at an agency, sorting through someone's slush and reading requested material. You have lots of conversations with this someone about what works and what doesn't and, more importantly, why. You form relationships with editors and other industry professionals and learn, among other things, how to negotiate deals, read contracts, and handle royalty statements. After a while (usually a year or two, maybe more), the agency promotes you to junior agent, or maybe you just find a manuscript you love, love, love and beg your mentor to let you take it on.

If you don’t go through this process, you probably aren’t going to have the know-how to, say, interpret the clauses in a boilerplate contract, let alone the industry contacts to even get one in the first place. An agent’s job is a lot less about writing and a lot more about business, so if you don’t put in the time to learn all those things, you’re probably not going to succeed on the agent side of this industry.

2. Thoroughly vet the agents you plan to query. You don't have to read every book on their lists, but you should at least be familiar with some of the writers they represent and what they've sold in the last couple of years. Reputable agents want you to be able to figure this out, so if you have to hunt too long and hard for this information, that's probably a bad sign.

Also, even if they are selling, be aware of who they’re selling to. If all of their sales are to smaller presses, they’re probably going to sell your manuscript to a smaller press also. That’s fine, of course, if you’re hoping to work with a comparable publisher, but if you’re hoping to sign a contract with one of the Big Five, you might as well not even query that agent.

3. You owe it to yourself to be selective. Thirty years from now, when you're swimming in royalties and your bookshelves are sagging under the weight of your words, you're not going to remember the one two four eight or however many years it took you to get an agent. But if you don't sign with an agent who actually sells things now and then, you're never going to get to that point. So take your time. Be selective. Don't query someone you wouldn't want representing you for the rest of your career. I know authors have to change agents sometimes, but don't shoot yourself in the foot right out of the starting gate. BE WISE.

What other thoughts would you add?

On Life Well Lived

So many things remind me of writing (I’m sure you understand), so when I heard this talk from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf a few weeks ago, I knew I had to blog about it:) The talk was religious in nature, but I thought so many of his ideas were applicable across a broad range of life experiences. Here are a few of my favorites:

“I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem. I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a list of urgent things accomplished.

“I can’t see it.

“Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around him, they felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them the precious gift of His time.”

He then went on to caution us about overusing technology, which is one of those perpetual balancing acts in my life. With so many good things to do with our time, we have to make sure we’re doing what’s best. When everything’s said and done, I want to be able to say I “purposefully [lived] each day.”

“Doesn’t it seem foolish to spoil sweet and joyful experiences because we are constantly anticipating the moment when they will end? …

“We shouldn’t wait to be happy until we reach some future point, only to discover that happiness was already available--all the time! Life is not meant to be appreciated only in retrospect.”

I’ve thought about this a lot lately, about choosing to be happy no matter what, and something I’ve learned is that we can choose to be happy even when our experiences are less than sweet and joyful. For most of us, querying and submitting amount to long months of waiting (seasoned occasionally with heart-stopping spurts of rejection), but we don’t have to let the waiting or even the rejection define us. Those months can be just as happy so long as we fill them with the things that matter most.

Feel free to check out the whole transcript if you feel so inclined. Or you can watch the talk in its entirety below. In another life, President Uchtdorf was the senior vice president of flight operations at Lufthansa Airlines, and I’ve always thought he looked very captain-like. I would have felt very confident after climbing onto a plane and shaking his hand:)

In Defense of the Less Editorial Agent

First off, an apology: Due to unforeseen circumstances, I’m cancelling this month’s round of “An Agent’s Inbox.” And because of the general contest weariness I’ve noticed around the blogosphere/Twitterverse of late, I’m holding off on scheduling another until after New Year’s. I’m so sorry to anyone who was counting on entering a round this year!

The online writing community has always seemed a little preoccupied with the Editorial Agent. Someone asks about an agent's editorial-ness in almost every interactive interview I host, and it’s one of the criteria Casey McCormick regularly highlights on Literary Rambles.

I understand the preoccupation. We writers are an insecure bunch. When people tell us we’re crap, we tend to believe them, but when they praise our writing, we tend to get suspicious and make excuses for their opinions. (“They don’t really think that, do they? They’re just saying that to be nice. Or maybe they just have no idea what they’re talking about. I mean, last time I checked, this manuscript was pretty lame.”)

This attitude can be especially destructive when we start receiving offers on those “pretty lame” manuscripts. We want to sign with someone who’s going to rip our stories apart, make them swifter, better, stronger, so we might shy away from those who think our manuscripts are already good to go simply because we suspect they’re joking or stupid or both.

But just because an agent thinks our manuscripts are pretty good--or even great--as-is doesn’t make her wrong. She may just be a less editorial agent. And she may know exactly what she’s talking about. Here’s why:

1. I’ve noticed less editorial agents often have more clients, more sales, and more experience than their more editorial counterparts. This doesn’t hold true for everyone, of course. Some agents, no matter how long they’ve been in business, want to work with their clients on fine-tuning their manuscripts, and even some newer agents are better negotiators than editors. But usually, newer agents have more time for everything, including client revisions, so their interest in revising is more of a reflection of where they’re at in their careers than the condition of our manuscripts.

2. Because less editorial agents usually have more experience, their instincts are often right. Amazingly enough, agents who’ve sold a lot of manuscripts tend to know what sells. So we shouldn’t discount their opinions just because we’ve conditioned ourselves to discount anyone who says our writing’s good. We should take those opinions as compliments.

3. Sometimes, revision doesn’t make a manuscript better, just different. Every agent, every editor, and every reader is going to have a different vision for our stories. Some visions are better than others (“Oh, wait, you think I should cut the wizard out of my YA contemporary?”), but some are just different. So editorial agents may have a million and one ideas for tweaking our manuscripts, but that doesn’t mean those ideas are necessarily an improvement over what’s already there.

I really don’t dislike editorial agents; in fact, I suspect that if I were an agent, I’d be an editorial one. And when you’ve got offers on the table, you should always weigh your options rationally and go with your gut. But don’t let whether an agent is more or less editorial hold undue sway. Remember, an agent’s job isn’t really to edit your manuscript--it’s to sell your manuscript to someone who will.

"Give Me This Mountain"

I don't like to interrupt rounds of "An Agent's Inbox," but the blogging bug bit me last night, and I couldn't hold this in. Besides, since so many of you are hanging around to see how the contest plays out, I figure I have a captive audience:) Hope you enjoy!

Not long after Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, he sent a small group of scouts to the land of Canaan to see what they could see. All but two of the scouts returned with the report that the Promised Land was crawling with giants and dotted with mighty fortresses that wouldn't easily fall. Caleb and Joshua's report was quite different--they believed that, God willing, they could conquer the Anakim and claim the land of Canaan for themselves--but the children of Israel sided with the other scouts. They wouldn't risk destruction. They would simply wait.

And wait they most certainly did. The children of Israel ended up wandering in the wilderness for the next forty years, waiting for that faithless generation to grow old and die.

Caleb and Joshua did grow old, but unlike their peers, they didn't die. The Lord preserved them so they could inhabit the land of Canaan and reap the rewards of their faithfulness. And even though Caleb was old, as he stood on the edge of the Promised Land, ready to assist in the final offensive against the mighty Anakim, he said, "Give me this mountain."

Give me this challenge.

Let me prove to myself and to my God how very much I want this.

As I read that story last night, I felt very much like Caleb, but on the edge of Publication. After all, I slugged it out in the query trenches for what felt like forty years. I wrote manuscript after manuscript after manuscript after manuscript. I survived. And yet, as I look back on where I've been, then at how far I have to go, it's just starting to dawn on me that the biggest battles are still ahead.

So I say with Caleb, "Give me this mountain!" If mine is not going to be one of those overnight success stories, so be it. I'll dig in and fight. I will not go gentle into that good night. I'll hang on. I'll climb.

Thoughts for a Monday Morning

Querying and submitting aren't exactly alike--the biggest difference, of course, is that you have an agent in your corner when you're on submission, someone whose expertise you get to borrow, someone who believes in you--but they're enough alike that I've been reflecting on both experiences lately. It's nice not to be on the front lines anymore, but because I'm not, I have a lot more time to ponder. Here are a few of the thoughts I've had:

As it turns out, Twitter was right--the waiting never ends. No matter where we are on the path to publication, we will have to wait (and wait and wait and wait, in all likelihood). I've blogged about waiting before, but it seems to be one of those perpetual issues in this industry:) And the waiting doesn't get easier, which means there's no time like the present to learn how to master it. (I'm still learning, by the way...)

No matter where we are on the path to publication, we're always in the middle. A recent article by Dieter F. Uchtdorf totally changed my perspective on the path to publication. If we're always in the middle, then we'll never be too inexperienced--or even too seasoned--to take the next step. I especially liked how he wrapped things up:

"Being always in the middle means that the game is never over, hope is never lost, defeat is never final. For no matter where we are or what our circumstances, an eternity of beginnings and an eternity of endings stretch out before us."

How's that for boundless optimism? :)

Real success takes time. I heard an awesome gardening analogy yesterday that totally made me think of writing. The speaker mentioned that her dad was an expert gardener and had been from the time that she was a little girl. When she was young, her favorite things to grow were radishes because they matured so quickly. At twenty-one days from planting to harvest, they are the garden-plot equivalent of instant gratification.

Then there's the watermelon. You wait weeks to see the seedlings sprout, then baby the young plants along through the heat of summer, then hope and pray the fruit reaches maturity before the first frost hits. In other words, they're much more labor-intensive and require months and months of effort. But they also taste a heck of a lot better than radishes.

Now I don't know what your watermelon-like success looks like, and I'm certainly not saying that all of us should be shooting for the same thing. What I am saying is that, whatever our watermelon is, that's what we should be shooting for. I mean, who wants to settle for radishes when there are watermelons on the table?

And with that, I think I'll go and find a snack...

Take Two: The Quarter in the Toilet

I'm away from home and not finding a lot of time to blog, so I thought I'd throw an older post up here that didn't get a lot of (read: any) pageviews the first time around. I originally published this in December of 2009, back when I had, like, two followers and was querying the project I queried BEFORE I queried Bob. That certainly puts things in perspective:) Anyway, hope you enjoy!

My husband teaches religion classes to high school students for a living. So he's always coming up with object lessons to teach different principles. One of my particular favorites is called "The Quarter in the Toilet." It involves herding the entire class into the bathroom and holding up a quarter. He asks them how much a quarter is worth and someone says, "Twenty-five cents." Then he asks them what its value is and someone says, a little slower this time, as if he's aged fifty years in a single moment, "Twenty-five cents." Then he chucks the quarter into the toilet and asks, "And what's its value now?"

Except for some enterprising freshman, most of his kids aren't willing to go in after it; to everyone but that freshman, the quarter actually has negative value now. Still, a quarter is a quarter is a quarter, in the hand or in the bowl. Whether they value it or not, that quarter is still worth twenty-five cents.

As a writer, I sure feel like a quarter in the toilet sometimes--especially when I'm querying. I often only feel as good as my last response, so when a rejection rolls in, my confidence dips. And when the rejections pile up, my confidence plummets.

But the truth is, my worth as a writer has nothing to do with how everyone else values my writing. My worth as a writer is defined by certain inherent characteristics--my talent, my passion, my desire--and those things never change.

It reminds me of Max Lucado's beautiful picture book YOU ARE SPECIAL. His main character, the much maligned Punchinello, only receives ugly gray dots from his fellow wooden puppets, and in a society built around public praise or scorn, those gray dots might as well be the plague. But then Punchinello meets Lucia, another wooden puppet who bears neither the stars nor the dots of her fellow townspeople. Punchinello asks her why her stickers don't stick, and she tells him: Because she cares more about what the woodcarver thinks than what the other puppets think. Because she knows her worth as a wooden puppet is intrinsic. It has nothing to do with how much the other puppets reject, or adore, her.

Now, obviously, constructive criticism is, well, constructive; I'm in no way suggesting that we don't consider and try to incorporate the feedback we receive. And it's pretty much impossible not to feel that tiny thrill when a request or, gasp, an offer of representation comes. But in the end, those things do not define us. In the end, we are worthwhile writers simply because we are.

Do I always think this way? Sadly, no. There are minutes and hours and days and weeks when I feel about as valuable as a quarter in the toilet. So this post is just as much for me as it is for you. I plan to look back at it whenever I'm feeling low. Because even when I don't believe it, I know it's true.

How to Word Those Pesky Follow-up E-mails

Several people around forums like Absolute Write and QueryTracker have been asking recently how to word those pesky follow-up e-mails you sometimes have to send to agents, and since I’ve had plenty of experience with those, I thought I’d throw this post out there. Keep in mind that these are only my suggestions and that I certainly don’t think there’s only one right way to word these. My hope is that these templates will help other writers come up with something of their own.

To those of you who think that nudging is a bad idea, I admit that I used to think the same, but somewhere along the way, I changed my mind. As long as you use them sparingly, follow-up e-mails can actually demonstrate that you’re a smart, savvy writer who plans to make a career out of this.

But first, here’s a quick example of the note I would include with requested partials or fulls, since you always have to send one of those:

Dear [agent’s name],

Woohoo! [TITLE] attached! [Personalized agent tidbit, if you have one]

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best,
Krista

[signature block, including my phone number; my street, e-mail, and blog addresses; and my Twitter handle]

I used the agent’s first name if she’d used my first name when requesting the manuscript. Also, if the agent requested a partial instead of a full, I said, “First fifty pages [or whatever] of [TITLE] attached!” Lastly, notice that I included pretty much every piece of contact information imaginable in my signature block. You want to make it REALLY EASY for the agent to get in touch with you, especially if the news is good:)

Oh, and I’m sure you guessed that the “Woohoo!” isn’t required:) That was just my way of celebrating every request.

Follow-up on a requested partial or full (no offer)

Dear [agent’s name],

Just dropping in to check on the status of my manuscript, [TITLE], which I sent on [date]. I know you’re crazy busy, so if it’s still in your to-read pile, great. But if it did go astray, I’d be happy to resend it.

Thanks again for your time and consideration.

Best,
Krista

[signature block]

If the date you sent the manuscript varies greatly from the date the agent requested it, you might want to mention both. Other than that, the only commentary I have on this one is that you want to keep it simple and straightforward. Say what you have to say and leave it at that.

Follow-up on a requested partial or full (with offer)

Dear [agent’s name],

Just wanted to let you know that I received an offer of representation for [TITLE] and that I told the offering agent I'd get back to [him/her] by [date]. If you're still interested in the manuscript, feel free to get in touch!

Best,
Krista

[signature block]

I also sent this e-mail to all the agents who had outstanding queries. I simply omitted the word “still” in the last sentence, since they hadn’t expressed interest in the manuscript before.

Follow-up on a query (no offer)

Dear [agent’s name],

I sent a query on [date] for [TITLE] but haven’t yet heard back from you. Since you typically respond to all queries, I just wanted to check in and make sure you received it.

If you're still considering it, great. But if it did go astray, I've included another copy of the query below.

Thanks again for your time and consideration.

Best,
Krista

[signature block]

[another copy of the query]

For the most part, I don’t recommend following up on queries, but since I’ve broken that rule a few times myself, I thought I ought to own up to it:) As the note above implies, I only followed up when I was certain that the agent usually responded to every query. (In fact, some agents encourage you to query them again if you don’t hear back within a certain timeframe, and when I do, I always reference the earlier query, just in case they’re still considering it.) I also only followed up if I was reasonably certain that they’d never received it in the first place (although you can never know for sure).

Follow-up on a query (with offer)

See “Follow-up on a requested partial or full (with offer)” above.

Well, I think that about covers it. Do you have any other tips or tricks for managing your agent hunt?

How I Got My Agent: Part Two

All right, so I left off at the e-mail. (Here’s the first half of the story, in case you missed it yesterday.) As I mentioned before, the e-mail went something like this:

“I’m leaving for Bologna in a few hours, but I don’t want to do this long distance, and I don’t want to wait.”

The Call There was more, of course, but that was about as much as I got on the first read-through:) I ran into the living room and did a little boogie, with much screaming and fanfare, at which point my two-year-old panicked and dissolved into horrified tears. (I guess I’m not very good at emoting excitement over terror.) Then I e-mailed Kate back and let her know I could talk whenever. (Happily, I’d just fed the baby, but even if I hadn’t, I probably would have said the same thing.) She called me not long afterward, and I did my best to act casual again.

At the end of our conversation, Kate assured me that the offer wasn’t going anywhere and that I could take whatever time I needed to make my decision. (Loved that.) We agreed to talk again the Monday after she got back from Bologna.

The Other Offer After I hung up (and after I fed I-gots and Lady, lest you think I’m a delinquent parent), I e-mailed the other agents who had outstanding manuscripts or queries. I’d gone on a query binge the week before, so there were a few more of these than there would have been. A lot of them e-mailed me back within a couple of hours to wish me well and step aside. But the next morning, another agent, who was also on her way to Bologna, got in touch. She was very interested in the manuscript and wanted to talk when she got back.

Frankly, I was shocked. I’d spent the last few weeks telling myself that Steve wasn’t going to be the One, either, so I had a hard time processing the idea that not one but two amazing agents were interested enough to offer. It definitely fell under the category of Too Good to Be True.

But it wasn’t. I talked to Agent Amazing the following Friday, and we had a lovely chat. To be honest, I hadn’t expected to like Agent Amazing as much as I did. And for about twenty-four hours, I was a basket case. I reviewed my notes from both conversations. I went back over the e-mails Kate’s and Agent Amazing’s clients had sent. (I firmly believe that every writer should get in touch with one or two of an offering agent’s clients. You need to know how the agent operates behind the scenes so you go in with your eyes wide open (or so you don’t go in at all).) Then I talked the whole thing over with Honey Bear. And in the end, I went with my gut.

I signed with Kate.

Things I Love About My Agent

1. She’s familiar with my other projects and likes the kinds of stories I write.

2. She sees this manuscript sitting in the same place on the shelf that I do.

3. She caught the FRANKENSTEIN allusions and connected with Ella Mae as a reader as much as I did as a writer.

4. She wanted Steve enough to forgo packing another pair of shoes and pick up the phone instead:)

If you’d told me a year ago it would take another year for me to finally land an agent, I probably would have screamed and thrown the keyboard across the room. But if you’d told me that agent would be Kate Schafer Testerman, I would have put the keyboard down and slowly backed away. Some things are worth the wait.

How I Got My Agent: Part One

I’ve written this post a hundred times over the last few years, but unfortunately for you, I never wrote anything down any of those other ninety-nine times, so if my inner content editor calls it quits and I ramble a lot, you’ll have to forgive me. (Holy run-on sentence, Batman!) I’ll do my best to stick to the most important details, but I make no promises.

As many of you know, I started querying Steve in mid-November, and my first query went to Kate. She’d been at the top of my to-query list for a long time--literally, in the top spot--since she’d requested so many of my previous manuscripts and I’d enjoyed working with her on blog stuff.

The Partial Request A week later, she requested the first five chapters. I sent them off and promptly forgot about it. I knew she generally took around two months to respond, so I wasn’t holding my breath.

I sent more queries, got more requests. Inevitably, those requests turned into rejections. (Once you’ve queried as many manuscripts as I have, you kind of expect it.) But the rejections were different this time. The feedback was all over the place. Some agents loved the character but not the concept. Some loved the concept but not the character. But they all said something like, “Your writing is spectacular” (that’s actually a direct quote from one of Steve's rejections), and with the exception of one or two of them, they all wanted to see my next project.

The Full Request Fast-forward to the end of January. It had now been a little more than two months since Kate had requested a partial, and since I knew that’s usually her self-imposed deadline for responding to requested manuscripts, I decided to check in. I didn’t hear from her for a few days, but then I did. She said she was loving Steve so far--well, she didn’t call him Steve, but I’m sure she would have if she’d known his nickname--and asked to read the rest.

This was epic. This was enormous. Kate had requested two partials from me in the past (well, three, if you count Bob’s original and his revision as separate partials), but they’d never turned into fulls. I sent it off and tried to forget about it. This time, it didn’t work so well.

The Follow Fast-forward to mid-March. I logged on to Twitter late one morning and noticed I had a new follower. It was Daphne Unfeasible. I almost fell out of my chair. Then I noticed she’d tweeted me about the manuscript. She’d just picked up on the FRANKENSTEIN allusions and thought they were pretty cool. I tweeted her back and tried to act casual, but on the inside, I was freaking out.

I was a bundle of nerves for the rest of the week. I knew she was getting ready for the book fair in Bologna, but during another Twitter exchange, she mentioned she’d have something to me before she left on Friday. I assumed she meant a kind rejection or maybe a revise-and-resubmit. That’s what I told myself over and over: “Kate’s not going to offer. She’s just going to tell you your writing’s good. Kate’s not going to offer. She’s just going to tell you your writing’s good.”

The E-mail First thing Friday morning, I checked my e-mail. Nothing. I decided to leave my inbox open so I could glance at it every time I wandered past (read: stalked by) the computer. Still nothing. Then, a little before noon, I noticed I had a new e-mail. It was from Kate.

I sat down in front of the computer. I repeated my mantra a few more times: “Kate’s not going to offer. She’s just going to tell you your writing’s good.” Then I opened the e-mail. It went something like this:

“I’m leaving for Bologna in a few hours, but I don’t want to do this long distance, and I don’t want to wait.”

But I guess I’m going to make you wait, because this post is already way too long:) Look for part two tomorrow! (And if you haven’t already entered my celebratory contest, don’t forget to check that out!)