2.1 5 tips to better queries from an author who is also querying

Forward!

For me, aggressive pitching doesn’t come naturally. I don’t think it does for most authors, what with our sensitivity and skittish natures, we’re used to hiding in houses or backs of coffee shops. Ours is a nature of observation and isolation. Querying and self-promoting throws all that out the window and thrusts us into a hunting mindset.

Actual footage of an author closing on an agent

I think this is why we struggle so much in this fiercely competitive hunt as a result. Agents are our prey in this analogy and a cunning hunter needs to learn to his craft in order to bring one home for dinner… I mean publishing.

A hunter should have sharp teeth and claws (a good manuscript). If your claws have not been sharpened or you haven’t checked your fangs, (edited and prepared your work) you are going to struggle in this hunt.

Without further ado, I’m going to share the five golden rules I’ve learned over the last few months of querying.

1.       Know your prey

2.       Follow the rules

3.       Temper your eagerness

4.       Be an elegant and fancy hunter

5.       Learn

Step 1:

Observe your prey, the agents, in their natural habitat. Stalk them on the plains of social media (they encourage this.)

Agents often travel in herds

Find out their interests in regard to manuscripts and what they read or like. This will allow you to craft a letter that has a better personal note (Note: keep it about books. Mentioning that photo of them with their recently born child from six years ago is probably going to be too aggressive and your prey will escape)

#MSWL and #querytip will tell you a lot about your prey; their interests, likes and dislikes. Study them thoroughly before you launch at them.

A patient hunter is a successful hunter.

This information is essential to picking the right prey for your hunt. A wild agent who dines on non-fiction and true-crime exclusively cannot be brought down with epic fantasy. They are immune to these attacks.

During my early hunting I received a response from one prey that said ‘I clearly say on my website I don’t like urban fantasy’. I went back to my writer cave hungry that night. Maximize your hunting potential by knowing your prey.

Step 2:

Some agents are protected by barriers of formatting demands or obscene hoops you might need to jump through before you can reach them. A hunter needs to be aware of these barriers so she doesn’t run into them face-first.

Rudimentry barriers will block the unwise hunter

Agents set snares and hide in thorny bushes to avoid being taken down. A patient, wise hunter will learn how to slide between the bushes and avoid these snares with the right field-work.

A common snare is formatting; agents traveling in packs often have a request for document formatting (double-spacing or single-spacing. Maybe font, maybe a cover-page on your manuscript). This cannot be ignored. Many hunters fail because they believe they can ignore these barriers and inevitably they are strung up on their own petard time and time again.

There are some universal snares all prey use; personification, basic stats of your novel and pitches.

Hunt smart. Use what you have observed to select the choicest meat, overcome their obstacles and then you are a step closer to them.

During my first month of hunting, I did not include my word count on some of my offensives- this is almost always mandatory and without it, many agents simply escape as I have struck the snare and cannot chase after them.

Step 3:

A patient hunter is a successful hunter. An impatient hunter alerts their prey and it will often bound free; running before you can tackle it.

If you have the right prey and you have escaped the prey’s snares and barriers- you can lose it all by alerting the prey to your presence too soon. It can take weeks, months, to receive a response. Hunters are hungry, eager beasts. You must learn to weather the long winters or you will starve. A hunter who has successfully dragged his prey back to a cave must wait.

This is where a young hunter, hungry and eager, is often thwarted. A desire for instant gratification will only alert the prey to the impending manuscripting. They must remain safe and cozy the whole time. Ringing an agent, jumping out at them from behind the coffee cart, pestering them on social media to tell you when they’ve gotten to your work will send them running for the hills in droves.

This is the hardest part of modern hunting.

The over-eager hunter will run into trouble

For this hunter, I work in a position of authority and power- if people do not respond to me at work, I have the power to ring them up and pull rank; demanding cooperation. Hunting agents in the vast wilderness of the publishing industry is almost constant pain and demand to ring them up and click my fingers for results.

You must distract yourself from these desperate actions.

I sent a request in August (the worst month to send queries, I later discovered) that I heard back from three days ago. I had legitimately forgotten about sending this query. They wanted a full. If I had been over-eager, I might not have been able to deliver this manuscripting. Every request for a full is a step closer to an offer.

Step 4:

There is a gnawing frustration when an agent takes a manuscripting and walks away. This makes a hungry hunter angry, hurt, likely to lash out. 

A good hunter must bite back on these  animal instincts and instead remain polite, courteous and aloof. If the prey liked something, you might have a different, separate manuscripting you can catch them with later. 

Perhaps after revision you will be able to tackle them. Like an over-eager hunter, failure to respect the prey’s ability to walk away, or act in a manner of a young cub will remove these opotunities just as fast. Lions don’t throw temper tantrums because a gazelle escaped. They hunt for more gazelle. 

Be a gentrified lion.

Step 5:

Too many hungry nights? Too many manuscriptings not sticking?

Sometimes there is a reason. You might be failing to dodge a barrier consistently, hunting the wrong prey (misunderstanding your own genre or what they want).

Getting feedback on your work might be the next step. Agents rarely send anything beyond form rejection letters because of hunters who act in an ungentrified way. Temper tantrums have ruined too many prey’s day and now, scarred by these reactions, they avoid them by giving ‘generic rejections.’

If you have received feedback, read it. Use it.

Revise and resubmit is still a chance to manuscript an agent. Take it.

Pitch parties are a good chance for hunting frenzies. This allows you the chance to catch agents. If you aren’t getting bites, revise, sharpen claws, check your fur for burrs, groom your ears and try again. Hunt again when you are ready.