Starting round two ...

Yesterday was a long night of frustrating research. But ... it's part of the process. I don't want to just willy-nilly query every agent that has "Young Adult" listed in his/her genre list because sometimes the agent prefers SF/F or historical or whatever.

So, I work with the MSWL website and the Query Tracker website and the agent's agency website. I'll also sometimes check out the agent's Twitter feed. (This sounds stalkerish ... it's not! I promise!)

Last night was frustrating because I found four promising agents on MSWL, only to find later that two weren't open to unsolicited submissions, one wasn't even agenting anymore (I discovered that on her Twitter feed), and one wasn't listed as an agent on the agency's website (???).

Well, even though I was disappointed with the research session, I'm glad I did the research because it would have been embarrassing to query someone who isn't an agent!

On top of that, I got a rejection on my partial request yesterday afternoon. :(

But I've rewritten my query letter and I do have a short list of agents that I'll be querying this morning. I was talking to a co-worker about my ms and I was describing how my story is different from others in the genre (fan meets celebrity), and I realized, "DUH! I should point that out in my query letter!" So dumb.

I've also started my next ms ... I'm actually reworking the three-POV women's fiction I wrote a few years ago (got two full requests and a partial on that one, but no offer - obvs) into a YA. I'm super excited about it!

I'm not quite ready to let my current story go. I love Jamie and Kenzie. I love their relationship, I love Kenzie's awkwardness and goofiness, I love Jamie's valiant effort at celebrity life. I'm not entirely sure if a space exists in the sea of dystopian trilogies and romance series for my humble little contemporary story. The YA books I see touted on agent Twitter feeds are pretty amazing, but surely SOMEONE out there wants to read a lighthearted story about meeting a celebrity crush!

 

Ooh ... a YA contest

I absolutely love these GLA “Dear Lucky Agent” contests ... this one's about my genre and very timely! Woo-hoo! Very exciting!

Also exciting: The judge is Andrea Morrison of Writers House.

WRITERS. HOUSE.

So, I'll be throwing my hat in the ring, and sharing the URL for others as well:

http://tinyurl.com/z7e9rsc

Wish me luck! :)

No news isn't bad news, right?

Well, the query front has been super quiet.

I currently have 14 queries out. I just sent seven out this past weekend just because I wasn't hearing back from anyone. :) I'm sure many of my older queries are to agents who have a "no response = no" policy, which is frustrating. So frustrating, in fact, that when one of my newest queries resulted in a form rejection, I immediately thanked the agent for taking time to let me know.

I was dismayed when an agent recently announced on Twitter that she's switching to responding only when she's interested because of NEGATIVE REPLIES!

Really, fellow hopeful authors? Ugh. That is so annoying to me. Though, it feels like people in general are just getting more angry and negative. But that's for another day.

It just floors me, the arrogance of some writers looking to get published. Agents post about writers saying "Here's my manuscript. It does NOT need to be changed." or responding to rejections with snarky things like, "You'll be sorry" or "Don't need the money, huh?"

(I won't even get into the writer who recently blew up Twitter with his horribly nasty account of a pitch session.)

It reminds me of this quote that I LOVE:

I cannot tell you how many times the following has been me:

I can be in love with my words and then completely loath everything I've ever written in the same night! :)

But, I love it. I'm not giving up.

As I'm querying, a new idea has started bouncing around. I have an old WF manuscript that I'm thinking about reworking into a YA.

You know the drill: Dialogue that flies into the brain while washing dishes. An entire scene plays out during a shower. Random ideas ping in and out during the work day. Thank goodness for voice memos on my phone!

I'm both looking forward to a new ms and dreading it. It's a lot of work. It's countless hours and outlines and first drafts and stakes and editing and killing your darlings. But I am looking forward to meeting these new characters.

In the meantime ... I'll continue to humbly submit queries and chapters and synopses, and tentatively - but hopefully - peek at my inbox.

Updates ...

Queries sent: 8
Rejections: 3 (One within a couple of hours! I guess if you know what you don't like, why waste time, huh?)

So five still out, but two agents are "no response means no," and we're coming up on the 30-day mark for one of them.

I got a "favorite" or "like" - whichever Twitter term you prefer - on an agency's Twitter pitch session, so I sent my pages off to the amazing agent who favorited/liked my pitch. I almost fell over when I saw it! :)

Another super happy moment: A request for 50 pages yesterday! I recently researched this agent and felt good about her and the items on her wish lists, so I sent my query and heard back from her the next day. Incredibly EXCITING! And nerve-wracking. I sent the pages out this afternoon. I read her Twitter page and blog with much interest but didn't follow her on Twitter for some reason, and now I'm kicking myself because is it weird to follow her now, like I'm only following her because she requested pages? Sigh. And she mentioned in an article that Twitter was her favorite social media. (No, Twitter is not paying me money to mention it a hundred times in my post.) It's that fine line that I'm always tiptoeing around: What is considered a positive move and what is negative?

I did some more research and have two more agents on my "to query" list, but I'm going to wait out the pages that are out and see if I get any feedback first.

Or an offer!! :)

A record?

Wow ... it just got real! :)

I sent a query yesterday using an agency's new online form (which was pretty cool, btw). I got a confirmation email at 7:10 p.m. OK, good.

At 8:05 p.m., I got a rejection.

OK, not so good!

Yes, it was a bummer. A reminder of how the query process can zing you.

I spent about 3-1/2 seconds feeling super bummed out and then I got real and moved on. Because, of course there is going to be rejection. Which sucks.

But the cool thing: A real-life agent read my query.

I'm out there, baby! :)

Here ... we ... go ...

OK ... the query process has begun. After an AMAZINGLY THOUGHTFUL pep talk by my talented writer friend, I got over myself and dove in.

I've enjoyed the agent research process so far (plus, it leads me to new authors to read!). I have seven agents on my list so far. Last night, I enthusiastically added agent #8 but then found an article she wrote in which she mentioned things she's not looking for, i.e., don't bother to send these to her.

The first thing - didn't apply. OK, good ... Next thing - yep, still didn't apply, I'm golden. And then ... "books written in present tense." Oops! Didn't see that one coming! :) Happy I did the research. That would have been embarrassing, not to mention a waste of her time.

So ... I'll continue to research and send out queries. I'm also planning to indulge in some summertime reading (without the "if I have time to read, I have time to write" guilt), and get some notes in place about my next idea.

What is my next idea? Not sure yet ... snippets of something have been zinging around in my brain for the last few weeks. Plus, I have a complete women's fiction ms and partially complete women's fiction ms that I'd love to rework/finish someday. 

Wish me luck!

First query out!

My gosh, it took me forever to get just one query out! I'm not sure why the change ... with my last ms I was a querying fool (emphasis on fool, probably), but this time around, I'm so much more ... cautious? Is that the word I want to use?

In the past few days, many times I felt like "OMGsh, my ms sucks, no one's going to want to read it, it's not going to go anywhere, what was I thinking!?!" But I finally told myself, "You can't just give up and not even try." Today was the first time I truly felt that fear of failure thing. While I'm drafting my story and editing my story and revising my story, my hopes and dreams are still alive and well, living in the "someday" in the back of my mind. But once I offer it up and get REJECTED ... sigh. That's in-your-face type stuff right there.

What's worse? I didn't succeed because I never tried (I may have made it but I'll never know), or I tried but I didn't succeed (i.e., I FAILED)?

I'll just have to do my best and see what happens.

I do think that is a major difference between this story and my first one: I feel like I've done my best. I've read and re-read and edited and revised ... and the story fell into place for me. I forced things to work with my first story, so querying never felt quite right. I pretty much threw queries to anyone with a literary agency email address but had an underlying lack of confidence. I loved the characters, but I don't think I told their story properly.

I feel like I told my new characters' stories properly. I really like this ms. I'm proud of it. And I didn't rush into querying. I edited and polished until I had it as clean as I could get it.

Though, of course, as I was doing some formatting today, I came across an errant apostrophe s ... I mean, really? How did I continuously miss that!?

And then, as I was personalizing my basic query letter for my second query, I noticed a missing "to" ... ARGH!!!! Do you know how many times I read this query copy? And my brain, thinking it was being helpful and efficient, just inserted that "to" for me every time?

Sigh.

But at least I caught it after only one query and not after I sent out five or six.

I've researched and kept seven agents on my list so far. That is definitely adding more time this time around ... narrowing down the massive "represents YA" list to those who may be interested in reading my particular manuscript.

So, first query is out.

Submission guidelines for two agents on my list include a synopsis, so that's my next undertaking.

I'll do my best.