Querying or submitting to US agencies from outside the US

April 8, 2012January 19, 2017 - 2 Comments

At the risk of repeating myself, part II: the monster always returns…returns…returns…

After Friday’s omnibus rant on the frequently-related subjects of Frankenstein manuscripts — texts written over such a long period and/or revised so often that they read as though several different authors had written their constituent parts, then stitched them together with visible seams — and phrasing repetition in submissions, I realized that in my great eagerness to stop you fine people from repeating yourselves inadvertently, I had neglected to provide you with much evidence why. I made it clear that seeing the same phrasing turn up again and again on the page does in fact irritate our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, almost as much as it tends to annoy the agent for whom she works, the editor to whom that agent likes to sell manuscripts, and, ultimately, the reader that buys the published book.

Today, I’m going to begin to rectify that. I feel a revision series coming on.

My apologies for the earlier oversight, of course. As I may have mentioned once or twice before, it’s exceedingly easy for those of us who read manuscripts for a living to forget just how differently we read than everybody else. Obviously, that’s necessary in order to edit well It’s not as though an editor (or an agent, or an agency screener) can plop herself down and read a book like any other reader; it’s our job to be alive to every detail. I like to think of myself as the book’s advocate, trying to figure out all of the little ways to make it as beautiful and marketable as humanly possible.

And no, in response to what a good third of you just thought very loudly, beautiful writing is not always marketable, any more than marketable writing is always beautiful. (And while I’m bursting philosophical bubbles: I hate to break it to you, Keats fans, but truth is not always beauty, and beauty is not always truth. Kindly make a note of that.)

Ideally, a manuscript should be both elegantly written and market-appropriate — which means to the pros, contrary to popular opinion amongst frustrated aspiring writers, not that it should resemble the latest bestseller, but that its tone, subject matter, and use of literary conventions is appropriate for the book category for which it is aiming. It should also, if the editor can possibly manage to nudge it in this direction, be written in a voice and vocabulary appropriately challenging for its target readership.

Bringing out any of these laudable traits is not only a matter of critiquing what could be improved; quite a lot of what I do involves helping the author see what is already good and could be made better. Part of being a thoughtful freelance editor — as opposed to a careful copyeditor, the nit-picky soul who concentrates on making sure that the manuscript is clear and the sentences grammatically correct, the minimum standard for professional writing, or the acquiring editor, the eagle-eyed individual a publishing house employs to sift through all of the submissions agents offer and figure out what would appeal to the publishers’ already-established audience(s) — involves not only checking for possible red lights that might lead to rejection, but also figuring out what a manuscript’s strengths are, as well as why it will appeal to its target audience.

Again, those are not necessarily the same thing, right? Most aspiring writers need to be reminded, I’ve noticed, what is good about their work. Or even told what the selling points for their books are.

There’s a pretty good reason for this, actually. Throughout the writing process, it’s awfully easy to start to think of the effort you’ve put into a book as its most important characteristic. As anyone who has ever listened to more than ten consecutive pitches at a writers’ conference knows to his sorrow, rejected writers are only too prone to wail, “But I’ve spent the last two/five/twenty-five years writing this book!”

Realistically, publishing houses do not acquire books simply because someone went to the trouble to write them. Nor, contrary to pervasive speculation amongst aspiring writers, will readers pick up a book simply because somebody happened to write it.

Not ones who do not already know the author personally, at any rate. And while I hate to raise any doubt in your mind about your Aunt Marge’s support of your writing aspirations, but don’t count on her being willing to buy your book when it is published. Kith and kin have an understandable but nasty habit of expecting the author they love to provide them with free copies.

For the sake of your future professional happiness, you might want to dash that little dream of theirs long before you sign a publishing contract, if not before you sign an agent. These days, authors receive many fewer copies of their freshly-published tomes gratis than in days of yore — and publishers expect them to use those freebies for promotional purposes, not to hand them out willy-nilly to all of their coworkers at the day job the advance was not large enough to enable them to quit.

Oh, should I have warned you that I was about to take a pin to another bubble? I’m afraid it’s all too true, especially for first-time authors: while twenty years ago, advances were frequently large enough to permit a novelist, if not to walk away from non-writing employment altogether, at least to take a few months off work to make requested revisions, today, they generally are not. These days, they tend to hover somewhere between an honorarium and a nice tip.

Which is why it’s vital that you know up front: it’s not all that uncommon for publishers to expect their authors to pay for that copy Aunt Marge expects you to hand her, signed. Yes, you can usually buy them at a substantial discount, but do be aware that any copies you buy that way will not count toward the book’s sales totals.

That means, in practice, that all a new author gains from obtaining a copy for Aunt Marge is Aunt Marge’s grateful affection. Which you already have, right?

Tell her that she’s going to need to buy her own copy for you to inscribe lovingly. If she balks, tell her that I said it was the best way she could support your dreams of becoming a writer. Or at least one who might conceivably be able to make a living at it.

I have sensed raised hands out their in the ether throughout the entire course of that little digression, however. Yes? “But Anne,” many of you protest, lowering your aching arms, “I’d like to get back to that earlier point about editors not acquiring books simply because writers write them. What ever happened to that oft-spouted truism, good writing always finds a home?”

Oh, dear. Here comes another bubble. There’s a reason one so seldom hears this platitude falling from the lips of agents and editors at conferences anymore: it’s no longer true. Good writing most emphatically does not always find a home — not at an agency, and certainly not at a publishing house.

Actually, it never was, but until about five years ago, it was easier to pretend that the only reason a manuscript would not attract an agent was some flaw in the writing. Now, no one who handles books professionally would seriously argue that good books always get picked up. And that’s hard for aspiring writers to accept, because, let’s face it, we would all prefer to believe that agencies and publishing houses are charitable institutions, non-profit entities solely devoted to the perpetuation of fine literature.

Do I really need to stick a pin in that one?

So what does prompt publishers to acquire one well-written rather than another, you ask? Would I sound like a broken record if I suggested that it was because of the first’s strengths?

Which is why, to return to my earlier point (we all knew it would happen eventually), the length of time it took to write a book is precisely the wrong thing to mention in a query letter or pitch; it’s widely considered unprofessional. Millicent is apt to regard queries that include statements like I have spent seven years writing NOVEL, GREAT AMERICAN as not only a waste of page space, but as a studied appeal for her sympathy.

“Why on earth would I care how long this manuscript took to write?” Millicent murmurs into her omnipresent too-hot latté. “And why would I be more favorably impressed by a seven-year effort than one that took only six? What matters is on the page, not what Herculean efforts it took to get it there.”

Let me repeat that sentiment, as it’s awfully important: at the submission stage, manuscripts are evaluated based upon what actually appears on their pages, not the writer’s intentions, effort, or even what the book might look like after a conscientious editor’s had a few rounds with it.

While this may seem self-evident to my savvy readership, many aspiring writers seem to have a hard time accepting this, judging by how often justifications and explanations seem to find their way into queries, pitches, and even book proposals. From a professional point of view, this information just isn’t relevant.

But that’s not the only reason that including it could hurt you. Because it’s quite standard for both agents and editors to request revisions after taking on a book project — see my earlier observation about how involved professional readers can get with manuscripts they like — it’s prudent to assume that the pros in your future will expect you to be able to incorporate feedback in a timely and reasonable manner. The agent of your dreams’ reaction to a detailed account of the five years you invested in producing the manuscript is less likely to be, “Gee, this book must be worthwhile, for you to have worked on it so much,” but “Heavens — if a single draft took five years, how long will any revisions I want take?”?

Save the probably quite interesting story of how you churned out that 400-page novel in the scant ten-minute increments you managed to snatch between your day job and your night job for future interviews. Trust me, your reading public will eat it up.

In your queries and pitches, stick to the information that Millicent actually needs in order to decide whether to request pages. As submitting writers are all too prone to forget, publishing is a business, not an art form — agents and editors acquire books they believe are marketable, not just ones they believe are well-written. And as I have mentioned several hundred times before, they do not — contrary to the hope of most submitting writers — read the entire submission before making up their minds on either point.

Anyone care to tell the class at what point in the average submission Millicent stops reading? Think on it, and I shall give you the answer at the end of this post. (Hint: it doesn’t necessarily correlate to the number of pages the agency asked you to send. Not at all.)

Up go those hands again. “This is all very interesting, Anne, but it seems like a rather clumsy segue from Queryfest into craft issues — and haven’t we already made that bumpy trip? How does any of this depressing insight into the world of publishing relate to my revision process?”

An excellent question, inveterate hand-raisers. Here’s the short answer: quite a lot.

Oh, you wanted a long answer, too? Here goes: the norm of swift judgments means that it’s not reasonable to expect your work to be evaluated as a whole, at least not at first. If the opening of the manuscript or book proposal does not grab Millicent, it’s safe to assume that she will not read on. So if you have limited revision time at your disposal, it’s smart strategy to concentrate on the first 50 pages of your manuscript — the usual initial request from an agent — or, in a pinch, the first 5.

Did that last number make you do a double-take? If you are planning to head to a writers’ conference anytime soon, burnishing the opening pages until they shine is imperative: not only is the first five pages of the manuscript the standard writing sample, but it’s the most anyone is at all likely to ask to see within the context of a pitch meeting.

Do I sense an undercurrent of amusement out there? “Are you seriously taking the time to justify my doing any revision at all, Anne?” long-time readers of this blog ask, chuckling. “We all know what a stickler Millicent can — and indeed, should — be. Or are you once again leading us down the primrose path to some well-concealed eventual point?”

Well, the importance of revision bears repeating, chucklers, but you’re right: my little peroration was indeed warming you up for a pet peeve that I suspect not all of you will agree is problematic on the page. Or so professional readers like yours truly surmise from how pervasive the problem is in submissions — particularly in openings.

I’m speaking, of course, to the ubiquitous practice of using parallel sentence structure and phrasing repetition to create invocatory rhythms that don’t quite work.

Invocatory rhythms are one of the most popular tools aspiring writers use to beautify their narratives, a kind of sing-song rhythm that alerts the reader that Something Literary is Going on Here. One of the easiest ways to add this music to a text is through word and phrase repetition. Take a gander at a fairly representative sample:

Musette ran through the corridor, ran like the wind, ran as though lions were behind her and the open arms of a knight in shining armor in front. Didn’t she deserve her freedom, after all this time? Didn’t she deserve a life free of the incessant demands of boss, husband, co-worker, photocopy machine, cat? Didn’t she, in fact, deserve to breathe the fresh air of autonomy, unfettered by any limitations whatsoever, free as the day she had been born to freedom fighters in recently-liberated Freedonia twenty-four wild years ago?

See the problem? No? Okay, let’s take a peek at it through Millicent’s experience-sharpened peepers.

Musette ran through the corridor, ran like the wind, ran as though lions were behind her and the open arms of a knight in shining armor in front. Didn’t she deserve her freedom, after all this time? Didn’t she deserve a life free of the incessant demands of boss, husband, co-worker, photocopy machine, cat? Didn’t she, in fact, deserve to breathe the fresh air of autonomy, unfettered by any limitations whatsoever, free as the day she had been born to freedom fighters in recently-liberated Freedonia twenty-four wild years ago?

The problem is clearer now, right? Not only does this innocent-looking paragraph harbor a heck of a lot of word and phrase repetition — enough that our Millie may murmur under her breath, “Wow, doesn’t this writer know any other words?” — but that eye-confusing reiteration is encased in identical sentence structures. The result is a little something we professional readers like to call structural repetition, a percussive repetition of similarly-structured sentences (or sentence fragments) intended to make a rhythmic point.

This presents a voice and revision problem, in addition to being a notorious Millicents’ pet peeve. Why? Well, part of the issue here is editorial: merely broadening the vocabulary, the usual fix for word repetition, would not solve this problem. Take a gander:

Musette ran through the corridor, sped like the wind, fled as though lions were behind her and the open arms of a knight in shining armor in front. Didn’t she deserve her liberty, after all this time? Didn’t she merit a life free of the incessant demands of boss, husband, co-worker, photocopy machine, cat? Didn’t she, in fact, have an inherent right to breathe the fresh air of autonomy, unfettered by any limitations whatsoever, as unconstrained as she had been on the day she had been born to rebels in recently-removed-from-the-hegemony-of-a-repressive-r?gime Freedonia twenty-four wild years ago?

Most writers would believe that the redundant phrasing problem has been solved. To a professional reader, though, this passage would still read as structurally repetitious, despite the wording’s being more varied (and therefore more interesting) this time around. That reaction is apt to confuse self-editors, who would tend to see the nice, pulsing rhythm pushing the paragraph forward, rather than the probability that the too-similar sentence structures will cause the reader to zone out a bit as the paragraph winds its way to its eventual end.

Not to mention the virtual certainty that Millicent will murmur, “There’s nothing inherently wrong with this narrative trick, but why must this writer foist it on us so often over the course a single paragraph?”

You’ve got one heck of a point there, Millie. Like every other narrative device, structural repetition works best when it is used sparingly.

How sparingly, you ask with fear and trepidation? Two or three times, say, in the course of a manuscript, to draw the reader’s attention to particularly important passages. Even within the context of this short excerpt, we can see how much more effective the first use of structural repetition is if we remove the second.

Musette ran through the corridor, sped like the wind, fled as though lions were behind her and the open arms of a knight in shining armor in front. Didn’t she deserve her liberty, after all this time? She longed with the urgency of a sneeze for a life free of the incessant demands of boss, husband, co-worker, photocopy machine, cat. Clearly, she had an inherent right to breathe the fresh air of autonomy, unfettered by any limitations whatsoever. Her rebel parents would have been proud of her as a citizen of Freedonia.

Didn’t like it that way? Okay, let’s switch where the structural repetition falls. While we’re at it, take out the clich? about the wind; even one less hackneyed concept can make a difference in how Millicent responds to a clich?fest like this.

Musette sped through the corridor as though lions were behind her and the open arms of a knight in shining armor in front. Didn’t she deserve her liberty, after all this time? Didn’t she merit a life free of the incessant demands of boss, husband, co-worker, photocopy machine, cat? Didn’t she, in fact, have an inherent right to breathe the fresh air of autonomy, unfettered by any limitations whatsoever? The blood of her rebel parents sang in her blood.

Was that a sudden gust of non-clich?d wind that just made my cat topple over, or did a significant minority of you just sigh gustily?

“I see that there are repeated words in the original version, Anne,” some of you concede, “but frankly, I liked it best. Surely, the decision whether to incorporate structural repetition is an authorial stylistic choice, not a matter best left up to an editor. Unless you have just inadvertently proven your point about not every reader’s liking every well-written narrative voice, and you are demonstrating yourself to be the kind of knuckle-dragging troglodyte who eschews the joys of literary fiction in favor of novels that — ugh — feature a plot?”

Actually, I’ve been known to read and enjoy both, literary snobs. What’s more, I’ve read plenty of literary fiction with strong plots and genre fiction featuring beautiful language. So there.

But you are obliquely correct, sighers, to believe that the original version above was more likely to have dropped from the fingertips of a writer with specifically literary aspirations than one who was aiming for a more mainstream readership. Since invocatory rhythms are quite common in poetry, this style turns up very frequently in novel and memoir submissions, particularly in those that are either literary fiction or are other types of manuscript written with a literary tone. It just sounds pretty, right?

“If the writing’s lovely on an individual sentence level,” sighers everywhere argue, “how could that be problematic in a submission?”

In several ways, actually. Rather than telling you why, though, I shall show you.

Here is the single most famous example of invocatory prose in English literature, the opening to Charles Dickens’ A TALE OF TWO CITIES. Yes, I use this particular example fairly frequently, but humor me here: Dickens, bless his now-still heart, has provided us with a lulu of an example of why structural repetition is problematic in print. Just for kicks, pretend that you have never seen it before, and try to read like an agency screener.

To facilitate that laudable endeavor — and to give you the opportunity to judge for yourself whether all of this textual repetition provides a compelling entrée into the story that follows, here is not just the well-known opening, but the next page as well. As always, if you find you are having trouble making out the individual words, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + to enlarge the images.

Uncle Charles’ voice is certainly distinctive, isn’t it? Hard to conceive of a more memorable opening, rhythmically speaking. But if these were the first two pages of a submission today, virtually any Millicent would have rejected it by line three. Any guesses why?

If your hand instantly shot into the air, alerting me to your trenchant observation that it was because the first paragraph is one interminable run-on sentence — 119 words, connected incorrectly by commas, rather than semicolons, sacre bleu! — congratulations. You deserve a gold star for the day.

Ditto if you zeroed in upon the apparently random capitalization of nouns, the bordering-upon-criminal punctuation choices, the ubiquitous logical contradictions (yes, I know it’s meant to be ironic; think like a screener here and look for reasons to shout, “Next!”), the second paragraph written entirely in the passive voice, and the fact that two paragraphs into the piece, the reader still has absolutely no idea who the protagonist is or what’s going on. Oh, and by current U.S. publishing standards, two pages is a long time to expect a reader to be willing to wait for anything at all to happen.

Stop rolling your eyes, U.K. writers: that’s not a matter of national impatience, but a regionally different expectation of the value of a reader’s time. Over here, it’s considered disrespectful to assume that the reader will put his life on hold while the narrative to meanders for 10, 20, or 50 pages before establishing the book’s premise. Nor is echoing the wording of a classic considered particularly clever on this side of the Atlantic: since the publishing world has historically been pretty diverse in North America, the notion that any well-read person will be familiar with the same books just doesn’t make sense.

That, too, has serious implications for revision. It’s not at all difficult to picture a New York-based editor furiously scribbling in Uncle Charles’ margins. “Which was it — the best of times or the worst of times? It could hardly have been both; it’s the author’s job to show us, not the reader’s job to guess. Commit to one or the other!”

So perhaps that editor deserves the rest of today’s gold stars: although any one of the perfectly valid objections we have discussed might have prompted Millicent to cry, “Next!”, the structural repetition is what most pros would have noticed first. To see why, take this little test: stand up right now, take two steps backward from your computer monitor, and read those two pages again.

Yes, of course I mean it. I’m trying to train your eye to spot the monster’s return.

Notice the visual pattern? Millicent would have spotted it as soon as she pulled the first page of ol’ Charles’ manuscript out of the envelope. Actually, if you’ve been revising for a while, you might have caught that the structural repetition problem without backing off. A solid tip-off: the verb to be appears 14 times within the first sentence.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

This is a level of verb variation that would make Millicent long for the comparatively varied vocabulary choices of See Dick run, Jane. Run, Jane, run. Unfortunately for her patience, over-reliance on the verb to be has not disappeared into the murky annals of history; present-day writers engage in it all the time, although they do tend to be able to find the period and RETRUN keys a little more often than Uncle Charles managed. This pattern crops not only in manuscripts intended to delight and entertain early readers, either — Millie often sees adult fiction submissions that read like this:

Montrose was morose. His day was going badly; it had been a long one. His boss was on a rampage about who knew what. To top it off, his car was ticketed when he reached the street after work, traffic was bumper-to-bumper on the way home, and his cat was not speaking to him after his unusually lengthy absence from home.

Mighty word-repetitious, isn’t it? I blame Ernest Hemingway — yes, and Dickens, and all of those other well-regarded novelists of bygone days held up to writers in English Lit classes as examples of sterling prose. Readers today simply expect more phrasing variation. Perhaps because computer use has made all of us read a trifle faster: a backlit screen encourages the eye to skim, after all.

It’s not just the repeated words and phrases that would raise professional readers’ weary eyebrows in these excerpts, though — it’s the phenomenon of consecutive sentences being set up in the same way. No matter how great your high school English teacher told you Uncle Charles’ opening was, it’s dull for the reader to read the same It was X, it was Y sentence structure over and over again. Or, indeed, any sentence structure, if it is repeated often enough within too few lines of text.

Unfortunately, a lot of writers just adore structural repetition: it reads a bit like a prayer. It can provide a driving, almost galloping rhythm to a page. Many aspiring writers see that rhythm in the work of authors they admire and say, “By gum, I’m going to make my paragraphs read like that!”

And they do. Oh, my heavens, do they do it often. Sometimes, they make their paragraphs read this repetitiously several times per page.

Don’t mind that loud rapping. It’s merely Millicent pounding her head against a wall, moaning, “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

That’s what happens when perfectly legitimate voice choices run amok, my friends. Like any magic trick, repetitive structure loses its ability to charm when the reader sees it too often. After a surprisingly short while, it can start to come across less as an interesting stylistic choice than as a sort of narrative tic.

Don’t believe me? Okay, go back and reread the first two pages of A TALE OF TWO CITIES. How many iterations of It was… did Dickens put you through before you first thought Oh, come on, Chuck; get on with it?

“But Anne,” lovers of percussive repetition beg piteously, “I just love my structurally repetitious opening page/paragraph/chapter. If I’m careful not to use this trick again anywhere in the manuscript, I can keep it, can’t I? Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top?”

Oh, piteous beggars, you would not believe how often professional readers hear petitions like yours: I realize that I’m breaking a rule here, but my writing is so good. Couldn’t you make an exception in my case, and in my case alone?

Ah, but you’re not the only writer making this request. A Millicent working at any relatively well-established agency will see thousands of structurally repetitious openings in any given year. As with anything else she sees a dozen times a week, it’s probably going to be more difficult to impress her by this method, as opposed to something less widely in use. She’s also not particularly likely to believe that an opening redolent with repetition is a one-time narrative choice.

Why not? Experience, mostly: more often than not, when a manuscript opens with repetitive structure, it will continue with repetitive structure. And go on with repetitive structure. And, perhaps, if we’re especially lucky, finish up with repetitive structure.

Millicent simply doesn’t have time to read all the way through a manuscript to find out — which renders structural repetition dangerous to use in the first pages of a submission. Or book proposal. Agents and editors are just so used to this tendency that they’re all too likely — fairly or not — to conclude that to read on would be to be treated to the same type of sentence over and over, ad infinitum.

And that, my friends, is not invocatory; it’s soporific. Next time, I shall talk about ways to tell which is which in your writing, to figure out when invocatory rhythms will help your work.

But first, let me answer today’s quiz: Millicent seldom makes it all the way to the bottom of page one in a submission. That’s not a whole lot of lines in which to establish the originality and power of your voice.

Uncle Charles would have blown his chance to impress her far sooner than that. Learn from his example, please, and keep up the good work!

March 16, 2012January 19, 2017 - 6 Comments

Queryfest, part XXIX and I/II: tracking the wily US letter outside of its natural habitat

Last time, judging by the number of horrified private e-mails I have received since I last posted, I suspect I outdid myself on the reader-cautioning front. As so often happens, what induced widespread panic was not one of my habitual grand, wide-ranging philosophical statements, but commentary on a relatively small, practical matter it had never occurred to me to discuss in this forum — and, based upon the aforementioned e-mails, had not occurred to many of my international readers as a problem.

At the risk of sending still more of you charging into the streets, wild-eyed and screaming, allow me to recap: if you are planning upon querying or submitting to a US-based agency, your letter/synopsis/manuscript/everything else you even consider sending them should be printed on US letter-sized paper (8.5″ x 11″), not the internationally standard A4 (8.26″ x 11.69″).

(Oh, and at the risk of repeating myself on another point: it honestly is more efficient — and easier on me — if readers post their reactions and questions in the comments here on the blog, rather than sending them via e-mail. That way, I do not end up composing 42 separate soothing responses when only one would suffice. Also, if you post questions and concerns here, the chances are infinitely higher that some future reader with a similar perplexity will find the response. Karma points for all concerned!)

Those of you far-flung readers who did not immediately clutch your chests and hurl maledictions toward the muses are, I would guess, (a) not intending to approach US-based agents and publishing houses, in which case you should indeed stick with A4, (b) already aware that when in Rome, it’s only polite to do as the Romans do, in which case your tact is to be commended, or (c) smugly assuming that as you are cost-conscious enough to be approaching these agents and publishers electronically, this admonition simply does not apply to you. In that final case, I’m afraid I have some bad news.

You see, US printers and photocopiers are stocked with 8.5″ x 11″ paper — and it’s not at all beyond belief that an agent, literary contest, or small publisher whose submission guidelines specify electronic submissions will want at some point to print out your synopsis, query, entry, or manuscript. So even if you are submitting electronically from abroad, your submissions should be formatted for US letter-size paper.

Half of you did double-takes at the mention of the word contest, didn’t you? That’s right, campers: the overwhelming majority of the surprisingly hefty number of contest entries sent from abroad to writing contests here are misformatted. Either they are printed on the wrong size paper or, if the entry arrives electronically, they are formatted for A4. Any guesses why either might result in instant disqualification, even if the contest’s rules did not specify US letter?

Award yourself a gold star if you immediately leapt to your dainty feet, shouting, “I know, Anne! A4 allows more words per page than US letter, even with the same margins. So if the pages were full and the contest had length restrictions for entries, it would be quite easy to run quite a bit over the expected word count inadvertently.”

Quite right, gold star recipients. To borrow an example from the other side of the Atlantic, here is how the opening to the third chapter of Sir Walter Scott’s IVANHOE would appear in US letter — and, as is our wont here at Author! Author!, if you are having trouble reading individual words, try holding down the COMMAND key and hitting + repeatedly.

Here’s the first page of that chapter again, formatted for A4. Can you blame Mehitabel, everyone’s favorite veteran literary contest judge, for suspecting that ol’ Walt was trying to sneak in some extra verbiage?

In a paper submission, she’s likely recognize the problem here as a different paper size. In an electronic submission, though, she might just have a vague sense that something was wrong here. 11-point type instead of 12-point, for instance, or the whole shebang shrunk by 97%: both are fairly common dodges contest entrants (and aspiring writers frustrated by too-short synopsis requirements in general) utilize to try to side-step length restrictions. So even if she had not already knocked this opening out of finalist consideration for all of those which clauses (not considered particularly graceful writing, by current American standards) or the U.K. spellings (when in Rome, etc.), she might well have moved it to the disqualification pile for formatting reasons.

Did that blinding flash of light I saw illuminate the ether a moment ago indicate that the logic puzzle-lovers among you have just extrapolated correctly? “But Anne,” you cry, clutching your metric rulers, “does that mean that all of the time I have already invested in getting my query down to a single page — or whittling my synopsis down to a specified number of pages, or hacking at my contest entry until it is the length requested in the rules — has not in fact achieved my desired object? Are you (gulp) telling me (shiver) that because I wrote all of these assuming the A4 format, they are too long by US letter-sized paper standards?”

That’s precisely what I’m telling you, swift calculators. As we saw in a previous post, writers querying, submitting, and entering from abroad frequently violate US length expectations without either intending to cheat or realizing that they have. And no, neither Mehitabel nor her niece, our pal Millicent the agency screener, will necessarily cut you any slack for not being aware of the difference in the paper supply.

Well might you gasp like a trout yanked from the murky depths to sunlit air, e-mailing queriers. If you have been composing your queries in Word set to printing on A4, copying your letters, and pasting them into an e-mail, they probably are longer than a US-generated query would be. And yes, Millicent probably has noticed.

Tempted to think that you might get away with it, are you? Let me ask you: if you had spent the past few months reading thousands of 1-page queries, do you honestly think that your brain wouldn’t automatically start counting lines if the one in front of you seemed a touch on the long side?

While it can be annoying to trim an extra line or two from a query that’s already bumping up against the one-page limit, and downright maddening to try to round a contest entry off so the last page does not end in mid-sentence (although in a contest for book-length works, just as in an agent’s request for a specific number of pages, no one expects the bottom of the last page to end a sentence, section, or thought), I reserve most of my compassion for the hapless submitter-from-abroad wrestling with a synopsis. Pretty much no matter who a writer is or how long the synopsis in question is supposed to be, every line is precious. And since the convention for synopses is to fill all of the allowed pages to the last line or the one before it — you knew that, right? — those few extra lines afforded by A4 paper can make quite a bit of difference.

Yes, of course I’ll show you. To borrow another story from across the pond, force it into a YA format (hey, it’s been a boring day), and present it in US letter:

Uses up every available line, does it not? Here’s precisely the same synopsis formatted for A4.

Makes more of a cumulative length difference than you would have thought, doesn’t it? This second version could take another entire paragraph — and don’t tell me that in summarizing a plot as complex as HAMLET, our friend Will would not have appreciated a little extra descriptive space. Not on this continent, buddy!

Now that I have impressed upon you the importance of using the paper size (and accompanying formatting) if you will be sending queries, synopses, manuscripts, and/or contest entries to the US from abroad, I still have that uneasy sense that those of you affected by this news might be gathering your pitchforks and torches to storm the castle, anyway. “But Anne,” you shout, brandishing the aforementioned weapons of mad scientist intimidation, “it’s not as though US letter is common outside the US. Where would you suggest I pick some up?”

Ooh, good question, pitchfork-brandishers — and a much better question than it would have been just a few years ago. For quite some time, the answer was fairly easy: US-based Kinko’s stocked US letter paper in its outlets all over the world. Once FedEx and Kinko’s merged, however, that seemed to become quite a bit less common. So while I could, as most writing advisors still do, just glibly tell those of you living abroad to track down a US-owned company, walk in, and demand to buy a ream or two of their paper, that’s less feasible than in days of yore.

So what’s a writer to do? The advice would be to order US letter paper from an American-owned company that has branches in your neck of the woods — while Amazon UK doesn’t seem to stock it, Amazon US does, and they do ship abroad. Shipping costs will be expensive enough, though, that you might want to try stopping by your local stationary store first, smiling as sweetly as you can, and asking them to order a box for you, just for comparative pricing purposes. (Your stationer may know US letter by its alternate name, American quarto.)

Yes, that’s rather inconvenient, but certainly less so than the primary answer I found when I did a quick online search — which was, I kid you not, “Go ask at the American embassy.”

While I’m on the subject of tracking down hard-to-find office supplies necessary to the writing set, this seems like an excellent time to repost a question that nonfiction writer Liz brought up the last time I wrote about the rigors and strains of pulling together a nonfiction proposal. After having eyed the photo I posted, she inquired:

What is the make of this portfolio? I cannot find one like this that is not made of paper/card and 30 pages max capacity. Please help!!

I can’t even begin to estimate how many times a year I hear this particular cri de coeur, both via e-mail (boo!) and popping up in the comments (hooray!). Since the comments are, for some reason that escapes me, not searchable with that handy little search engine that continually lurks for your exploratory pleasure at the upper right-hand corner of this blog, though, some of you may have missed my answers. Let’s go ahead and address this in a searchable part of the blog, hey?

For those of you who are not already gnashing your teeth over this particular problem, in the United States, book proposals are presented in plain black folders — yes, even at the submission stage. Don’t even consider trying to use anything fancy or colorful; it will just look unprofessional to the pros. What Millicent and her boss, the agent of her dreams, will expect to find in a nonfiction submission is something like this:

book proposal folder1

I know: boring. That’s the way they like it.

The folders in question, by the way, are the ones with horizontal pockets inside, not the ones with brads in the middle. The latter are for high school book reports, the former for book proposals, and ne’er the twain shall meet. So if the folder in your hand does not look like this when you open it:

book proposal photo 2

scuttle on back to the office supply story and pick up one that does. And whatever you do, do not bind your proposal in any way. Let those pages flap around loose, just as they do in a manuscript. Well, not quite the same: the marketing part of the proposal is placed (neatly, please) on the left-hand pocket, while the sample chapter, author bio, and clippings are typically placed on the right-hand side.

Which leads us right back to Liz’s problem, right? A book proposal usually runs in the neighborhood of 30-60 pages, including sample chapter, so she, clever writer, wants a folder that holds at least 20 pages per side. Generally speaking, plastic folders tend to hold more in their pockets than the flimsy cardstock type. (Liz’s proposal won’t be discarded if she sends it a nice cardstock folder; it’s merely more likely to get a bit mangled in transit.)

Once again, the Internet is the writer’s friend here. The Office Depot website carries an Oxford brand pocket folder that can hold up to 200 pages. It’s looks like it may be available only online, though. Scrolling through the site, I found one that they seem to sell in their stores, an Office Depot brand 2-pocket poly folder that holds up to 50 pages..

They also, should anyone happen to be in the market for it, sell a really nice 24-lb. US letter paper. While 20-lb. paper is fine for a submission, I prefer 24-lb.: it won’t wilt in the hand with repeated readings.

Oh, you don’t want Millicent to get so excited about your writing that she passes pages of it around the office?

Again, though, you might want to toddle down to your local stationary emporium and inquire. You might be surprised at what’s lurking in their back room.

My overall point, should it have gotten a trifle lost in the welter of details, is that when it comes to querying, submission, and literary contest entry, what might be easiest — or most obvious — for the writer often is not what the people on the receiving end are expecting. Yes, that’s can be kind of annoying, but remember, one of the things an aspiring writer is demonstrating at query or submission time is that she can present her work professionally. That means, among other things, printing manuscripts on the size of paper currently in use in that agency and presenting proposals in the kind of quiet, dignified folder that allows the writing to speak for itself.

Because that’s how the Romans roll, people. Keep up the good work!

March 15, 2012January 19, 2017 - 2 Comments

Queryfest, part XXIX: I’ve just arrived via air mail, and boy, are my arms tired

As some of you may recall, I put out a call last autumn — seems so long ago, doesn’t it? — to Author! Author! readers, asking for fearless volunteers willing to subject their query drafts to our collective scrutiny toward the end of Queryfest. Yes, I had been including many, many — some might say too many — concrete examples of what does and does not work in a query, generally speaking. Since the vast majority of queriers new to the process tend to make the same fifteen or twenty missteps, that made sense. Still, I wondered: were there other up-and-coming query problems floating around out there that I had not yet addressed?

We’re now within a couple of posts of wrapping up this series, and I must say, I think the results have bordered upon magnificent. Largely, that’s thanks to the bravery and generosity of readers having volunteered their queries for discussion, offering a truth to which our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, can easily attest: querying is not only a learned skill, but often a counter-intuitive one.

Perhaps the most counter-intuitive element of all: no matter how strong a query’s book description is, if it’s not presented in the manner Millicent has been trained to expect, it’s likely to trigger rejection.

Even now, I sense a few jaws hitting the floor out there, do I not? We would all like to believe that a great book’s chances could not be stymied by a less-than-great query — which would mean, by extension, that contrary to the publishing truism, good writing does not always find a home — but as this series has repeatedly demonstrated, it’s actually not all that hard to turn off Millicent.

And not just via the classic red flags, either. The recent run of readers’ queries only confirmed what we had already discussed in theory: time and again, we have seen how quite interesting-sounding books can be undersold by queries that could use some punching up.

So punch them up we have. On the assumption that it is a far, far better thing for me to call out a query for a problem here, in this writer-friendly forum, than for even a single precious one of you to risk tumbling into the same trap at the agency of your dreams, I’ve been running readers’ queries through the wringer, going after them with a fine-toothed comb, blue-penciling them, and engaging in every other stock euphemism for taking ‘em apart so we could rebuild them better, faster, stronger.

That’s why I was especially delighted to see a query from reader P. Gaseaux (not his real name, of course) drop into the entry box. Not merely because his story sounds, somewhat unusually for thriller descriptions in queries, actually thrilling, but also because it is a query addressed to a US-based agent. In this case, my fictional Hawkeye McAgentson, Millicent’s hard-nosed employer.

Why did spotting a query from foreign climes excite me so? Well, we American writing advice-givers don’t talk all that much, as a group, about the special problems confronting the writer querying from abroad. The difficulty in obtaining US postage for the SASE, for instance: while foreign post offices and copy centers do occasionally stock US postage for this purpose, they often sell them at a substantial mark-up. Rather than limiting themselves only to e-mailed queries, however, frugal far-flung writers can purchase US stamps at their face value directly from the US Postal Service.

Then, too, there’s the terminology difficulty: while US English, Canadian English, and UK English are mutually comprehensible, they do not have identical vocabulary or grammar. That can lead to problems at international submission time; what would be perfectly acceptable in London might well strike an American Millicent as improper, and rightly so.

Before anyone starts fuming, let me hasten to add: it’s an agency’s job to flag problems in clients’ manuscripts before even considering submitting them to editors at publishing houses. American books are typically written in American English. So would it really be in a London-based writer’s best interest if Millicent or her boss did not alert him to what would not read right to New York eyes?

Speaking of what would not look right to New Yorkers, I hope that my international readers (at least those planning to submit to US agencies) are aware that the standard paper size is different here than everywhere else in the world: 8.5″ x 11″ paper is called US letter for a reason. Why should a querier from afar care? Well, although A4 (8.26 x 11.69 inches) and US letter (8.5 x 11 inches) may not seem all that off at first glance, naturally, estimating word count would be quite a different proposition on each. Equally naturally, but often surprising to writers submitting from abroad, no US-based agency could possibly submit a manuscript printed on A4 to a US publisher.

That means, in practice, that if Millicent’s agency accepted submissions, or even query packets, on A4, they would be signing on for the difficulties of reconfiguring the text for US letter. While that’s actually not that big a deal in MS Word — all one really has to do is highlight the entire document, pull down the FILE menu, select PAGE SETUP…, and change the PAPER SIZE from US letter to A4 — it will, alas, take both time and explanation to pull off. And we all know what Millicent has been trained to say to potential clients who might be the teensiest bit more time-consuming to represent than others, right?

That’s right, campers: “Next!”

Don’t let that depress you into a stupor, far-off writers. Plenty of good foreign writers are represented by US agencies; there are a heck of a lot of readers here, after all. Also, in some genres, such as SF and fantasy, there are so many more agent options here than elsewhere that if you write in English, domestic or otherwise, sheer probability dictates that taking a swing at the American market might be very prudent move. For a lot of reasons, then, it can be very worth your while to query from abroad.

But in order to do so successfully, it’s vital to be aware precisely how and why standards here are different. Let’s take a look at what our valiant far-flung friend P. Gaseaux is planning to send to a New York-based Millicent, to see if we can help him punch it up a little.

The book description is intriguing, but I’m afraid that’s not what would catch Millicent’s eye first here. Sadly, many of these would not be apparent to eyes not born and bred in the good old U.S.A.

So let’s all pull together, those of us who were weaned on 8.5″ x 11. Any guesses about what eight — yes, you read that correctly — non-content-related factors would distract Millie here? Hint: not all of the formatting issues are related to paper size.

Oh, that wasn’t a broad enough hint for you? Okay, here are a few more.

1. Since many, many writers new to querying have never had the opportunity to see a professionally-written query — an oversight that Queryfest has been working, if not overtime, at least at great length to rectify — a hefty percentage of queriers would not have any idea that the first eye-catcher here is a red flag. In fact, we’ve seen it in earlier Queryfest examples.

2. We’ve also seen the second: like the first, it would be hard to catch at the composition phase, but quite obvious in a printed version. And, like the first, while it might not prevent Millicent from reading on to the body of the letter, it would raise enough doubts about the sender’s Word-wrangling acumen to cause her to assume, rightly or not, that P’s manuscript would not be in standard format.

Yes, really. Had I mentioned that it’s Millie’s job to draw conclusions about manuscripts based solely upon the contents of the query packet?

3. We’ve also talked about this one before. Because it is different in one significant respect than everything else on the page, it’s probably the first thing your eye hit. Considering that it’s not information likely to interest Millicent until after she has read the query in its entirety, that’s a misplaced emphasis.

4. This space-saver would be an instant-rejection offense in a manuscript or book proposal, but a surprisingly high percentage of aspiring writers do not think of it as even a misdemeanor in a query. To Millicent, though, it just looks like cheating. Still worse, it probably caused Problem #2.

5. A deviation from standard format for manuscripts — and a classic Millicent-irritator.

6. Another space-saving tactic, this time at the bottom of the page. Again, most queriers would consider this acceptable, but to anyone who reads queries for a living, it merely looks like an attempt to get more words on the page. The sad thing is, if Problem #1 were not in evidence, #5 probably would not be, either.

7. A savvy stateside aspiring writer would probably have to draw this one as a conclusion from the problems above. It would be apparent to Millicent, however, as soon as she lifted the letter from its envelope and held it in her hand.

Have those clues whipped your brainstorm up to hurricane levels? I certainly hope so. To help that squall along, here’s P’s query again, with those eye-distracters corrected. For those of you who would like another hint, #7 will become substantially more apparent if you compare these two examples.

Let’s go through the changes one at a time, shall we? In the original:

1. The writer’s contact information begins on the first line of text, not in the header.

We’ve seen this one before, have we not? If the contact information is going to appear at the top of the page, mimicking pre-printed letterhead, it should be printed exactly where it would be on letterhead: in the header. Not only does placing it in the body of the page limit how much room P. has to describe his book, writing credentials, and so forth — its placement also implies that he’s unfamiliar with how the header function works.

And why might that prove problematic at query time, campers? Because Millicent must base her best guess about the professionalism of the manuscript upon what she has before her, no more, no less. For that reason, she would be within her rights to presume that P’s manuscript would place the slug line — the author’s last name/title/page # designation at the top of each and every manuscript page — on the top line of text, too, rather than the header.

Remember what I was saying above about how agencies feel about time-consuming clients? Consider it reiterated here.

2. The contact information was not centered on the page.

Rather than using Word’s centering function, P. has elected to hand-space his contact information. For some reason best known to himself, he has taken it only about a third of the way across the page, rather than half. It doesn’t look bad there, aesthetically speaking, but to Millicent, it will not look right.

This one may seem minor, but again, each individual presentation element adds up to an overall impression of professional seriousness. And think about it: would you rather have Millicent devote her often quite limited time — as in 30 seconds or so per query — with your missive to speculating about why the spacing is so funny, or to pondering what you have to say?

I thought as much. Let’s move on.

3. The writer’s e-mail address was printed in blue, not black, and was underlined.

Again, we’ve seen this one before in reader-submitted queries, and with good reason: Millicent sees it all the time. Recent versions of Word will, left to its own devices, automatically switch any e-mail address or URL into a link, underlining it and changing the color.

Change it back. Just as passively going along with what Word dictates will not yield standard format in manuscripts, its color and underlining preferences are not proper in a query, either. Chant it with me now, long-time readers: every word in a document sent to the publishing industry should be printed in black ink on white paper. No exceptions. And just as nothing should be underlined in a manuscript, nothing should be underlined in a query, either.

You wouldn’t want Millicent to leap to the conclusion that you don’t know how to format a manuscript, do you?

4. The left and right margins were not 1 inch in depth.

There’s a reason for this (and we shall discuss it below, never fear), but trust me, any experienced professional reader would notice that the right and left margins are not even. At the risk of making her seem eager to assume the worst — which is, after all, her job — Millicent is likely to place a negative construction on this.

Why? Well, since so many aspiring writers chafe against the one-page length restriction, she’s used to queries that tinker with the margins and typeface in order to cram more words onto the page. I don’t think that was P’s intention here, actually, but since neither he nor I are going to be there when Millie reads this letter, let’s not give her the excuse to malign his motives.

5. The dash in the last sentence of the second paragraph was single, rather than doubled.

To Millicent’s swift eye, as well as any well-trained professional reader’s, the dash should be doubled in this sentence: A showdown is imminent – crisscrossing Asia and careering out of control towards a bloody climax in the frozen valleys of West Virginia.

Oh, you didn’t catch that the first time around? Most queriers wouldn’t, for the exceedingly simple reason that most aspiring writers don’t know that in a book manuscript, dashes are always doubled, with a space at either end, rather than single. (Not to be confused with a hyphen, which separates compound words. That should be single, with no spaces between the punctuation and the word on either side. If the distinction remains unclear to anyone, drop a note in the comments, and I’ll show you some examples.)

6. The bottom margin was much under the requisite 1 inch.

Again, this is going to strike most Millicents as an attempt to force her to read more words than the 1-page limit allows. While that is indeed the case here, this tactic is completely unnecessary: as we may see in the revised version, simply moving the contact information to the header will free up more than enough space on the page to permit a standard-sized bottom margin.

7. The query was printed on A4 paper.

We discussed this one above, right? Simply switching the paper size will obviate this objection.

Judging by the hoots of derision out there in the ether, I sense that some of you reading this abroad don’t believe that this would be a particularly simple switch. “Darned right, Anne,” those of you who have never actually clapped eyes upon a piece of US letter-sized paper grumble, and who could blame you? “It’s not as though I can just march down to my local stationer’s and find stacks of your kind of paper waiting for me. And in those rare instances when I have found it, it’s been awfully expensive. Since Millicent must be aware of that, why should I go to the trouble and expense of tracking down odd-sized paper before I have any sort of a commitment from you bizarre paper-lovers on the other side of the Atlantic/Pacific?”

That’s a fair question, A4-lovers. Let me ask you an equally fair one in return: if a US-based writer were soliciting representation in your country, would an agent there expect her to submit a manuscript on your country’s favored paper size?

Of course he would, and for precisely the same reason that Millicent would expect submissions and queries on US letter here: it’s standard. It’s also, not to put too fine a point upon it, the size that would be in photocopiers — you didn’t think that your future agent was going to send out the only copy of your book she had, did you? An A4 original copied onto US letter would be missing quite a few words per page.

Don’t believe that would make an appreciable difference over the course of a manuscript? Okay, here is the first page of John Steinbeck’s CANNERY ROW (a great read, by the way) in standard format on US letter. As always, if you are having trouble reading individual words, try holding down the COMMAND key and pressing + repeatedly to enlarge the image.

And here it is again, formatted for A4. Notice, please, how much more of the text appears on the page. My apologies for the poor image quality; my Yankee Doodle-humming computer, obviously took exception to the odd format.

And don’t think this issue doesn’t concern you if you submit only via e-mail, either. It’s not all that unusual for agents to print out electronic submissions that have already successfully run the Millicent gauntlet. How do you think a manuscript formatted for A4 paper is going to look printed on US letter?

Oh, you thought I was going to leave that one to your fertile imaginations? No such luck.

Looks like Uncle John is trying to sneak in some extra text, doesn’t it? Entirely inadvertent — just as it was when our friend P. used this format for his query. Their intentions were pure, but just try telling that to Millicent.

To be fair to her, in all probability, she’s the one who is going to have to figure out how to fix what she’s going to perceive as a printing problem. Given that she doesn’t have a whole lot of extra time in a day, how do you think she is going to feel about having to tinker with your squirrelly manuscript, P?

Remember, one of the best ways to convince an agency denizen that you’ll be a great client to handle is to require as little gratuitous time investment as possible at the querying and submission stages. Recognizing that in Rome, it might behoove one to do as the Romans do is thus pretty darn good strategy.

Now that we’ve fine-tuned P’s query so it just screams, “I may hail from Australia, but I’m hip to U.S. submission standards,” how else might we improve its chances with Millicent. Let’s take another peek at it, to refresh your memory.

Let’s start with that undoubtedly truthful, but nevertheless not particularly eye-catching opening paragraph. As we saw last time, an opening paragraph can contain every requisite element, but if it is written in a flat manner, it’s probably not going to make the best possible case for the book. That’s especially true in this case, where all of that useful information is crammed, wily-nilly, into a single sentence — and missing two necessary commas to boot. That’s like a neon sign hanging over the query, blaring I’m just trying to get through this as quickly as humanly possible.

Of course you are, P — no sane person actually likes writing queries. But trust me, reading thousands of them back-to-back is often no thrill fest, either. So why go out of your way to make that opening generic?

Yes, yes, I know: since P’s taken the trouble to seek out a similar book by one of Hawkeye’s clients, this opening actually isn’t generic. However, the purely market-based compliment — highly successful is nice, but it’s hardly high literary praise, is it? — doesn’t convey anything about why P. believes Hawkeye might be a good fit for his book.

Beyond, of course, the fact that she might be able to sell it. But since that’s an agent’s job, again, that hardly implies an admiration of her literary tastes.

The other element that makes this opening come across as a bit generic is the inclusion of the word count — and such a very round one, too. As we have discussed at length earlier in this series, the pervasive Internet rumor that every agent wants to see word count included in a query is flatly untrue; if they want it, they will ask for it in their submission guidelines. And if they do, it’s almost certainly because they like to use too-high and too-short estimates as reasons to reject queries on sight.

See why I don’t advise including it if it’s not requested? In this country, the accused have the right to eschew self-incrimination.

Hawkeye’s agency’s submission guidelines are both basic and standard (in their totality: query with SASE, far and away the most common in agency guides), so P. could easily omit this information. In fact, my sources at Picky & Pickier — oh, my spies are everywhere — tell me that would be an excellent idea for another reason: a query that claims its word count in such round terms, and precisely in the middle of the normal range, is slightly suspect. Any guesses why?

No takers? “Well, of course not, Anne,” those of you quick at doing math in your heads huff. “So P’s manuscript is precisely 360 pages — 250 words/page in Times New Roman x 360 pages = 90,000. What’s eyebrow-raising about that?”

Nothing, necessarily — provided that’s actually how P. arrived at that number. Even estimated, word counts seldom hit those big, round numbers precisely. Which might perhaps lead a jaded Millicent at the end of a long day of query-screening to wonder, fairly or not, whether the number here is accurate. Or — brace yourself; this is going to be a nasty one — if, like a surprisingly hefty percentage of first-time queriers, P. has taken the liberty of querying before he has finished writing the manuscript. 90,000 might then be his goal, not what’s already on paper.

I know, I know: I don’t think that’s what P’s doing here, either. But is including the unrequested information that the manuscript falls within standard length range for this genre really worth risking this kind of speculation? Especially when that opening paragraph could be used to make a better case for this book?

How, you ask? How about by complimenting the parallel book in terms that might also be used to review P’s novel? Or by mentioning why both books will appeal to the same audience?

Before I attempt either (or perhaps even both!) of those strategies, may I add yet another to that long list of rhetorical questions: why include the information that this is a debut novel? To Millicent, that would be self-evident from how this query is written — P. doesn’t list any previous publication history, nor does he mention previous representation. The implication, then, is that this book is a first novel.

That’s not a selling point — it’s a description. And since virtually every other query Millicent will have read this week will be for a first book, it’s a description that could be applied equally well to all of them.

Instead, why not use that valuable page space to highlight what’s legitimately unique about P’s story? How about emphasizing that genuinely remarkable authorial background?

Come on, admit it: even those of you who adore writing for writing’s sake find this query more compelling now, don’t you? It certainly reads as more professional. Instead of treating that opening paragraph as a necessary bit of business, dull but unavoidable, P. now comes across as a serious writer well-versed in the conventions of his genre. Even better, he has the real-world experience to inform his protagonist’s worldview.

But wait — who is the protagonist here? The very lengthy book description paragraph leaves Millicent to guess. Yes, the original query did mention after the description who the two protagonists are — phrased as such, a tactic those of us who read for a living tend to find a bit clumsy — but as the fact that the book is the first of a pair actually isn’t relevant here, it would show off P’s storytelling abilities better simply to present the plot in the book description as the story of those two characters.

I sensed some of you doing a double-take in the middle of that last paragraph. As we have discussed at length earlier in this series, while many aspiring writers believe that using English class terms to describe their work — protagonist, antagonist, climax, etc. — will make their work sound professional, but actually, these terms are academic and review-based. The publishing industry will just want you to tell the story.

Actually, Millicent will want P. to do more in the descriptive paragraph: she will want him to show what’s thrilling about this story via the inclusion of vivid details she has not seen before. Given P’s background, that shouldn’t be a tall order at all.

I wish I could show P. how to pull that off, but the description simply has not given me enough information to revise this. At minimum, the broad generalities leave quite a few questions unanswered. Draws what response from the strike team, for instance? Why does Washington send a bumbling agent, instead of a competent one? What is the agent’s name? What is the other guy’s name, and are the two mentioned in the second part of that sentence the other guy plus our hero? Where in the Far East do they travel, and what is the name of the woman they encounter? For what country is she prepared to give her life? Is the honest cop mentioned late in the description the same person as the bumbling agent — who, if he works for the FBI, isn’t technically a cop? Or is he a policeman that was recruited by the FBI? Does the showdown careen across Asia, or do the characters?

Yes, that’s a lot to want to know from a query, but honestly, including a few telling statistics, perhaps in the space cleared by omitting character analysis like The honest cop will never back down until he has solved the case. and The victim’s father…is disillusioned and approaching the twilight of his life , would go a long way toward making this legitimately exciting story seem unique. Which, come to think of it, is another argument for showing, not telling, the character development points: generally speaking, using stock phrases is not the best means of impressing Millicent with one’s one-of-a-kind writing style.

Not having read the book, though, I can’t answer any of these questions; I leave that to P’s no doubt talented revision pen. However, just breaking up that huge descriptive paragraph will help make the story come across as even more exciting. Take a gander:

Stronger now, isn’t it? Still, as a reader, I long to see more of the story. Fortunately, editing out the summary statements about character development has freed up quite a bit of page space for adding vivid details. Have at it, P!

Did you notice, though, that in my haste to rework this query, I messed up some of the spacing? Symmetry, my dears, symmetry: since there’s a skipped line between the salutation and the body of the letter, there should be a skipped line between the final paragraph and sincerely.

Before I correct that, though, were those of you reading this under the flag of Francis Scott Key — a forebear of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, by the way; that’s what the F. stands for — struck by anything in that otherwise quite charmingly polite final paragraph? Like, say, that some of the probably perfectly-reasonable-in-Australia statements it contains don’t really make sense stateside?

Something’s getting lost in translation here, clearly. Let’s all chip in to bridge the trans-Pacific divide. To aid in that effort, take a gander at that paragraph up close and personal:

I wish to thank you for reviewing this proposal and do hope the enclosed synopsis is suitable for your perusal. Please find enclosed a US Postal SASE and my employment credential if required.

First, let’s start with the terminology. In U.S. publishing circles, a query is not a proposal — in fact, a proposal is something quite different. It’s the collection of marketing materials, competitive market analysis, and sample chapter(s) that nonfiction writers put together to sell their books to publishers.

Also, by definition, a SASE in this country carries U.S. postage. And what, may I ask, is an employment credential, and why would it be beneficial to provide at the submission stage?

Which I suppose is another way of saying: no, it’s not required, P. — and please don’t send it. Believe me, Millicent won’t know what to do with it, and frankly, it’s radically premature. When your agent sells your manuscript and needs to process payments for you, she will tell you what information she needs.

There’s also something a trifle odd — to American literary eyes, at least — about the phrase I…do hope the enclosed synopsis is suitable for your perusal. First, it raises a question that it honestly isn’t in P’s interest for Millicent to ponder: is the enclosed synopsis suitable to be read, or is there something about it that may prompt her to reject it unread? Second — and this impression is abetted by the use of the word review earlier in the sentence to talk about something a screener is likely to read only once — the phrasing draws attention to the repeated use of the word enclosed. Since Millicent, like all professional readers, finds word and phrase repetition eye-distracting, this wording would tend to cause her to focus on what is in fact a standard polite closing, rather than the story being offered.

Third, I suspect this isn’t what P. actually means here: he probably hopes that she finds the synopsis acceptable — or, better yet, enjoyable. I’m guessing, too, that he wants to find a graceful way to bring up the fact that she’ll find a synopsis tucked into the envelope.

So why not say both directly? And while we’re at it, why not include some information that she’ll find useful if she wants to see his manuscript: the fact that contacting him by e-mail would be far faster than stuffing a let’s-see-pages missive into the SASE.

Here’s that query again, streamlined so as to render that ending quick, clean, and businesslike. That way, Millie’s attention can remain where it best serves the book’s interests: squarely upon the plot and P’s excellent background for writing this story.

One last nit-pick, then we’ll send P. on his merry way. I get that he would prefer to have an initial, rather than a first name, grace the cover of his books. It’s not a bad choice, either: it would indeed look rather good in print.

I have a practical concern, however: should Hawkeye the agent want to pick up the phone and call this exciting new author, to whom would she ask to speak? You must admit, even the bravest among us might harbor a few trepidations about calling a complete stranger and quavering, “Hello. May I speak to P., please?”

Oh, you may laugh, but queriers place poor Hawkeye and her cronies in this uncomfortable position all the time. It makes sense from an authorial perspective, of course: if one has decided a pen name is preferable to one’s own, one is naturally anxious to start using it. But as anyone who has written professionally under a pseudonym, like yours truly, could tell you behind closed doors, one’s identity remains a secret only from the reading public; the agent handling the writer knows her real name. So does her publisher.

There’s a very, very good reason for that: a writer doesn’t sign representation or publication contracts under her pen name; she signs with her real name. And wouldn’t all of us prefer to have advance and royalty checks made out to us in the name by which our banks know us?

(Never you mind what I’ve written under my noms de plume — yes, I’ve used several. Not at all uncommon for authors who write in more than one genre, or both fiction and nonfiction. But don’t shatter the illusions of the aforementioned reading public, please; let it be our little secret.)

So if I were toddling around in your shoes, P., I would go ahead and query with a full first name — and your real one. Neither of which, naturally, I am going to divulge here.

Hey, the pseudonymous need to stick together. We and Anonymous are going out for coffee later.

Join me, please, in offering profound thanks to P. for helping bring the special challenges of the far-flung querier to our attention — and please, international readers, chime in with the difficulties you have faced in querying and submitting to US-based agencies. As we have seen, sometimes chatting with a native can help iron out any lingering translation problems.

Keep up the good work!

October 22, 2011April 24, 2021 - 4 Comments

Queryfest X: all of these questions aren’t burning you out on querying, are they?

How are you faring, Queryfest participants? (I was on the cusp of dubbing you Queryfesters, but the image the word evoked was a trifle distasteful. An editor never stops thinking about how words will scan on a page, as well as what they mean and how they might sound spoken aloud.) Are your queries looking bright, shiny, and relatively free of the straightforward errors and omissions that dog the garden-variety letter to agents?

Or — and please be honest with me; I can take it — is your original query concept now hanging in tatters, wafting in the wind, mournfully longing for the day when it felt ready to stride out the door and into Millicent the agency’s screener’s overflowing inbox, blithely unaware of just how stiff the competition is there?

Oh, those of you who felt this way thought you were alone? Actually, it’s a pretty common response to realizing for the first time that in the publishing world, every syllable of everything a writer submits is a writing sample. There’s no such thing, then, as a successful query that’s just kinda close to what Millicent has been trained to seek, nor is just hitting every point on an agency’s posted querying guidelines generally sufficient.

I feel an aphorism coming on: while those new to querying often presume that the query is just a formality, composed of a series of hoops through which an aspiring writer must jump, and that their writing will not be judged until an agent requests and receives manuscript pages, that is simply not how the system works. For the overwhelming majority of aspiring writers out there, the query letter is literally the only sample of their writing anyone at the agency will read.

To put it another way, in order to get an agent (or editor, at a small publisher) to read any of your manuscript at all, you will first have to convince her to do so. Querying and pitching are your only options to do that politely — and frankly, most writers’ conferences that allow pitching are quite expensive. As querying is the lower-cost option, a good agent’s inbox, either tangible or virtual, constantly overflows with missives from aspiring writers.

A good half of those communications will be so unprofessionally put together, poorly written, and/or missing crucial pieces of information — the type of book it is, for instance — that Millicent the agency screener will be able to tell at a glance that her boss, the agent, will not be interested. Another third will be better written and contain most or all of the necessary elements, but will arrive at agencies that just don’t represent that kind of book. (Yes, really — you’d be astonished at how few queriers seem to research agents before hitting SEND.)

Then there’s that top 17% or so, the conscientious writers that have taken the time to learn something about how agencies actually work. Their queries tend to be aimed at agents who represent books like theirs, at least, but they often undersell their own stories by trying to make them sound too much like a recent bestseller. Or mystify Millicent by not indicating a book category at all. Or even — sacre bleu! — inadvertently make themselves look unprofessional by adopting an inappropriately informal tone (Hi, George. Looking for solid memoirs by self-made businesspeople — well, have I got a book for you!), engaging in a generic hard sell instead of demonstrating the book’s market appeal (This is the next Great American novel, and you’d be a fool to pass up your chance to get in on the ground floor of what’s sure to be a blockbuster series!, or making claims that reveal they’ve just not bothered to do very much research about what books like theirs are gracing bookstore shelves these days (This is the only novel ever written about a woodcarver’s deep love of his craft, a devotion so profound that his pieces seem alive to him.)

“Yeah, right!” Millicent chortles, reaching for the omnipresent stack of form-letter rejections. “Hey, Geppetto, ever heard of an obscure book called PINOCCHIO?”

I sensed at least 5% of you shifting in your seats. “Gracious, Anne,” the time-strapped cry, clutching their suddenly pale cheeks. “I get that it’s in my best interest to pick a book category and target only agents who represent it, but what makes you think I have TIME to keep up with all of the latest publications in my chosen genre? It took me years to carve out the requisite hours to write my manuscript/draft my book proposal, and having to query at all, much less construct a synopsis, is eating great big holes into my revision time. Isn’t it more important to write a good book than to figure out how to sell it to an agent?”

Well, yes and no, pale clock-watchers. Yes, your chances of getting published are substantially higher if you have written a good book, but that alone is not sufficient endeavor to land an equally good agent for it — a fact which, unfortunately, most first-time writers of good books don’t figure out until they have been querying for a while.

Often not even then. Hands up, everyone who has heard a rejected fellow writer complain that the publishing world just isn’t ready for his book — that it’s too revolutionary, uses language too well, presents an entirely new spin on human relationships, exposes a secret unlike any that has been seen on the printed page before, etc. Keep those hands in the air if, upon subsequent questioning, you discovered that this paragon of literature got rejected at the query stage, rather than as a submission. And wave those hands mightily if you said, either to yourself or to the huffy writer, “Excuse me, Ambrose, but if all the agent saw was your query, how could your startling insights, blistering prose, and/or trenchant analysis of the human condition have been the reason she rejected it? Mightn’t the problem have been, you know, the query?”

Because I love you people, I’m not going to ask those of you who have been the Ambrose in this situation to raise your hands. You know who you are.

I am, however, going to ask Ambrose and those who happen to be personally fond of him to take a moment to ponder the possibilities here. Far too many talented aspiring writers assume that the only reasons their queries could have been rejected is some problem with the book: the story’s not marketable enough, publishers stopped buying chick lit two years ago, the protagonist sounds like a downer, etc. Accordingly, they become discouraged — what would be the point of continuing to query a rejected book? — and just give up.

I get why giving up on querying might be tempting — honestly, I do. However, there’s no denying that the book that isn’t particularly marketable today may well be next year, or even next month; keeping a weather eye on recent releases could help you there. It’s also undoubtedly true that agents’ tastes often change over time, as do agencies’ plans for where they want to place their focus, so the agency that rejected your last book flat might well be interested in your next. And let’s face it, where one agent (or, more likely, his Millicent) does not see market potential, another will, but you’re not going to find that out unless you persevere.

Then, too, if your query lands on the wrong desk, no matter how great the book in question is, or even how beautifully the query is written, it doesn’t stand a chance, right? The same principle applies if you approach the wrong agent within an agency; since the standard etiquette dictates that a writer may query only one, it honestly is worth doing your homework first. You can also kiss that agent goodbye– and you wouldn’t believe how common this is — if you queried the perfect agent too soon after you finished writing the book, before you’ve had an opportunity to go back over it with the proverbial fine-toothed revision comb.

You were aware, right, that you’re only supposed to query any given agent once with any given writing project? Oh, Millicent turnover is so rapid these days that it’s unlikely that the same human being will screen your query two years apart, but if you realize three months hence that Chapter 2 contains a huge continuity problem, sending a repeat query isn’t likely to revivify your prospects at that agency.

As frequently as Millicent sees all of these faux pas — especially the one about beginning to query too soon: now that many agencies allow queriers to include the first few pages in their query packets, it’s apparent far earlier in the process who has and has not taken the time to re-read or even proofread her work — there’s one that crosses her desk even more. I am referring, of course. to the query that reads exactly like 30 others she has read that day, for the exceedingly simple reason that there’s a template out there that 31 of the day’s queriers heard somewhere was sure-fire.

Trust me on this one: a personalized query will stand out in that crowd — and one that sounds remotely like you’ve done some reading of recent releases in your chosen book category will practically bring tears of relief to Millicent’s weary eyes. Returning to our query troubleshooting list…

(25) Is it clear from my query that I’m familiar with recent releases like mine? Even better, do I sound as though I have picked this agent based upon that familiarity?
This may seem like a subtle one from the writer’s side of the querying relationship, but on the query page, it’s often painfully obvious if the querier is thinking of both his book and his query list in generic terms: he has a book to sell, and agents sell books for writers, so any agent who sells remotely similar books will do, right?

Wrong. No agent represents every kind of fiction — and certainly not every conceivable kind of memoir. Actually, although it may be hard to tell this from a brief blurb in an agency guide, it’s relatively rare for agents not to specialize within a particular book category. And I’m not just talking about an agent’s preference for Highland romance over romances set in Ancient Rome, either: these people often like to see particular types of sentence describing those lads and lassies. As will soon be apparent if you take the time to go to a bookstore, pull recent books by three or four of the agent’s clients of the shelves, and read a few opening pages.

Research, my dears, research; there’s just no substitute for it — and the more specifically you can show the fruits of that research, the better. Why, you ask? In the interest of inculcating good writing habits, instead of telling you, I shall show you.

Let’s say, for the sake of example, that Desperate Togetpublishedson has written a YA novel set against the backdrop of the highly competitive junior show jumping circuit, a sterling piece of literature entitled NEVER SAY NEIGH. Let’s further assume that Desperate wants to query Literate McSalesperson, an agent with a long-established track record of selling books about horses and the preteens who love them.

That’s a great choice, probably based upon some solid research on who’s selling books like Desperate’s these days. But Literate’s Millicent would never know it from a query that opened like this:

Because you represent YA aimed at young girls, I hope you will be interested in my novel, NEVER SAY NEIGH. Fifteen-year-old Fifi never dreamed she would be faced with a wall that high…

That’s not bad, but Desperate’s honest-to-goodness market research doesn’t really shine here, does it? The bit about Literate’s representing YA for young girls could have been gleaned by the most cursory glance at one of the standard agency guides — or even a simple web search. (And news flash: most YA is aimed at young girls; they tend to read more than young boys.)

Let’s take a peek at what happens if our Desperate decides to be a trifle more specific.

I read in Jeff Herman’s Guide to Literary Agents that you were “looking for YA with strong female protagonists.” My novel, NEVER SAY NEIGH, definitely fits the bill: it’s about a young girl overcoming obstacles ranging from low tree branches to high walls to uncaring adults in her pursuit of becoming a champion show jumper.

Fifteen-year-old Fifi never dreamed she would be faced with a wall that high…

Better, isn’t it? If a trifle literal-minded: does the direct quote of what anyone in the industry would consider a fairly generic preference honestly help the case here? And does it really matter where Desperate picked up this information? A less pedantic presentation of the same information would make the same point without — please forgive my putting it this way, but it is how Millicent would think of it — sounding as though Desperate had read somewhere that he should include a reason for approaching Literate, but couldn’t come up with anything specific?

Calm down, Desperate, and try it again. Literate isn’t really looking for citations here.

Since you represent YA with strong female protagonists, you may be interested in my novel, NEVER SAY NEIGH. It’s the story of a young girl overcoming obstacles ranging from low tree branches to high walls to uncaring adults in her pursuit of becoming a champion show jumper.

Fifteen-year-old Fifi never dreamed she would be faced with a wall that high…

Ah, that’s nice — but if Desperate actually did go to the trouble of tracking down some other books Literate represented, that professional-level effort is not apparent here. Citing a specific book would leave no doubt on the matter. It’s an especially nice touch to bring up a first-time author’s title, underscoring that Desperate has done the requisite research to realize that Literate does take a chance on a new voice from time to time. (Not a foregone conclusion in the agenting world, by the way; it’s worth your while to check.)

Since you so ably represented Debuty de Firsttimer’s HOW AM I EVER GOING TO CLIMB INTO THAT SADDLE? I hope you will be interested in my YA novel, NEVER SAY NEIGH. It’s the story of a strong, determined young girl overcoming obstacles ranging from low tree branches to high walls to uncaring adults in her pursuit of becoming a champion show jumper.

Fifteen-year-old Fifi never dreamed she would be faced with a wall that high…

“But Anne!” the literal-minded cry, and who can blame you? “That nifty bit about the strong protagonists fell out of this version! Since Literate feels strongly enough about that preference to have mentioned it in her guide listing, shouldn’t Desperate bring it up?”

Ah, but Desperate did bring it up — by depicting his protagonist as strong, rather than just saying she was. Nifty trick, eh?

Do be certain, though, that any book you cite actually is comparable to yours. Don’t stray outside your book’s category, or you’ll defeat the purpose here. I hate to show a bad example, just in case blog-skimmer out there decides to copy it under the assumption that I meant it as a guide (oh, you’d be astonished at some of the comments I get from people who don’t read carefully), but as Desperate has been generous to make this mistake first, I’d like you to benefit from his sad experience.

Since you handled science fiction writer Outta Myleague’s extraordinary debut, THIS STORY HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUNG GIRLS OR HORSES, I am writing you in the hope that you will be willing to represent my YA novel, NEVER SAY NEIGH, the story of a strong, determined young girl overcoming obstacles ranging from low tree branches to high walls to uncaring adults in her pursuit of becoming a champion show jumper.

“Excuse me?” Millicent cries. “Do you not understand the term science fiction? Why on earth would an agent interested in one book want to read the other?”

Good question, Millie. Unfortunately, you’ve already rejected Desperate’s query, so I doubt you’re going to have the opportunity to discuss the matter with him anytime soon.

Do all of those glazed eyes out there indicate that some of you are frantically searching through your memories, trying to recall tidbits you have read about various agents and the books they have represented? Excellent. I have a bit more to say about how you might turn that information to your advantage, but in order to give you all some processing time, I’m going to veer our discussion back toward matters more technical.

(26) If I intend to submit this query to agents based in the United States, have I used ONLY US-spellings throughout my query packet? Or U.K. spellings, if I am sending it there or to Canada?
Hey, I told you the next one was going to be technical. While honour, judgement, and centre are perfectly correct in some places in the English-speaking world, they are incorrect in the US, just as honor, judgment, and center are on the other side of the pond, or even north of the border. And while your spell-checker may not find fault with either version, a New York-based Millicent is going to take one look at the former and say, “Great. Now some poor soul is going to have to comb through this manuscript, changing everything to U.S. spellings.”

I hate to burst any bubbles currently floating outside U.S. borders, but the publishing world’s opinion is united about who that poor soul should be: the writer. Who, let’s face it, might not be all that happy about the prospect. So in practice, when a query turns up here with U.K. or Canadian spellings, it says to Millicent, “Hi! If you ask to see this manuscript, not only will your finely-tuned editorial sense have you longing to correct the spelling every other page, but if your boss falls in love with the writing, she will have to have a rather unpleasant conversation with the writer.”

Yes, I am saying what you think I am, far-flung writers: if you’re planning to write for the American market, Millicent will expect you to use U.S. spellings in your query. Her boss is going to insist that you alter every single instance in your manuscript, anyway, so why not beat the Christmas rush and do it now?

You’re quite right — it’s annoying, but honestly, Millicent and her ilk have a point here. While books that have already hit the big time in the U.K. or Canada are routinely available in their original forms here, the original publication site dictates what is considered proper. Since a previously-unpublished manuscript with U.K. spellings would have to be altered before it could be released in the U.S. market, can you blame an agent for considering such a manuscript not ready for circulation to domestic agents?

At the query stage, though, the presumption of further revision’s being needed is not the only danger. You don’t want Millicent to think that you just don’t know how to spell, do you, oh centred, honourable person of sound judgement?

The same principle applies in reverse, of course: tailor your query and submission to what will look right to your intended audience, the agent, based upon where he resides. If you’re a Yank approaching a U.K.-based agent, you’ll be better off conforming to his view of the English language. (Unless, of course, you happen to be an American celebrity — then, your oddball spellings will be part of your complicated charm.)

Ready to start talking about books like yours again? Dandy.

(27) When I mentioned the book category in the first paragraph of my query, did I use one of the established categories already in use by the publishing industry, or did I make up one of my own?
Queriers new to the game often believe, mistakenly, that claiming that their books are so completely original, so unlike anything else currently for sale to the English-reading public, that even trying to squeeze them into one of the conceptual boxes provided by the industry would undersell their originality. Instead, these well-meaning souls just make up their own categories with names like Hilarious Western Romance with a Futuristic Feel to It or Time-Travel Thriller with Magical Realist Elements.

They think — again, mistakenly — that such descriptors are helpful to agents. How could being more specific than the average bookseller’s shelving system be bad?

In quite a number of ways, actually. To name but two, mythical book categories are unprofessional, and using them betrays a misunderstanding of why agents want to see them in query letters: to figure out whether the book presented is the kind that they currently want to sell. Also, an aspiring writer who clearly knows that she’s supposed to name a book category but tries to wiggle around it is playing rules lawyer, not a strategy likely to convince Millicent and her boss that she’s the type who just loves following directions without a fight.

Do it because they say so. If you’re at a loss about how to go about narrowing down the choices, please see the HOW TO FIGURE OUT YOUR BOOK’S CATEGORY section on the archive list at right.

“Can’t make me!” some rebels shout. “No one’s going to put my book in a conceptual box.”

That’s quite true: no one can force an aspiring writer to commit to a book category — at least before she’s signed with an agent, of course. Agents make their clients commit all the time. In fact, it’s not all that unusual for an agent to accept a new project as one category, ask for targeted revisions, then pitch it to editors as a different category.

A book category is nothing but a — wait for it — conceptual box, after all, a marketing label used to get a manuscript to the people who represent and sell similar books. So a categorical (so to speak) refusal to allow your work to be labeled at the query stage isn’t going to impress anybody familiar with how books are sold in this country.

Especially not Millicent — and especially if she happens to open your query at an inopportune moment.

Don’t believe me? Okay, picture this: Millicent’s subway train from her tiny apartment in Brooklyn that she shares with four other underpaid office workers has broken down, so she has arrived at work half an hour late. There’s an agency-wide meeting in an hour, and she needs to clear her desk of the 200 query letters that came yesterday, in order to be ready for the 14 manuscripts her boss is likely to hand her at the meeting. (Starting to read like a word problem in a math class, isn’t it?) After she has speed-read her way through 65 of the queries, a kind co-worker makes a Starbucks run. Just before Millicent slits open your query (#126), she takes a big gulp of much-needed caffeine — and scalds her tongue badly.

Oh, as though long-time readers of this blog didn’t see that coming.

Your query with its fanciful pseudo book category is now in her hand. What is she more likely to do, to humor your reluctance to place your book in the traditional conceptual box, as her boss will require her to do if she recommends picking you up as a client, or to shrug, say, “Here’s another one who doesn’t understand how the business works,” and move on to the next envelope?

Blistered tongue or not, do you really want to bait her? More to the point, is it really in your best interest to bait her?

If you’re absolutely, positively convinced that it would be an outrage upon the very name of truth to commit your novel to any one category, PLEASE don’t make up a hyphenate like Western-Vampire Romance-How-to, in order to try to nail it with scientific precision. In a pinch, if your novel doesn’t fall clearly into at least a general category, just label it FICTION and let the agent decide.

Provided, of course, that you are querying an agent who routinely represents fiction that does not fit neatly into any of the major established categories. I definitely wouldn’t advise this with, say, an agent who represents only romantica or hard-boiled mysteries.

But whatever you do, avoid cluttering up your query letter, synopsis — or indeed, any communication you may have with an agent or editor prior to clutching a signed contract with them in your hot little hand — with explanations about how your book transcends genre, shatters boundaries, or boldly goes where no novel has gone before.

Even if it’s true. Perhaps especially if it’s true.

Yes, such a speech makes a statement, but probably not the one the writer intends. Here’s how it translates into agent-speak: “This writer doesn’t know how books are sold.”

(28) Have I listed my credentials well in my platform paragraph? Do I come across as a competent, professional writer, regardless of my educational level or awards won?
I’m going to be revisiting the platform paragraph in more detail in a future post, but here’s the short version: if you have any background that substantially aided you in writing this book, you need to make sure you mention it in your query.

Period. Even your camp trophy for woodworking can be a selling point, in the proper context. Ditto with any publication, anytime, anywhere, regardless of whether you were paid for writing it. A publication is a publication is a publication.

But truthfully, unless you are writing a book that requires very specific expertise, most of your credentials will not actually be relevant to your book. But do say where you went to school, if you did, and any awards you have won, if you have. To professional eyes, these too are what I like to call ECQLC (Eye-Catching Query Letter Candy).

If you are a member of a regularly-meeting critique group, feel free to mention that as well, although this one is less effective than it used to be 10 or 20 years ago. (The Internet has spawned some pretty wacky writers’ groups, and Millicent knows it.) Anything that makes you sound like a serious professional is appropriate to include, though.

If you don’t have anything you feel you can legitimately report here, don’t stretch the truth; writers who do this almost invariably get caught in the long run. (The same holds true for queriers who include recommendations from people who didn’t actually recommend them, by the way.) Just leave out this paragraph. Unless, of course, you happen to be trying to find an agent or editor for a nonfiction work. Which brings me to…

(29) If I am querying nonfiction, have I made my platform absolutely plain? Would even a Millicent in a hurry understand why I am uniquely qualified to write this book, if not actually the best-qualified person in the known universe to do it?
A platform, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is the background that renders a nonfiction author qualified to write a particular book. Consequently, “What’s the author’s platform?” is pretty much always the first question either an agent or an editor will ask about any nonfiction book.

Which means, in practice, that a nonfiction query that does not make its writer’s platform absolutely clear and appealing will practically always be rejected. And yes, you do need to satisfy this criterion if your nonfiction field happens to be memoir.

I know, I know: it’s self-evident that a memoirist is the world’s leading authority on his own life, but as I’ve mentioned before, a memoir is almost invariably about something other than the author’s sitting in a room alone. If your memoir deals with other subject matter, the platform paragraph of your query letter is the ideal place to make the case that you are an expert on that.

(30) Have I made any of the standard faux pas, the ones about which agents complain early and often?
I like to think of this as a primary reason to attend writers’ conferences regularly: they are some of the best places on earth to collect massive lists of the most recent additions to agents and editors’ pet peeves. I’ve been going through most of the major ones throughout this series, but some of them can be quite itty-bitty.

Referring to your book as a fiction novel, for instance, is invariably on the top of every agent’s list; in point of fact, all novels are fiction, by definition. A nonfiction memoir, a real-life memoir, a true memoirand nonfiction based on a true story, as well as permutations on these themes, are all similarly redundant.

Just don’t do it. If you thought Millicent was in a bad mood after she burned her tongue, trust me, you don’t want to see how she reacts to that memoir based on something that really happened to me.

Waffling about the book category is also a popular Millicent-irritant, as are queries longer than a single page, including promotional blurbs from people of whom the agent has never heard (Delphine Margason says this is the most moving book about figure skating she’s ever read!), or — chant it with me now, folks — ANY mention of the book’s potential for landing the author on a show hosted by someone like Oprah. Or Jon Stewart. Or Stephen Colbert. Or Charlie Rose.

Or…well, you get the picture.

Violating any or all of these will generally result in the query being tossed aside, unread. Especially the last; the average screener at a major NYC agency could easily wallpaper her third-floor walk-up in Brooklyn seven times over with query letters that make this claim — and I’m talking about ones that fell onto her desk within the last month.

Believe it or not, we still haven’t run through all of the common Millicent-irritants out there — and we have barely begun taking a serious gander at examples of what does and doesn’t work on the query page. Join me next time for more on these exciting topics, and, of course, to keep up the good work!

October 9, 2011January 19, 2017 - No Comments

Queryfest, part VI: pretty is as pretty does, or, what makes you think that polyester minidresses are still in style, Barbie?

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Last time, I threw all of you queriers a bit of a curve ball: in the midst of talking about how to polish a basic query letter — polite salutation, title, book category, brief description, writing credentials/platform for writing the book, courteous sign-off, your contact information, SASE if you’re going to send it via mail — I ~~insisted~~ ~~ordered~~ ~~blandished you into~~ suggested that you write it not in your own good prose, but in the language of the publishing industry.

Why might you want to invest the time in doing that? To elevate a ho-hum query that features just the basics into one that veritably leaps off the incoming mail stack at Millicent the agency screener, the dedicated and often quite poorly paid individual charged with the awesome task of going through the hundreds upon hundreds of queries a good agency receives each week, deciding what tiny fraction fits closely enough with the resident agents’ interests to warrant requesting pages.

Does that sudden flash of blinding light mean that Millicent’s job description caused light bulbs to appear over some of your heads? Or was it something else? “Oh, I was already aware that it was Millicent’s job to reject over 90% of the queries she sees,” some of the abruptly illuminated call out, “but back up a little. Did you just give a formula for a bare-bones query two paragraphs ago? I was so startled that I almost burned my lip on a too-hot latte, as Millicent always sees to be doing.”

My sympathies on your scalded mouth, campers, but I’m afraid I must make a technical correction: what I described above was a list of the information that absolutely must appear in a query letter in order for Millicent to decide to ask for pages; it wasn’t a formula for how to put it all together. This data could be presented in a million different ways — and should be, because as we have discussed, nothing so bores our Millie as the 5,421rst version of the same ostensibly surefire boilerplate query that’s been making the rounds on the Internet this month.

It would behoove you, therefore, to send her something a trifle more original.

I felt half of you tense up, but you have my permission to relax to the point of lolling: you’re beyond basic querying now, my friends, at least if you have been following Queryfest with an open heart and inquisitive mind (or even vice-versa) moved past the quite good query letter we discussed in Part I of this series. I have greater ambitions for you than that. You’re ready to become so conversant with the logic of querying that you could toss out future queries in a relatively pain-free hour or two, instead of an anguish-filled week or month.

And what’s the magic wand that’s going to enable you to make that radical leap forward? Learning how to describe your work as an agent or editor would. The first two steps: nailing down a book category and figuring out who your ideal reader is.

A savvy querier needs to do more than assert that such a reader exists, however; she must provide some evidence of it. Why? Well, no matter how well-read Millicent and her boss are in your chosen book category, unless you happen to have written a manuscript with exactly the same market appeal as a recent bestseller, neither will necessarily have a clear idea of how many potential readers there are for your book.

The more esoteric your claim to your ideal reader’s sympathies, the more likely this is to be the case, by the way. Let’s assume you’ve written a cozy mystery about a left-handed, redheaded sleuth/clog dancer who breaks her foot by tripping over log while running away from a spider. Now, you could say in your query that your novel will appeal to readers of cozy mysteries — but that’s not likely to come as news to an agent who represents that sub-genre, is it? It’s a tautology: cozy mystery buyers buy cozy mysteries, by definition. You could also claim that your book will appeal to left-handed people, or to redheads, but that would be a hard sell: both of these groups are too large and diverse to render such a claim plausible. You could, however, argue persuasively that there are not at present very many mysteries aimed specifically at clog-dancing enthusiasts, spider-fearers, and/or victims of falling accidents.

That’s not a bad argument — perhaps not the best for the work in question, but certainly a means of demonstrating the possible market appeal of this book. Strategically, you could do worse. However, it would definitely be poor strategy to assume that simply mentioning each of these groups would be sufficient to make your case.

Why not? How likely is either Millicent or her boss to be conversant with the specific demographics of that target audience to be able to say instantly, “Oh, terrific — arachnophobia is one of the most common of all phobias, 1 in 3 Americans over 65 will experience a fall in any given year, and clog dancing has been popular for the last four centuries! That would provide a wealth of different promotional approaches for this book!”

Even if an agency denizen did happen to have that particular array of statistics at her ink-stained fingertips, she’s not going to have the time (and probably not the inclination) to do the math. Although it’s fun to picture, isn’t it? “Let’s see,” Millie muses over your query, “assuming that about 30% of readers will be afraid of spiders, and virtually all of them will know somebody who harbors such a fear (insert adding machine operation sounds here)…and that about 10% of the population is left-handed (click, click, click), although of course that includes the ambidextrous and incompletely dominant as well…and about 13% of the current U.S. population is over 65…carry the three…add that to the national clog sales statistics I have at my elbow…”

Not going to happen. So why make Millicent guess?

In response to the hefty percentage of you who just shouted, “Because tracking down those numbers would be a big, fat pain!”: allow me to suggest that if you do not do that research, it’s terribly unlikely that Millicent will. Even if she happens to be a clogging enthusiast, she’s going to appreciate it if you throw some concrete numbers into your query, demonstrating just how big your target market actually is. Not to mention rendering it infinitely easier for Millicent to talk about your book to higher-ups — and, in turn, for an agent to pitch it to anyone at a publishing house.

Why, you gasp? Well, sales and marketing departments expect agents and editors to be able to speak in hard numbers. No matter how much the editors at a publishing house love any given manuscript or book proposal, they’re unlikely to make an actual offer for it unless the sales and marketing folks are pretty enthused about it, too.

So doesn’t it make sense to make sure the agent and editor fighting for your book have that demographic information at their fingertips, when it’s relatively easy for you to put it there?

I sense some ambient eye-rolling. “But Anne,” I hear those of you writing for some of the bigger markets protest. “Surely, everyone with a pulse is aware of how big my particular target audience is and why they would find my book appealing. Wouldn’t it be, you know, a little insulting if my query assumed that the agent wasn’t sufficiently aware of the world around him to know these things?”

Well, yes — if you happen to be a former president of the United States, a movie star recovering from a drug addiction, or a plain, ordinary writer with previous publishing credentials querying a YA book about a teenage girl’s relationship with a vampire and a werewolf, or a middle-grade novel about a young magician left mysteriously to fend for himself, with the assistant of two friends carefully selected to maximize the probability that young readers will be able to identify with one or the other, in the face of ultimate evil that adults are too dim-witted to see. If you are already a household name or have written a clone of a recent best-seller, it is entirely possible that your target market is so self-evident that any agent with a brain would pitch it as, “This memoir gives the inside scoop on the White House,” “This is what it’s like in celebrity rehab,” or, “It’s basically TWILIGHT, but with twist X…”

But the fact is, few books that aren’t really, really derivative of current bestsellers have that obvious a target audience, and if you’re already a celebrity or an ex-president, you’re probably not writing your own query letters, anyway. If your manuscript is original — it is, isn’t it? — you’re probably going to have some ‘splaining to do.

Still don’t believe me? Okay, here’s a parable about what can happen if a writer is vague about her target market’s demographics. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Aspiring writer Ermintrude has written a charming women’s fiction manuscript about Trudymin, an American woman in her early forties who finds herself reliving the trauma of her parents’ divorce when she was 12, as well as the trauma of having grown up with an off-beat name. Miracle of miracles, since the book is set in the present day, that makes her protagonist a Gen Xer, as Ermintrude herself is. (“It’s sort of autobiographical,” she admits, but only amongst friends.)

Like the vast majority of queriers, Ermintrude has not thought much about her target market before approaching agent Betheen; she just assumes, and rightly, that she’s written a well-crafted women’s fiction novel. Isn’t it enough to say that it will appeal to women?

Um, no: she’s stunned when Betheen tells her that there’s no market for such a book. But being a bright person, quick on her feet, Ermintrude comes up with a plausible response: “I’m the target market for this book,” she shoots back in an e-mail. (A tactic a rejected querier should NEVER, EVER embrace, by the way, but necessary here for the sake of drama.) “People like me.”

Now, that’s actually a pretty good answer — readers are often drawn to the work of writers like themselves — but it is too vague to convince Betheen. What Ermintrude really meant was:

“My target readership is women born between 1964 and 1975, half of whom have divorced parents. Just under 12 million Americans, in other words — and that’s just for starters. Would you like to hear the demographics on how many of us had oddball names like Sunshine?”

But Betheen heard what Ermintrude SAID in her query and ill-advised follow-up e-mail, not what she MEANT. As they’ve never met, how reasonable was it for Ermintrude to expect Betheen to read her mind?

Given this partial information, Betheen thought: “Oh, God, another book for aspiring writers.” (People like the author, right?) “What does this writer think my agency is, a charitable organization? I’d like to be able to retire someday.”

And what would an editor at a major publishing house (let’s call him Federico) conclude from Ermintrude’s statement? Something, no doubt, along the lines of, “This writer is writing for her friends. All four of them. Next!”

Clearly, being vague about her target audience has not served Ermintrude’s interests. Let’s take a peek at what would have happened if she had been a trifle more specific, shall we?

Ermintrude says: “Yes, there is a target market for my book: Gen Xers, half of whom are women, many of whom have divorced parents, many of whom will have had an elementary school classmate named Zephyr.”

Agent Betheen thinks: “Hmm, that’s a substantial niche market. 5 million, maybe?”

Sounding more marketable already, isn’t it?

But when Betheen pitches it to editor Federico this way, he thinks: “Great, a book for people who aren’t Baby Boomers. Most of the US population is made up of Baby Boomers and their children. Do I really want to publish a book for a niche market of underemployed, recycling-conscientious vegans with little disposable income?”

So a little better, but still, no cigar. Let’s take a look at what happens if Ermintrude has thought through her readership in advance and approaches Betheen with relevant statistics all ready to leap off onto the query page.

Ermintrude says (immediately after describing the book in her query): “I’m excited about this project, because I think my protagonist’s divorce trauma will really resonate with the 47 million Gen Xers currently living in the United States. Half of these potential readers have parents who have divorced at least once in their lifetimes. Literally everybody in that age group either had divorces within their own families as kids or had close friends that did. I think this book will strike a chord with these people.”

Agent Betheen responds: “There are 47 million Gen Xers? I had no idea there were that many. I want to see the manuscript; this has market potential.”

And editor Federico thinks: “47 million! Even if the book actually appealed to only a tiny fraction of them, it’s still a market well worth pursuing. Yes, Betheen, send me that manuscript by your new client.”

The moral of this exciting tale of woe and uproar: even the best book premise can be harmed by vague assertions about its target audience; it can only helped by the query’s talking about in marketing terms.

There is one drawback to using up-to-the-minute demographic statistics, of course — if you end up querying the same project repeatedly over several years (not at all unusual for even very well-written manuscripts, at this point in literary history), you may have to go back and update your numbers. Actually, it’s not a bad idea to reexamine your query’s arguments every so often, anyway. it’s quite easy to fall into the habit of pumping out those queries without really pondering their content — or whether this particular letter is the best means of marketing to that particular agent.

Speaking of which, let’s return to our ongoing query-improvement list already in progress. Take a long, hard look at your letter and ask yourself…

(10) Have I addressed this letter to a specific person, rather than an entire agency or any agent currently walking the face of the earth? Does it read like a form letter?
Some of you just did a double-take, didn’t you? “But Anne,” you cry in unison, and who could blame you? “I’m experiencing déjà vu. Didn’t we already cover this in #5, Is it clear from the first paragraph that I am querying the appropriate agent for my work?”

Well, yes and no. Yes, I made some suggestions last time for some tried-and-true reasons for explaining why approaching a particular agent makes sense for your book. But no, we didn’t discuss how to fix a generic-sounding first paragraph.

Let’s rectify that right now: basically, you fix it by not using the same first paragraph in every query.

As I mentioned in an earlier post in this series, experienced queriers will tweak their basic query letters to personalize them for each agent on their list. Less experienced serial queriers, though, often do not change anything but the first paragraph, address, and salutation between each time they sent out their mailed letters, more or less insuring that a mistake made once will be replicated a dozen times. Copying and pasting the text of one e-mailed query into the next guarantees it.

And those of you who habitually did this were surprised to receive form-letter rejections? The electronic age has, alas, made it much, much easier to be dismissive: never have so many been rejected so much with so few keystrokes. So although it may seem needlessly time-consuming, it’s worth reviewing every single query to ascertain that the opening paragraph speaks specifically to the recipient’s tastes and placement record.

Most aspiring writers don’t even consider doing this — and frankly, it’s easy to see why. Many approach quite a few agents simultaneously, and with good reason. At this point in publishing history, when many agencies don’t even respond to e-mailed queries if the answer is no, waiting to hear back from one agent before approaching the next is poor strategy. Querying every possible agent one at a time can add years to the agent-finding process.

Do I sense some restless murmuring out there? “But Anne,” some of you conference veterans protest, “I heard that some agents will become furious if they find out that a writer is sending out many queries simultaneously. I don’t want to scare them away from my book by breaking their rules right off the bat!”

I agree with the general principle imbedded in this cri de coeur — it’s only prudent to check an agency’s website and/or its listing in one of the standard agency guides to ascertain what precisely the agent you are addressing wants to see in a query packet. The differentials can be astonishing: some want queries only, others want synopses, many ask for pages to be placed in the body of an e-mail, a few ask queriers just to go ahead and send the first 50 pages unsolicited.

What no agency will ever leave off any of its expressions of preference, however, is mention of a policy forbidding simultaneous querying, the practice of sending out queries to more than one agent at a time — if it has one, which is exceedingly rare. Some do have policies against simultaneous submissions, where more than one agent is reading requested materials at the same time, but believe me, the agencies that want an exclusive peek tend to be VERY up front about it.

So if you heard that most agents prefer exclusive queries, you’ve been misinformed — or have been talking to someone who last queried in the mid-1970s.

Rather than hamstringing your querying efforts by assuming that a relatively rare preference is universal, take the necessary few minutes to check each agency’s querying policies before you send them anything. If you can’t find agency-specific guidelines (and you may not; query with SASE is an exceedingly common agents’ guide listing), it’s safe to assume that (a) they’re not expecting solo queries, so (b) you needn’t even mention multiple queries in your letter. Trust me, (c) if the agent wants an exclusive peek at your manuscript, he’ll tell you so point-blank in the request for pages.

This should, I hope, sound somewhat familiar to those of you who have been querying for a while. If not, I’m more than happy to haul out the broken record player again:

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all query packet. In order not to run afoul of these wildly disparate expectations, a querier must be willing to do a bit of homework and follow individualized directions.

Fair warning: sometimes an agency’s listing in one of the standard guides, its website, and what one of its member agents will say at a conference are at odds. In the event of a serious discrepancy, don’t call or e-mail the agency to find out which they prefer. Go with the information that appears to be most recent — in my experience, that’s usually what’s posted either on the website or on the agency’s Publisher’s Marketplace page.

I can hear some of you worrying types beginning to gnaw your fingernails down to the elbow, wondering if you sent out multiple queries based upon outdated sets of guidelines, or that the information was coded in a way you did not understand, but again, I would urge you to relax. It’s practically unheard-of for an agent to wake up one fine morning, stretch, and suddenly shout, “Hey, I’m sick of queriers not committing to me from the instant it occurs to them to approach me. I’m going to tell Millicent to dump any query that doesn’t say I’m getting an exclusive look into the recycling bin!”

That’s ridiculous, of course. Many agencies don’t recycle.

Just do your best, and hope for same. If you have checked to ascertain that the agent of your dreams — or at least the next on your list — does not have an exclusivity policy, you should assume that s/he doesn’t. Trust me, if an agent who does prefer an exclusive peek doesn’t want other agents seeing it, s/he will let you know.

Until then, it’s a waste of your valuable time to grant a de facto exclusive to someone who hasn’t asked for it. (For some tips on how to deal with such a request if and when it comes up, please see the EXCLUSIVES TO AGENTS category on the list at right.)

So why does the rumor that that agents secretly crave exclusives (and thus penalize queriers who don’t read their minds and act accordingly) remain so pervasive? Beats me. If I had to guess (and apparently I do), I would say that it is an unintended side effect of agents’ standing up at writers’ conferences and saying, “For heaven’s sake, don’t send out mass queries — if I see a query that’s clearly been sent to every agent in the book, I send straight it into the rejection pile.”

In other words, don’t send out generic queries. They’re just not worth your time — or Millicent’s.

A query letter designed to please all is unlikely to be geared to the specific quirks and literary tastes of any particular agent — one of the many reasons that this shotgun approach seldom works. The other, believe it or not, is that mass submitters often render the fact that they don’t know one agent on their lists from another by sending out what is known in the biz as a Dear Agent letter. As in one that begins:

Dear Agent,

I haven’t the vaguest idea who you are or what you represent, but since the big publishing houses don’t accept submissions from unagented authors, I come to you, hat in hand, to beg you to represent my fiction novel, LEFT-HANDED REDHEAD IN CLOGS. It’s a guaranteed hit with tempestuous coppertops everywhere, and a natural for the talk-show circuit. I enclose a pair of clogs as a gift in the desperate, forlorn hope that a huge, heavy box will be mistaken for a manuscript, and thus this query will end up on someone influential’s desk. Please find me charming?

Why, when there is so much to resent in this (probably quite honest) little missive, would the salutation alone be enough to get this query rejected without reading farther? Well, to folks who work in agencies, Dear Agent means only one thing: the writer who sent it is sending an identical letter to every agent listed on the Internet or in one of the standard agency guides.

Willy-nilly, with no regard to who represents what and consequently who is likely to be interested in the book at hand.

Which means, Millicent reasons, that it is unlikely to the point of mockery that the book being proposed is going to fit the specific requirements and tastes of any of the agents currently domiciled at the agency — and unlikely to the point of rolling around in hysterics on the floor that the querier will have bothered to read the agency’s submission guidelines What’s the hope, then, that requested materials would even remotely resemble professional manuscript pages? And, most agency denizens would additionally conclude, the writer hasn’t bothered to learn much about how the publishing industry works.

The result: virtually any Millicent will simply toss it into the reject pile, if not actually the trash, without bothering to read even the first paragraph. (Dear Agent letter-writers seldom know to include SASEs, alas.)

Since this is such a notorious agents’ pet peeve, I’m going to trouble you with yet another question aimed at making that first paragraph a beautiful case that you — yes, you — are the best possible fit for the agent you happen to be querying at the moment. And to make that case pellucidly clear even to a Millicent who has only 30 seconds or so to devote to each query.

(11) Do I make it clear in the first paragraph of the letter SPECIFICALLY why I am writing to THIS particular agent — or does it read as though I could be addressing any agent in North America?
This is a corollary of the last, of course. To put it another way, writers aren’t the only ones screaming at the heavens, “Why me? Why me?” (Agents scream it, too, but with a slightly different meaning.)

It’s worth taking a look at your query letter and asking yourself if it answers the question: there are hundreds and hundreds of literary agents in the United States alone — why did you choose this one, out of all others, to query? What specifically about this agent’s track record, literary tastes, and/or bio led you to say, By gum, I would like this person to represent my work?

And no, in this context, because she is an agent and I desperately want to sell my book to a publisher is not a reason likely to impress Millicent. She hears it too often.

The best way to justify your agent choice is by mentioning one of the agent’s recent sales. (Recent, in publishing-speak, means within the last five years.) Remember, agents — like most other people — tend to be proud of their best work: if you want to get on their good side, showing a little appreciation for what they have done in the past is just good strategy. Especially if you can honestly compliment them on a project they really loved, or one that was unusually difficult to sell.

I picked this little trick up not at writers’ conferences, but in academia. When a professor is applying for a job, she is subjected to a form of medieval torture known as a job talk. Not only is she expected to give a lecture in front of the entire faculty that is thinking of hiring her, all of whom are instructed in advance to jump on everything she says with abandon, but she is also expected to have brief, private meetings with everyone on the faculty first. If she wants to get their vote, she had better have at least one pithy comment prepared about each and every faculty member’s most recent article, or she’s toast.

It’s every bit as horrible as it sounds, like going through a series of 20 or 30 interviews with authors who want to believe simply everyone in the universe has read their work. Everyone smart, anyway.

Gee, I can’t imagine why I didn’t want to remain in academia. But it did teach me something very valuable indeed: pretty much every human being affiliated with any book ever published likes to be recognized for the fact.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to work a compliment into a query letter without sounding cheesy or obsequious. If the agent you are querying has represented something similar to your work in the past, you have a natural beginning:

Since you so ably represented X’s excellent {fill in recent title here}, I believe you may be interested in my book, TITLE, a {book category} aimed at {target audience}.”

I can feel your blood pressure rising, but again, relax: there are many ways to find out what an agent has represented. Check the acknowledgments of books you like (authors often thank their agents), or check the agency’s website to see whom the agent represents. If all else fails, call your favorite book’s publisher, ask for the publicity department, and ask who the agent of record was; legally, it’s a matter of public record, so they have to tell you.

Actually, with small publishers, this isn’t a bad method for finding out what they are looking to publish. I once had a charming conversation with an editor at a small Midwestern press, who confided to me that when she had acquired the book about which I was inquiring, the author did not yet have an agent. Sensing an opportunity, I promptly pitched my book to her — and she asked me to send her the first fifty pages right away.

Sometimes opportunities are hiding in some unexpected places. Are you presenting your work in a way that invites Millicent to take a chance?

(12) If I met this agent or editor at a conference, or am querying because I heard him speak at one, or picked him because s/he represents a particular author, do I make that obvious immediately? If I picked him purely because he represents my book category, have I at least made that plain?
Queriers often seem reluctant to mention bring up having heard an agent speak, but since such a low percentage of the aspiring writers out there attend conferences (under 4%, according to the last estimate I saw), attending a good one that the agent you’re querying also attended is in fact a minor selling point for your book.

The prevailing wisdom dictates that writers who make the investment in learning how to market their work professionally tend to have more professional work to present. A kind of old-fashioned notion, true, but if you’re a conference-goer, it’s one you should be milking for all it is worth.

I would suggest being even more upfront than this, if the conference in question was a reputable one and you did in fact attend it. Why not write the name of the conference on the outside of the envelope, in approximately the same place where you would have written REQUESTED MATERIALS had you pitched to the agent successfully there?

And if you are e-querying, why not mention the conference in the subject line of the e-mail? Also a good idea to include: the word QUERY.

If you have not heard the agent speak at a conference, read an article she has written in a writer’s magazine or online, or noticed that your favorite author thanked her in the acknowledgments of a book you liked — all fair game to mention in the first line of your query — don’t give in to the temptation not to personalize the first paragraph. Be polite enough to invent a general explanation for why you added her to your querying list. Something like this will work just find

Since you represent such an interesting array of debut fiction about women in challenging situations, I hope you will be interested in my novel…

(13) Am I sending this query in the form that the recipient prefers to receive it? If I intend to send it via e-mail, have I quadruple-checked that the agency accepts e-mailed queries? If I am sending it via regular mail, have I checked that the agency still accepts paper queries?
Stop cackling, hard-core web fiends. The publishing world runs on paper — even as I write this, it’s still far from unusual for a prestigious agency not to accept e-submissions at all. Even agencies with websites (which not all of them maintain, even today) that routinely accept electronic submissions often employ agents who prefer paper queries, even from writers residing in foreign countries for whom getting the right stamps for the SASE is problematic.

Double-check the agency’s policy before you e-query. This information will be in any of the standard agency guides, and usually on the website as well. If you’re in doubt, query via regular mail — strategically, it’s a better idea, anyway.

Why? Glad you asked.

it’s far, far less work to reject someone by the press of a single button than by stuffing a response into a SASE. Also, the average reader scans words on a screen 70% faster than the same words on paper. Thus, a truly swift-fingered Millicent can reject 50 writers online in the time that it would take her to reject 10 on paper.

The relative speed of scanning e-queries is why, in case you’re wondering, quite a few of the agencies that actively solicit online queries tend to respond more quickly than those that don’t. Or not at all — which means that it’s doubly worth your while to check an agency’s policy on responding to e-queries before you approach them; many have policies that preclude responding to a querier if the answer is no.

“But Anne,” I hear many of you protest, “what happens if I accidentally send an e-query to an agent who doesn’t like them, or a paper query to one who prefers to be approached electronically? That won’t result in an automatic rejection, will it? It’s not as though I did it on purpose.”

I’m afraid intent doesn’t matter much in this instance, but no, these are not necessarily instant-rejection offenses. They often are, though, for obvious reasons.

Oh, it’s not so obvious? Okay, let me ask you: who would you prefer to read your letter, an agent calmly going through a stack (or list) of queries, or an agent whose first thought upon seeing your epistle is, “Oh, God, not another one! Can’t any of these writers READ? I’ve said in the last ten years’ worth of Herman’s Guides that I don’t want to be queried via e-mail!”

I don’t know about you, but given my druthers, I would select the former.

Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that just as it’s polite to address a person the way he prefers to be addressed, rather than by a hated nickname, a courteous writer should approach an agent in the manner she prefers to be approached. Those with strong preferences either way seldom make a secret of it; verify before you send.

And before anyone out there asks: yes, most agents will assume that a writer worth having as a client will have gone to the trouble of learning something about their personal preferences. If they have expressed a pet peeve in one of the standard agency guides, been interviewed about it, or have written about it in a blog, they will assume that you are aware of it.

Google is your friend, in other words. Take the 5 minutes to check before you query. While we’re on the subject of double-checking, allow me to sneak in one more quick question before I sign off for the night:

(14) Am I absolutely positive that I have spelled the agent’s name correctly, as well as the agency’s? Am I addressing the agent of my dreams as Dear Ms. Smith, rather than Hey, Amy? Am I positive that the letter I have addressed to Dear Mr. Smith shouldn’t actually read Dear Ms. Smith? Heck, am I even sure that I’m placing the right letter in the right envelope?
I hear some titters out there, but you wouldn’t BELIEVE how common each of these gaffes is. The last is usually just the result of a writer’s being in a hurry to get the next set of queries in the mail, and tend to be treated accordingly, but the first two constitute major breaches of etiquette.

And yes, an agent with a first name that leaves gender a tad ambiguous is every bit as likely to resent an incorrect salutation as a Rebecca or Stephen would. Often more, because a Cricket, Chris, or Leslie constantly receives queries apparently addressed to someone of the opposite sex. This type of annoying mix-up has led to more agencies posting pictures of their agents on their websites than you’d expect.

If you’re in serious doubt — faced with a grainy photo, no photo at all, an agent with a name like Bo, etc. — call the agency and ask point-blank whether the agent is a Mr. or Ms. (Quick note for those querying US agents from other parts of the world: currently, Mr. or Ms. are the only two polite options, unless the person in question happens to be a doctor or a professor. Unless a woman makes a point of identifying herself as a Miss or Mrs., Ms. is the proper salutation.)

I know: you’ve heard 4500 times that a writer should never call an agency until after she has a signed representation contract in hand or the agent has left a message asking him to call back, whichever comes first. While it is quite true that allowing the agent to set the level of familiarity in the early stages of exchange is good strategy, most offices are set up to allow a caller to ask a quick, anonymous question, if she’s polite about it. As long as you don’t ask to speak to the agent personally and/or use the occasion to pitch your book, you should be fine.

Have you noticed how many of these tips boil down to some flavor of be clear, do your homework, and be courteous? That’s not entirely coincidental: as odd as it may seem in an industry that rejects so many talented people so brusquely, manners honestly do count in this business.

As my grandmother was fond of saying, manners cost nothing. But as I am prone to tell my clients and students, not exhibiting courtesy can cost an aspiring writer quite a lot.

So sit up straight, brush your teeth, and help little old ladies across the street; it will be great practice for working with an agent or editor. Keep up the good work!

September 27, 2011May 1, 2021 - 3 Comments

Queryfest, part IV: wait, you mean it matters how it looks on the page?

So far in the course of Queryfest posts, I have been talking about how to present your book project so that it sounds like a professional writer’s argument that a manuscript is worth a peek, rather than a carnival hawker’s introducing the Greatest (fill in the blank here) in the World. Take a peep behind the curtain for only 10 cents!

Both are intended to prompt the onlooker to want to look, of course, but as we discussed last time, hard sells (You’ll be sorry if you let this book slip through your fingers, Mr. Agent!), self-assessments (This book contains the most exciting chariot race since Ben Hur!), and the ever-popular claim of universal appeal (every woman who has ever had a best friend will want to read this novel!) tend to fall flat in queries. Agents like to make up their own minds about the quality of writing. A much savvier way of piquing their interest: a straightforward, professionally-worded description of what your book is about, who its specific intended readership is, and why you think the agent you’re addressing would be a good fit for it.

What’s that you say, campers? You would like to see some concrete examples of queries done well and others that miss the mark?

What an excellent idea; the rest of Querypalooza shall be stuffed to the gills with plenty of both. Rather than leap right into questions of content, however, let’s get ourselves accustomed to how a query should — and should not — look on the printed page.

Gird your loins, campers: today, we’re going to be tackling the purely cosmetic issues.

I hear some of you grumbling already, do I not? “But Anne!” a few voices protest out there in the ether. “I can understand why I need to make my manuscript appear professional by adhering to the rules of standard format, considerately gathered for my benefit under the HOW TO FORMAT A MANUSCRIPT category on the archive list conveniently located on the lower right-hand side of this page, but a query letter rises or falls purely on its content, doesn’t it? As long as I do not scrawl it in crayon on tissue paper, why should I worry about what it looks like?”

Good question: why is it in your interest to pay attention to the superficial side of querying? Because in a mailed query, formatting and presentation are the first things Millicent the agency screener notices. It’s the first indication she has of just how familiar a writer has made herself with how the publishing industry actually works.

Okay, I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch all of the implications of that gale-force collective gasp. Did it indicate (a) a certain level of surprise that Millicent will be judging anything but the content of the query, (b) a shocked realization that the denizens of agencies might perhaps harbor some expectations about how the information in a query should be presented, rather than simply regarding it as a free-form expression of creativity, and/or (c) a clawing, pathological fear that the seventeen queries you sent out last week for your memoir about living in the wilderness for five years might lose some credibility because they were written on bark with blackberry juice?

In the interest of rendering the comparisons to follow as useful to as broad a range of queriers as possible, I’m going to assume it was all of the above. And rather than tell you why our Millie’s view of a query might be colored by how it is presented, I’m going to show you.

Because first impressions can be indelible, before I demonstrate just how a poorly presented query looks wrong, let’s take a gander at what a really good query letter looks like. Not so you can copy it verbatim — lest we forget, rote reproductions abound in rejection piles — but so you may see what the theory looks like in practice.

And please, those of you who only e-query: don’t assume that none of what I’m about to say about traditional paper queries is inapplicable to you. Even agents who accept only e-mailed queries were weaned on mailed ones; the paper version is still the industry standard, dictating what does and does not look professional to folks in the biz. Even if there is no paper whatsoever involved in your querying process, you should still be aware of how query letters should appear on a page.

For ease of comprehension, I’ve decided to construct a query for a book whose story you might know: MADAME BOVARY. (At least, I hope that those of you who write novels about the human condition will be familiar with it. If not, and you are at all interested in learning anything about how a few vivid details can light up a page, I would highly recommend your picking up a copy.) If you’re having trouble reading this example at its current size, try holding down the COMMAND key and pushing the + key a couple of times to enlarge the image.

Makes the book sound pretty compelling, doesn’t it? If you were Millicent, wouldn’t you ask to see the first 50 pages?

After the last few posts, I hope it’s clear to you why this is an awfully good query letter: in addition to containing all of the required elements, it presents the book well, in businesslike terms, without coming across as too pushy or arrogant. Even more pleasing to Millicent’s eye, it makes the book sound genuinely interesting and describes it in terms that imply a certain familiarity with how the publishing industry works. (The date on the letter is when the first installment of MADAME BOVARY was published, incidentally; I couldn’t resist.)

Well done, Gustave! It’s perfectly obvious that, in addition to having written a whale of a good book, you were professional enough to learn how the agent of your dreams would expect to see that book’s many excellencies presented in a query.

For the sake of comparison, let’s take a gander at what the query might have looked like had Mssr. Flaubert not done his homework.

You see what’s wrong with this version, right? Obviously, the contractions are far too casual for a professional missive.

No, but seriously, I hope that you spotted the unsupported boasting, the bullying, disrespectful tone, and the fact that this query doesn’t really describe the book. Also, to Millicent’s eye, its being addressed to Dear Agent and undated would indicate that ol’ Gustave is simply plastering the entire agent community with queries, regardless of individual agents’ representation preferences.

That alone would almost certainly lead her to reject MADAME BOVARY out of hand, without reading the body of the letter at all. And those ten pages the agency’s website or listing in a standard agents’ guide said to send? Returned unread to our pal Gus.

The Dear Agent letter has a first cousin that also tends to engender automatic rejection. It’s a gaffe to which even very experienced queriers routinely fall prey. See if you can spot it in its natural habitat:

bad-flaubert-query-letter-2

If you reared back in horror, exclaiming, “Oh, no! Our Gustave has sent the query to agent Clarissa Richardson, but left the salutation from what was probably his last query to agent Tom Jones!” congratulations: you win a gold star with walnut clusters. Since the advent of the home computer, aspiring writers have been falling into this trap constantly; cutting and pasting only works if all of the personalized elements get changed each and every time.

The cure? Pull out your hymnals, long-time readers, and sing along: read EVERY SYLLABLE of each query letter IN HARD COPY and OUT LOUD before you send it, every single time you send it.

Yes, even if you are e-querying or pasting a letter into a form on an agency’s website. Do not hit SEND until you have made absolutely sure that the salutation matches the recipient.

Did you catch the two other major problems with both versions of this letter? Go ahead; go back and look again.

First, how exactly is the agent to contact Gustave to request him to send the manuscript? She can’t, of course, because Mssr. Flaubert has made the mistake of leaving out that information, as an astonishingly high percentage of queriers do.

Why? I suspect it’s because they assume that if they include a SASE (that’s Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope, for those of you new to the trade, and it should be included with every mailed query and submission unless the agency’s website specifically says otherwise), the agent already has their contact information. But if, heaven forfend, the SASE and the query get separated — hey, Millicent’s desk has been known to hold reams and reams of paper at any given moment — or, as is increasingly common, the agency prefers to respond to queries via e-mail, Gus is out of luck.

And no, in response to what half of you just thought: no matter how great the query makes the book appear to be, Millie is not going to take the time to track down Gustave’s address. “I don’t care if it is the next A SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION,” she sniffs, moving on to the next query. “I have 500 queries to get through before I can go home tonight.”

Aspiring writers are even less likely to include their contact information in e-mailed queries. “Why bother?” the e-query thinks, blithely hitting SEND. “All the agent needs to do to get in touch with me is hit REPLY, right?”

Not necessarily: e-mailed queries get forwarded from agent to assistant and back again all the time. Millicent’s hitting REPLY might just send the joyous news that she wants to read your first 50 pages to someone in the next cubicle.

I hesitate to bring this up, but it’s also not unheard-of for e-mails to be sent to the wrong querier, or for SASEs to get mixed up. I once received a kind rejection for someone else’s book stuffed into my SASE. I returned the manuscript with a polite note informing the agency of the mistake, along with the suggestion that perhaps they had lost my submission.

True story. To add a happy ending: the agency assistant who wrote the extremely apologetic response to my having handled it professionally grew up to be my current agent, now a senior agent at the same agency.

The moral: don’t depend on the SASE or return button alone. Include your contact information either below your signature or in the header.

This is especially important if you happen to be querying a US-based agent from outside the US. English-speaking foreign writers often presume, wrongly, that US agents have a strong preference for working with the locals, that not being able to fly a few thousand miles for frequent face-to-face meetings would be a deal-breaker, or that an expatriate would be better off using her mom’s home address in Indiana so as to appear to be living in North America. As a result, they tend not to mention in their (almost invariably e-) queries that they and their manuscripts are not currently stateside.

However, the US is a mighty big country, and e-mailing is inexpensive; distance is not a deal-breaker, typically. NYC-based agents have been representing clients without meeting them in person since the early 20th century. Some agencies might deduct the cost of international phone calls from the advance, just as they might choose to charge the writer for photocopying, but in the era of e-mail and Skype, that’s increasingly rare.

Go ahead and include your contact information, wherever you are. Being far-flung might even be a selling point, if the agent happens to like to travel. (Oh, you don’t think the agent of your dreams would like to crash for a few days on your couch in London?)

But I digress. Back to the diagnosis already in progress.

Gustave’s second problem is a bit more subtle, not so much a major gaffe as a small signal to Millicent that the manuscript to which the letter refers might not be professionally polished. Any guesses?

If you said that it was in business format rather than correspondence format, congratulations: you’ve been paying attention. In a mailed submission, this format would strike most Millicents as less literate than precisely the same letter properly formatted. (It would be fine in an e-mailed submission, where indented paragraphs are harder to format.)

Any other diagnoses? No? Okay, let me infect the good query with the same virus, to help make the problem a bit more visible to the naked eye:

See it now? This otherwise estimable letter is written in Helvetica, not Times, Times New Roman, or Courier, the preferred typefaces for manuscripts.

Was that huge huff of indignation that just billowed toward space an indication that favoring one font over another in queries strikes some of you as a trifle unfair? Especially since very few agencies openly express font preferences for queries (although a few do; check their websites and/or agency guide listings).

To set your minds at ease, I’ve never seen font choice alone be a rejection trigger. I can tell you from very, very long experience working with aspiring writers that queries in the standard typefaces do seem to be treated with a touch more respect.

I know; odd. But worth knowing, don’t you think?

Font size, however, often does prompt knee-jerk rejection; stick to 12 point.

Don’t believe me? Okay, here’s a modified version of the good query, accidentally mailed out in 14-point type:

Yes, yes, I know: you probably wouldn’t even dream of having sent it out this way on purpose — but are you absolutely positive that your default font is 12 point, not 14? Are you sure that when you copied your letter from Word and pasted it into an e-mail, your e-mail program didn’t alter the query into the 14-point type you prefer for composing e-mails?

The moral: even if you have sent out essentially the same query letter dozens of times (oh, don’t pretend that you’ve never just pasted in new contact information to an already-used letter), it’s very much in your interest to read it over each time. You’d be surprised how often simple slips of the mouse result in some rather odd outcomes on the query page. Or how frequently e-mails arrive looking substantially different than their authors intended.

While we’re on the subject of cosmetic problems, let’s take a look at another common yet purely structural way that well-written query letters can send off an unprofessional vibe:

Not all that subtle, this: a query letter needs to be limited to a SINGLE page. This restriction is taken so seriously that very, very few Millicents would even start to read this letter.

Why are agencies so rigid about length when dealing with people who are, after all, writers promoting book-length works? Long-time readers, chant it with me now: TIME. Can you imagine how lengthy the average query letter would be if agencies didn’t limit how long writers could ramble on about their books?

Stop smiling. It would be awful, at least for Millicent.

Fortunately, the one-page limit seems to be the most widely-known of querying rules, if one of the most often fudged in e-queries. “What’s Millicent going to do?” the fudger mutters. “Print it out in order to catch me at my little ruse? She doesn’t have that kind of time.”

Which is rather unfair to screeners, since e-queries can, since they omit the date and address salutation at the top of the message, be several lines longer and still fit within the one-page ideal. I just mention. If you’re fearful of running long, compose your query in Word, ascertain that it could be printed onto a single page, then copy and paste it into an e-mail.

The one-page limit is so widely known, in fact, that aspiring writers frequently tempt Millicent’s wrath through conjuring tricks that force all of the information the writer wishes to provide onto a single page. Popular choices include minimizing the margins:

or shrinking the font size:

or, most effective at all, using the scale function under Page Setup in Word to shrink the entire document:

Let me burst this bubble before any of you even try to blow it up to its full extent: this sort of document-altering magic will not help an over-long query sneak past Millicent’s scrutiny, for the exceedingly simple reason that she will not be fooled by it.

Not even for a nanosecond. The only message such a query letter sends is this writer cannot follow directions.

An experienced contest judge would not be fooled, either, incidentally, should you be thinking of using any of these tricks to crush a too-lengthy chapter down to the maximum acceptable page length. Ditto for pages requested for submissions to agencies or publishing houses: if you shrink it, they will know. And they won’t appreciate your attempt to trick them,

Why am I so certain that any professional reader will catch strategic shrinkage? For precisely the same reason that deviations from standard format in manuscripts are so obvious to professional readers: the fact that they read correctly-formatted pages ALL THE TIME.

Don’t believe the tricks above wouldn’t be instantaneously spottable? Okay, glance at them, then take another peek at our first example of the day:

Viewed side-by-side, the formatting differences are pretty obvious, aren’t they? Even in the extremely unlikely event that Millicent isn’t really sure that the query in front of her contains some trickery, all she has to do is move her fingertips a few inches to the right or the left of it, open the next query letter, and perform an enlightening little compare-and-contrast exercise.

Don’t tempt her to do it. It will not end well for you.

The benefits of eschewing formatting skullduggery is not the only thing I would like you to learn from today’s examples, however. I would also like you to take away this: with one egregious exception, these examples were more or less the same query letter in terms of content, all pitching the same book. Yet only one of these is at all likely to engender a request to read the manuscript.

What does that mean, in practical terms? Even a great book will be rejected at the querying stage if it is queried or pitched poorly.

Yes, many agents would snap up Mssr. Flaubert in a heartbeat after reading his wonderful prose on the manuscript page — but with a query letter like the second, or with some of the sneaky formatting tricks exhibited here, the probability of any agent’s asking to read it is close to zero. Millicent receives too many well-written queries from writers who follow the rules to waste even a moment regretting those who do not.

The moral, should you care to know it: how a writer presents his work — in the query or on the manuscript page — matters.

That means, by extension, that even a long list of rejections based upon an improperly-formatted query might well be unreflective of how Millicent would respond to the same manuscript as presented in an impeccable query. So keep refining that query, campers: even a book as genuinely gorgeous as MADAME BOVARY would not see the inside of a bookstore today unless Flaubert kept sending out query letters, rather than curling up in a ball after the first rejection.

Oh, don’t pretend that you haven’t considered giving up. Deep down, pretty much every aspiring writer believes that if she were really talented, her work would get picked up without her having to market it at all. It’s an incredibly common writerly fantasy: there’s a knock on your door, and when you open it, there’s the perfect agent standing there, contract in hand.

“I heard that your work is wonderful,” the agent says. “Here, sign this, so I may sell the manuscript I have not yet read to that editor who is waiting at the car parked at your curb.”

Or perhaps in your preferred version, you go to a conference and pitch your work for the first time. The agent of your dreams, naturally, falls over backwards in his chair; after sal volitale has been administered to revive him from his faint, he cries, “That’s it! The book I’ve been looking for my whole professional life! I can die contented now!”

Or, still more common, you send your first query letter to an agent, and you receive a phone call two days later, asking to see the entire manuscript. Three days after you overnight it to New York, the agent calls to say that she stayed up all night reading it, and is dying to represent you. Could you fly to New York immediately, so she could introduce you to the people who are going to pay a million dollars for the film rights, as well as the publisher that wants to release your book two weeks hence?

I have nothing against a good fantasy (especially of the SF/Fantasy genre), but while you are trying to find an agent, please do not be swayed by daydreams. Don’t send out only one query at a time; it’s truly a waste of your efforts. Try to keep 7 or 8 out at any given moment.

This advice often comes as a shock to writers. “What do you mean, 7 or 8 at a time? I’ve been rejected ten times, and I thought that meant I should lock myself away and revise the book completely before I sent it out again!”

Feel free to lock yourself up and revise to your heart’s content, but if you have a completed manuscript in your desk drawer, you should try to keep a constant flow of query letters heading out your door. As they say in the biz, the only manuscript that can never be sold is the one that is never submitted.

There are two reasons keeping a constant flow is a good idea, professionally speaking. First, it’s never a good idea to allow a query letter to molder on your desktop: after awhile, that form letter can start to seem very personally damning, and a single rejection from a single agent can start to feel like an entire industry’s indictment of your work.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: one of the most self-destructive of conference-circuit rumors is the notion that if a book is good, it will automatically be picked up by the first agent that sees it. Or the fiftieth, for that matter.

This is simply untrue. It is not uncommon for wonderful books to go through dozens of queries, and even many rounds of query-revision-query-revision before being picked up. There are hundreds of reasons that agents and their screeners reject manuscripts, the most common being that they do not like to represent a particular kind of book.

So how precisely is such a rejection a reflection on the quality of the writing?

Keep on sending out those queries several hundred times, if necessary. Until you can blandish the right agent into reading your book, you’re just not going to know for sure whether it is marketable or not. Keep up the good work!

September 9, 2011January 19, 2017 - 8 Comments

Wrapping it all up and (not) tying it with a big, pretty bow — and an answer to yet another reader’s concern

I’m posting later than I intended this evening, campers — a trifle irritating, as I have a delightful guest post that I’d like to toss up bright and early tomorrow morning. I’m committed to answering any and all questions from readers, though, even if those questions crop up in posts from five years ago. (Yes, my blogging program alerts me.) It’s fine to leave questions on older posts, but please, everyone, try to match the post’s subject matter with the question you are asking. That way, readers with similar concerns are more likely to find and benefit from both question and answer.

If you can’t find something close to your topic on the exhaustive archive list conveniently located at the lower right-hand corner of this page, I’d like to ask you to do two things. First, leave your question in the comments section of my most recent post (again, to maximize its usefulness to other readers), and second, let me know that you couldn’t find an appropriate category on the archive list. I’m always eager to make that list panic-proof, so category suggestions are always welcome.

What extended my question-answering time today was a comment in the latter category: left on yesterday’s post, rather than in the archives. It was time-consuming not due to the complexity or originality of the comment, but because it contained a simple statement that I have heard quite a bit over the years: a complaint that my posts deal with writing and marketing issues of concern to writers in too much detail.

What rendered this particular complaint difficult to answer was not that the commenter was evidently irked that I had spent so many paragraphs on what was to him a fairly straightforward issue: whether to include a SASE in a query or submission packet. (He felt that the entire question could have been resolved in just a few words: you should.) But that was not the crux of yesterday’s post; it dealt with specifics about what kind of SASE to use, why, and when.

The commenter was not aware of that, though, because — and he was honest enough to tell me this point-blank — he hadn’t bothered to read the entire post before telling me that it was much too long for its subject matter. He concluded, therefore, that the only reason I could possibly want to discuss something as mundane as the logic about the SASE for more than a few paragraphs was that I liked the sound of my fingers hitting the keyboard.

Sigh.

I’m not going to waste everyone’s time by unpacking that logic. Nor am I going to bother to debate whether it’s worthwhile to go over the reasoning behind the sometimes perplexing practices of the publishing industry; that’s what I do here. I assume — correctly, I think — that on days when I post at length on topics that don’t interest any given reader, the members of the Author! Author! community are intelligent enough to turn their attention elsewhere for the nonce.

It has been a while since I explained why I explain things at such length, though, so allow me to devote the first few minutes of our time together to clarifying why I believe that in an online world stuffed to the gills with one-size-fits-all advice source purporting to tell aspiring writers precisely what to do in articles of 250 words or less, Author! Author! fills an important niche. My apologies to those of you who have heard this before, but true to form, I have a brand-new illustrative anecdote this time around.

I’m perfectly aware that there are plenty of aspiring writers out there in a hurry to find out basic information about how to query, submit, revise, format, etc.; that’s why I have structured the aforementioned archive list to be as specific as possible. Many of the categories are paraphrases of readers’ questions, in fact, so that writers with similar questions might find the answers relatively quickly. (Sound familiar?) Because I have been blogging on writing, querying, and submitting for over six years now, it’s probably not astonishing that I tend to revisit the more important topics from time to time.

Today’s, for instance. Those of you who have been querying and submitting for a while probably already know how to ship requested materials to agents. Indeed, you might have learned about it here; because it is vital, I revisit the topic at least once a year. But for some readers, it will be brand-new information. For other readers, particularly those who will be first encountering this post while searching for answers about shipping in the archives, it will be a supplement to (or perhaps a contradiction of) what they have learned from other sources, up to and including those super-short lists of what aspiring writers should do.

I believe I owe it to both those sets of readers to deal with the issues at hand as thoroughly as I would the first time I ever blogged about it, in sufficient detail and with enough illustrative examples so that a writer brand-new to the biz will come away from the post not only understanding what to do, but why. As I say early and often, I don’t believe any writer should follow a rule without knowing why adhering to it is a good idea — and what can happen if he eschews it.

There, in the proverbial nutshell, is my philosophy of blogging about writing. I’m here to explain the hows and whys behind the rules, so good writers can follow them better, increasing their chances of getting published. And when my clever and insightful readership presents me with intriguing follow-up questions, I squirrel them away until the next time I deal with the topic, to improve my treatment of it.

So are my posts long and detailed? Darned right.

I can see how my penchant for thoroughness might be a touch irritating to those seeking quick answers, but hey, there’s no shortage of those on the Internet. Have at it, and the best of luck searching. Frankly, I would much rather over-explain the occasional practicality here than to have even one of my readers make an avoidable gaffe.

Just in case anyone isn’t sure why (see what I just did there?), let me share the story of one of my favorite cookbook authors. Let’s call her Sheila. I’m not going to use her real name: this story was so infamous in publishing circles that for several decades, her name was synonymous with avoidable error. She’s a great cooking author, though, so I don’t want to revive the association.

Sheila’s story is worth knowing for any would-be author. Many years ago, back in the heyday of the cookbooks by amateur chefs like Julia Child, Sheila wrote a terrific debut cookbook: intriguing recipes well described, with amusing and enlightening anecdotes joining them. Her agent loved it; her editor loved it; her godmother, a well-known cooking writer herself, loved it enough to give it a spectacular back-jacket blurb.

Sheila was, in short, expected to be the next great cookbook author — so why do I think those of you fond of your kitchens may not be aware of her work? Quite simply, her cookbook contained a faux pas that got her publisher sued: a reader following her directions to the letter blew up an oven.

How is it possible that not only Sheila, but her agent, editor, godmother, every single reviewer, and the overwhelming majority of her readership missed that the instruction in question was so dangerous? Sheila had written the recipe while laboring under the assumption that anyone remotely interested in baking a pie might conceivably have read a cookbook before. Her target audience might be relied upon to know the terminology, right?

Tell that to the hapless reader who took add one can of sweetened condensed milk too literally, setting the unopened can in the middle of the pie pan, presuming, wrongly, that its role was to weigh down the crust While a more experienced cook might perhaps have wondered why Sheila would have gone out of her way to specify what needed to be inside a can used for this purpose, the eager first-time cookbook reader did not think to question the recipe until her stove went boom.

And so did Sheila’s career as a cookbook author, at least for many years. She became famous as a cautionary tale to those who would write about cookery: when producing a to-do list, don’t leave room for misinterpretation. The stakes are just too high to take a chance.

They are here, too: at Author! Author!, I routinely talk about how to present and modify your writing in order to render it more attractive to agents and editors. What could possibly be more important to get right than that? And why on earth should you follow a rule I set out if I don’t prove to you why it’s in your book’s best interest to adhere to it?

Allow me to reiterate, then: I don’t expect you to cling to my advice just because I say something will work. If you don’t understand what I am suggesting you should do — or what an agent, editor, or submission guidelines have asked you to do — by all means, ask. Some of my best posts have been sparked by readers’ questions; heck, so have many of my series. Even if it’s just a quick question on a past post, I would much, much rather spend some of my blogging time clarifying matters for my readers than to see even one of you commit the querying or submission equivalent of advising your readers to blow up their ovens.

So darned right, these posts are detailed; long may they be. I’m here to help good writers succeed.

Case in point: for the last couple of posts, I have been talking — yes, at length — about how to put together query packets, as well as their more illustrious cousins, submission packets. Even in these mercurial days of e-mailed queries, electronic submission, and Hubble telescope photographs of far-flung celestial bodies (I’m a sucker for a nice snapshot of Jupiter), most agencies still prefer paper submissions. Heck, many still insist on mailed queries as well.

Why? Well, fear of computer viruses, for one thing. But even more important: it’s so much easier for an electronic submission to get lost.

Hey, when Millicent the agency screener gets on an online submission reading roll, she hits the DELETE key more than any other. Not too surprising that her finger would slip occasionally, is it? Force of habit, really; the lady rejects a heck of a lot of manuscripts between lunch and checking out for the day.

For reasons both of tradition and prudence, then, a lot of writers are going to be in the market for shipping containers for their manuscripts in the months to come. Yet as insightful long-time reader Jen wrote in to ask some time back:

Sending off all those pages with nothing to protect them but the slim embrace of a USPS envelope seems to leave them too exposed. Where does one purchase a manuscript box?

An excellent question, Jen: many, many aspiring writers worry that a simple Manila envelope, or even the heavier-duty Priority Mail envelope favored by the US Postal Service, will not preserve their precious pages in pristine condition. Especially, as is all too common, if those pages are crammed into an envelope or container too small to hold them comfortably, or that smashes the SASE into them so hard that it leaves an indelible imprint in the paper.

Do I sense some of you scratching their heads? “But Anne,” head-scratchers everywhere ask, and bless their hearts for doing so, “once a submission is tucked into an envelope and mailed, it is completely out of the writer’s control. Surely, the Millicents who inhabit agencies, as well as the Maurys who screen submissions at publishing houses and their Aunt Mehitabels who judge contest entries, are fully aware that pages that arrive bent were probably mangled in transit, not by the writer who sent them. They can’t blame me for mashed mail, can they?”

Well, yes and no, itchy ones. Yes, pretty much everyone who has ever received a mauled letter is cognizant of the fact that envelopes do occasionally get caught in sorting machines, if not actually mauled by playful bands of orangutans with a penchant for playing volleyball with objects with pointy corners. Mail gets tossed around a fair amount in transit. So even a beautifully put-together submission packet may arrive a tad crumpled.

Do most professional readers cut the submitter slack for this? Sometimes, but if Millicent’s just burned her lip on that latté that she never seems to remember to let cool, it’s not going to take much for the next submission she opens to annoy her. I don’t know Aunt Mehitabel personally, but I have heard contest judges over the years complain vociferously to one another about the state in which entries have arrived on their reading desks. Indeed, I have been one of those complaining judges.

All of which is to say: appearances count. You should make an effort to get your submission to its intended recipient in as neat a state as possible.

How does one go about insuring that? The most straightforward way, as Jen suggests, is to ship it in a box designed for the purpose. Something, perhaps, along the lines of this:

Just kidding; we’re not looking for a medieval Bible box here. What most professional writers like to use looks a little something like this:

This is the modern manuscript box: sturdy white or brown cardboard with a lid that attached along one long side. Usually, a manuscript box will hold from 250 to 750 pages of text comfortably, without allowing the pages to slide from side to side.

While manuscript boxes are indeed very nice, they aren’t necessary for submission; the attached lid, while undoubtedly aesthetically pleasing, is not required, or even much appreciated at the agency end. Manuscripts are taken out of the boxes for perusal, anyway, so why fret about how the boxes that send them open?

In practice, any clean, previously-unused box large enough to hold all of the requested materials without crumpling them will work to mail a submission. Don’t waste your valuable energies badgering the manager of your local office supply emporium for an official manuscript box; you may only confuse him. Anything close to the right size will do, but err on the large side: it’s easier to pad a manuscript around the edges to fit in a big box than to bend it to squeeze into a small one.

Some of you are resisting the notion of using just any old box, aren’t you, rather than one specially constructed for the purpose? I’m not entirely surprised. I hear all the time from writers stressing out about what kind of box to use — over and above clean, sturdy, and appropriately-sized, that is — and not without good reason. In the old days — say, 30+ years ago — the author was expected to provide a box, and a rather nice one, then wrap it in plain brown paper for shipping.

These old boxes are beautiful, if you can still find one: dignified black cardboard, held together by shining brass brads. They were darned near immortal, too; I have several that members of my family routinely sent back and forth to their agents in the 1950s, back when sending a manuscript across the country entailed sending it on a multi-week trek. To this day, not a sheet of paper inside is wrinkled.

Ah, tradition. For sending a manuscript, though, there’s no need to pack it in anything so fancy — or indeed, anything extravagant. No agent is going to look down upon your submission because it arrives in an inexpensive box.

In fact, if you can get the requested materials there in one piece box-free — say, if it is an excerpt short enough to fit into a Manila folder or Priority Mail cardboard envelope without wrinkling — go ahead. This almost always will work for a partial or the briefer stack of materials acceptable to send in a query packet.

Do bear in mind, though, that for either a query or submission packet, you want to have your pages arrive looking fresh and unbent. Double-check that your manuscript will fit comfortably in its container in such a way that the pages are unlikely to wrinkle, crease, or — perish the thought! — tear.

Remember the Sanitary Author’s advice about printing all of your query and submission packet materials on bright white 20 lb. paper or better? This is part of the reason why. It honestly is penny-wise and pound-foolish to use cheap paper for submissions; not only does heavier paper ship better, but it’s less likely to wilt over the course of the multiple readings a successful submission will often see at an agency.

Good rule of thumb: if you can look at a stack of printed pages and see even a vague outline of page 2 while you’re examining page 1, your paper isn’t heavy enough.

Look for a box with the right footprint to ship a manuscript without too much internal shifting. To keep the manuscript from sliding around and getting crumpled, insert wads of bubble wrap or handfuls of peanuts around it, not wadded-up paper.

Yes, the latter is more environmentally-friendly, but we’re talking about presentation here. Avoid the temptation to use newspaper, too; newsprint stains.

Most office supply stores carry perfectly serviceable white boxes — Office Depot, for instance, stocks a serviceable recycled cardboard variety — but if you live in the greater Seattle area, funky plastic toy store Archie McPhee’s, of all places, routinely carries fabulous red and blue boxes exactly the right size for a 450-page manuscript WITH adorable little black plastic handles for about a buck each. My agent gets a kick out of ‘em. Fringe benefit: while you’re picking one up, you can also snag a bobble-head Edgar Allan Poe doll that bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to Robert Goulet:

If that’s not one-stop shopping, I should like to know what is.

Your local post office will probably stock manuscript-sized boxes as well, as does USPS online. Post offices often conceal some surprisingly inexpensive options behind those counters, so it is worth inquiring if you don’t see what you need on display.

Do be warned, though, that the USPS’ 8 1/2” x 11” boxes only LOOK as though they will fit a manuscript comfortably without bunching the pages. The actual footprint of the bottom of the box is the size of a piece of paper, so there is no wiggle room to, say, insert a stack of paper without wrinkling it.

Trust me, that’s not something you want to find out after you’ve already printed out your submission. If you’re in doubt about the internal size of a flattened-out box (as they tend to be at the post office), fold it into box shape and try placing a standard sheet of paper flat on the bottom. If it doesn’t lie completely flat, choose a larger box.

Yes, yes, I know: the USPS is purportedly the best postal service in the world, a boon to humanity, and one of the least expensive to boot. Their gallant carriers have been known to pursue their appointed rounds despite the proverbial sleet, hail, dark of night, and mean dogs. But when faced with an only apparently manuscript-ready box on a last-minute deadline, the thought must occur to even the most flag-proud: do the postal services of other countries confound their citizens in this way?

What do they expect anyone to put in an 8 1/2” x 11” box OTHER than a manuscript? A beach ball? A pony? A small automobile?

All that being said, far and away the most economical box source for US-based writers are those free all-you-can-stuff-in-it Priority Mail boxes that the post office provides:

Quite the sexy photo, isn’t it, considering that it’s of an object made of cardboard? Ravishing. If you don’t happen to mind all of the postal service propaganda printed all over it, these 12″ x 12″ x 5 1/2″ boxes work beautifully, with a little padding. (Stay away from those wadded-up newspapers, I tell you.)

While I’m on the subject of large boxes, if you’ve been asked to send more than one copy of a manuscript — not all that uncommon after you’ve been picked up by an agent — don’t even try to find a box that opens like a book: just use a standard shipping box. Insert a piece of colored paper between each copy, to render the copies easy to separate. Just make sure to use colored printer paper, not construction paper, or the color will rub off on your lovely manuscripts.

Whatever difficulties you may have finding an appropriately-sized box, DO NOT, under any circumstances, reuse a box clearly marked for some other purpose, such as holding dishwashing soap. As desirable as it might be for your pocketbook, your schedule, and the planet, never send your manuscript in a box that has already been used for another purpose. Millicent considers it tacky.

Don’t pretend you’ve never thought about doing this. We’ve all received (or sent) that box that began life as an mail-order shipping container, but is now covered with thick black marker, crossing out the original emporium’s name. My mother takes this process even farther, turning the lines intended to obfuscating that Amazon logo into little drawings of small creatures cavorting on a cardboard-and-ink landscape.

As dandy as this recycling effort is for birthday presents and the like, it’s not appropriate for shipping a submission. It’s unprofessional — and if there’s ever a time when you want your work to be presented as professionally as possible, it’s when you’re submitting it.

Think about it: do you really want your manuscript to arrive looking as if you just grabbed the nearest cardboard container? Or to prompt an allergy-prone Millicent to mutter between sneezes, “Why does this submission smell of fabric softener?” (One drawback of nicer paper: it soaks up ambient smells like a sponge. My memoir’s editor evidently smoked a couple of cartons over my manuscript, and even now, years later, the marked-up pages still smell like the employee handbook in a Marlboro factory.)

“But wait!” I hear the box-savvy cry, “those Amazon boxes are about 4 inches high, and my manuscript is about 3 inches high. It just cries out, ‘Stuff your manuscript into me and send me to an agent!’”

A word to the wise: don’t take advice from cardboard boxes; they are not noted for their brilliance. Spring for something new, and recycle that nice Amazon box for another purpose.

And you do know, I hope, that every time you send requested materials, you should write REQUESTED MATERIALS in great big letters in the lower left-hand corner of the submission envelope, don’t you? (If you have been asked to submit electronically, include the words REQUESTED MATERIALS in the subject line of the e-mail.) This will help your submission to land on the right desk, instead of in the slush pile or recycling bin.

Yes, readers who have had your hands raised since this post began? “This is all very helpful, Anne, but a bit superficial, literally. I want to know what goes inside that manuscript box and in what order.”

Okay, let’s pretend for a moment that you have just been asked to submit materials to the agent of your dreams. To be absolutely clear, I’m talking about REQUESTED materials here, not just sending pages to an agency that asks queriers to include the first chapter, a few pages, or a synopsis with a query — all of these would, in the industry’s eyes, be unsolicited submissions.

I know, it’s a trifle counter-intuitive that a blanket statement on a website, in an agency guide, or from a conference dais that a particular agent would like to receive these materials from all queriers doesn’t constitute solicitation, but it doesn’t. The logic runs thus: guidelines that recommend submitting extra material with a query are generic, aimed at any aspiring writer who might conceivably be considering sending a query.

By contrast, a solicited submission, a.k.a. requested materials, is one that an agent is waiting to see because she has asked a particular writer to send it following a successful pitch or query. Because the agent expressed positive interest in seeing those pages, the lucky requestee is fully justified in scrawling REQUESTED MATERIALS in letters two inches high in the lower right-hand corner of the envelope or shipping box, just to the left of the address, to assure that the submission lands on the right desk instead of the slush pile made up of, you guessed it, unsolicited manuscripts.

Everyone clear on the difference between solicited and unsolicited materials? Dandy.

Just as generic requests vary in what agents ask queriers to send, so do requests for solicited material. While every agency and small publishing house seems to have a slightly different idea of what constitutes a standard submission packet (word to the wise: read those requests carefully), here are the most commonly-requested constituent parts, in the order in which they are generally expected to appear in the packet:

1. Cover letter
You HAVE been sending cover letters with your submissions, right? Just sending a manuscript all by itself is considered a bit rude, as well as strategically unwise.

“Oh, please, Anne,” the submission-weary murmur. “Rude? What do you call making a querier write ANOTHER letter to an agent who has already agreed to read my work?”

I sympathize with the submission fatigue, weary ones, but don’t get your hackles up. In the first place, there’s no need for a long-winded missive — a simple thank-you to the agent for having asked to see the materials enclosed will do. It’s hardly onerous.

In the second place, the submitter is the one who benefits from including a cover letter — all the more so because so few writers remember to tuck one into their packets. An astonishingly high percentage of submissions arrive without a cover letter, and often without a title page as well, begging the question: what makes these submitting writers so positive that the requesting agent will still remember their queries well enough to render page one of chapter one instantly recognizable?

I’m not going to depress you by telling you just how unlikely this is to be the case. Suffice it to say that it’s in your best interest to assume that the person who heard your pitch or read your query won’t be the first person to screen your submission, for the exceedingly simple reason that it is, in fact, often a different person.

It doesn’t really make sense to presume that everyone who sets eyes on your manuscript will already be familiar with who you are and what you write. In fact, you should assume precisely the opposite. (Why do you think a properly-formatted manuscript has a slug line identifying the author on each and every page?) The poor strategic value of not being polite enough to identify your work and thank the agent for asking to see it aside, though, it’s very much in your self-interest to include a cover letter.

Does anyone out there want to take a guess at the practical reason omitting both a cover letter and a title page might render a submitter less likely to get picked up?

If you instantly cried, “Because it renders the agency’s contacting the submitter substantially more difficult!” give yourself a gold star for the day. Like a query letter and a title page, a good cover letter should include all of the sender’s contact information.

Trust me, the last response you want your submission to generate is a heart-felt, “Oh, it’s too bad we have no idea who sent us this or how to contact him or her; all we have is the author’s last name in the slug line. This saddens me, because I really liked this manuscript!”

Yes, that little piece of dialogue is pretty lousy, now that you mention it. But you get my point, right?

“Okay, Anne,” the former head-scratchers concede, “I should include a cover letter. What does it need to say?”

Glad you asked. Under most circumstances, all it needs to say is this:

Seriously, that’s all there is to it. Like any other thank-you letter, the courtesy lies more in the fact that the sender took the time to write it, rather than in what it actually says.

A couple of caveats:

(a) If you met the agent at a conference, mention that in the first paragraph of the letter, to help place your submission in context. As crushing as it may be for the writerly ego to contemplate, an agent who spent days on end listening to hundreds of pitches probably is not going to remember each one. No need to re-pitch, of course, but a gentle reminder never hurts.

While you’re at it, it’s not a bad idea to write the name of the conference on the outside of the envelope, along with REQUESTED MATERIALS. Heck, it’s a very good idea to write the conference’s name on the outside of a query to an agent one has heard speak at a conference, too, or to include the conference’s name in the subject line of a query e-mail. The point here is to render it pellucidly clear to the agent why you’re contacting her.

(b) If another agent is already reading all or part of the manuscript you’re sending — or has asked to see it — mention this in your cover letter. No need to say who it is or how long s/he has had it; just tell the recipient that s/he’s not the only one considering representing this book. Unless the agency has a policy forbidding simultaneous submissions, withholding this information will only generate resentment down the line if more than one agent wants to represent your book.

Yes, even if that agent to whom you submitted 9 months ago has never responded. Actually, it’s in your strategic interest to contact that non-responder to let her know that another agent now has your manuscript.

(c) Make sure ALL of your contact information is on the letter, either in the header (letterhead-style, as I have shown above) or under your signature. Again, you want to make sure that the agent of your dreams can call you up and rave about how much she loved your manuscript, right?

(d) Make absolutely certain that the letter includes the title of your book, just in case the letter and the manuscript end up on different desks. (Yes, it happens. Don’t ask; just prepare for the contingency.)

Everyone comfortable with the cover letter? For more tips on how to construct one with aplomb, please see COVER LETTERS FOR SUBMISSIONS (where do I come up with these obscure category titles?) on the archive list at right.

2. Title page
Always include this, if any manuscript pages have been requested — yes, even if you have already sent the first 50 pages, and are now sending the rest of the book.

Why? Long-time readers, chant it with me now: because the submission looks more professional that way.

Also, like the cover letter, a properly-constructed title page renders it easy for an agent to track you down. Believe me, if the agent of your dreams falls in love with your manuscript, you’re going to want to hear about it right away.

3. The requested pages in standard format, unbound in any way.
The operative word here is requested. If an agent or editor asked you for a partial, send PRECISELY the requested number of pages. Don’t fudge here — even if your novel features a tremendous cliffhanger on p. 51, if the agent of your dreams asked for the first 50 pages, send only the first 50 pages, period.

Actually, in this instance, you should send only the first 50 pages even if they do not end in a period. Even if the designated last page ends mid-sentence, stop there. When an agent or editor asks for a specific number of pages, send that number of pages — no more, no less.

They mean pages in standard manuscript format, by the way. It’s impossible to over-estimate the desirability of sending professionally-formatted submissions. If you’re brand-new to reading this blog or have somehow avoided my repeated and vehement posts on standard format for manuscripts over the last five years, please see the HOW TO FORMAT A MANUSCRIPT and STANDARD FORMAT ILLUSTRATED categories on the list at right.

For the benefit of those of you who are going to blow off that last piece of advice because you’re in a hurry — oh, I know that you’re out there — allow me to add a couple of little tidbits you would have learned from those posts on formatting: a manuscript intended for submission should not be bound in any way, and the first page of text should be page 1, not the title page.

4. Synopsis, if one was requested, clearly labeled AS a synopsis.
With fiction, when an outline is requested, they usually mean a synopsis, not the annotated table of contents appropriate for nonfiction. For nonfiction, an outline means an annotated table of contents. Most of the time, though, what an agent will ask to see for either is a synopsis.

5. Author bio, if one was requested.
An author bio is a one-page (double-spaced) or half-page (single-spaced) plus photo account of the submitting writer’s professional credentials. Typically, when an agent submits a manuscript or book proposal to editors, the author bio is tucked immediately at the end of the manuscript or sample chapter.

6. A SASE big enough to fit the entire manuscript.
This should be automatic by now, but to recap for those of you who will read this weeks or months from now in the archives: that’s a self-addressed, stamped envelope, for those of you new to the game, and for a submission or query packet, it should be large enough to send back every scrap of paper you’re mailing to the agency.

Emphasis on the stamped part: always use stamps, not metered postage, for the SASE. That’s probably going to be a lot of stamps: due to the paper-consumptive rigors of standard format, one rarely, if ever, meets a full-length manuscript that weighs less than two pounds. That means some luckless intern is going to have to tote it to the post office personally. Don’t make her life more difficult by sticking metered postage on the package.

If the requested pages fit in a Manila or Priority Mail envelope, it’s perfectly acceptable to fold a second one in half, stamp and address it, and tuck it in the submission package. But how does one handle this when using a box as a SASE?

Well, it would be impracticable to fold up another box inside. If you have been asked to send so many pages that you need to pack ‘em in a box, paper-clip a return mailing label and stamps to your cover letter, along with a polite request that the agent would affix both to the shipping box in the event of rejection. To be on the safe side, explain in your cover letter how you want them to reuse the box: peel the back off the mailing label, stick it over the old label, affix new postage, and seal.

Yes, that seems pretty basic, but have you heard the one about the can of sweetened condensed milk?

You can also nab one of those tough little everything-you-can-cram-in-here-is-one-price Priority Mail envelopes, self-address it, add postage, and stick it into the box. If you don’t care if your manuscript comes back to you a little bent, this is a wonderfully cash-conscious way to go. Those envelopes are surprisingly tough, in my experience — what are they made out of, kryptonite? — and while the pages don’t look too pretty after a cross-country trip in them, they do tend to arrive safely.

If you’re getting the manuscript back, it’s because Millicent’s rejected it. Who cares if the pages show up on your doorstep bent?

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m not a big fan of writers over-investing in impressive return postage — or of aspiring writers shelling out the dosh to overnight their submissions. Neither is necessary, and quick shipping most emphatically won’t get your work read faster.

Or taken more seriously. Don’t waste your money.

7. Optional extras.
For a partial, if you want to send a second, business-size envelope SASE as well, to make it easy for Millicent to request the rest of the manuscript, place it at the bottom of the packet (and mention it in your cover letter.)

It’s also a good idea to include a self-addressed, stamped postcard for the agency to mail to you to acknowledge receipt of the manuscript. They don’t always send it back, but usually, they do. To generate a chuckle in a hard-worked Millicent, I always liked to send a SASP that looked like this — although with a stamp attached, of course:

Don’t worry about this causing trouble; it doesn’t, and you will have proof that they received it. This is important, because manuscripts do go astray from time to time. You can also have the post office track the box for a low fee.

8. Pack it all in a durable container that will keep your submission from getting damaged en route.

Why, this suggestion seems strangely familiar, somehow…oh, yes, we spent half of this post talking about it. (Had I mentioned that I like to be thorough?)

And that, my friends, is the low-down on the submission packet. Don’t forget that every syllable you send to an agency is a writing sample: this is a time to use impeccable grammar, punctuation, and printing, please. No smudges or bent corners, either. Make it all pretty and hope for the best.

Oh, and open that can of sweetened condensed milk before you add it to the pie, will you? I would sleep better at night, and so would your oven. Keep up the good work!

September 8, 2011January 19, 2017 - 4 Comments

The logic behind the SASE, or, how to be prepared for something falling on you from a zeppelin

Last time, I broached the subject of the infamous and ubiquitously-requested SASE, industry-speak for the Stamped, Self-Addressed Envelope (get it?) that should accompany every mailed query letter and/or submission packet. (E-mailed queries and submissions cannot include them, obviously, as these forms of communication have no temporal heft to them.) There’s no such thing as a Get Out of Thinking About It pass on this one, I’m afraid: forgetting to include a SASE in a query is an instant-rejection offense at virtually every agency in North America.

Or, to put that in terms even Narcissus could understand, no matter how gifted, talented, and/or beautiful a writer or his work may happen to be, neglecting this small piece of industry etiquette effectively assures that Millicent the agency screener will not spend enough time with ol’ Narcissus’ query packet to find out that he and his work display any or all of these delightful attributes. The packet will simply be rejected unread.

And not merely because Narcissus’ nasty habit of assuming that the rules that apply to ordinary mortals could not possibly apply to him is darned annoying to anyone who has to deal with him professionally. If the agent decides to pick up the manuscript, the writer’s having included the expected SASE demonstrates a pleasing ability to follow directions — and if the agent decides to pass, s/he may return rejected pages at the writer’s expense.

Yes, I know: it’s trying to be expected to underwrite one’s own rejection, but there actually are some benefits for the SASE-provider in this arrangement. To name but one: actually finding out that your query has in fact been rejected, rather than gnawing your fingernails in perpetual worry for a year or two.

Oh, you would prefer to be left to wonder whether (a) the agency has a policy of not informing rejected queriers if the answer is no (quite common), (b) the agency has a policy of not reading incomplete query packets (like, say, those that omit a SASE), or (c) your packet got stuck sideways in the mailbox, and never reached the agency at all?

The expectation that an aspiring writer will always include a SASE with any kind of paper query or submission is universal, at least among U.S. agencies and publishers, so much so that I’ve noticed that many agencies don’t even explain what it means on their websites or listings in the standard guides anymore. It’s become one of those secret handshake things, a practice that the industry just assumes that any writer who is serious about getting published will magically know all about without being told.

Call me zany, but as those of you have been reading this blog for a while are already aware, I’m not a big fan of unspoken assumptions; they place the writer new to the game at a serious strategic disadvantage. So I hope those of you who have been at this for some time will forgive my taking a second post to explain to those new to querying what a SASE is and why, to put it bluntly, the writer is expected to pay the postage for a rejection letter or returned manuscript.

SASE logic seems to be counterintuitive for many aspiring writers. Contrary to popular opinion, a SASE shouldn’t always take the form of a business-size envelope; it varies according to what was sent in the first place. To accompany a single-page query, it’s letter-sized, but should you happen to be querying an agency whose guidelines call for writers to include more than five pages of additional materials (e.g., writing sample, synopsis, author bio, book proposal, a chapter or two), you’d be sending that in a Manila envelope, right? In that case, the SASE would need to be a second Manila envelope, stuffed inside the first, carrying sufficient materials to ship all of those additional materials back to you.

Oh, you hadn’t been thinking of the SASE in those terms? Or was that giant whoosh I heard not a collective gasp, but a whole bunch of eyebrows out there hitting the ceiling?

Probably the latter, I’m guessing, because I’m constantly meeting aspiring writers who are unaware that a SASE should also accompany a manuscript submission. That tends to come as a great big surprise to even writers who have been querying and submitting for a while: since the prevailing wisdom is that the point of the SASE is ease of getting back to a writer to say yes or no, it’s far from uncommon for submitters of 500-page manuscripts to include a simple business-size envelope as a SASE. While certainly understandable, this misses the primary goal of the SASE: ensuring the safe return of whatever a writer sends to an agency.

Thus, you should always include enough postage on your SASE that everything you submitted may be popped into it and mailed with a minimum of effort on the sender’s part. That means, in practice, including a shipping container (second envelope, box, or a shipping label to affix to the box in which you sent the manuscript) already addressed to you with enough postage to get all of those requested pages back to you in one piece.

Since all of that will need to be tucked into the same envelope or box that contains your query, any materials the agency’s submission guidelines request, and/or requested materials, it can get cumbersome, once the time comes to pack it all up. Not to say expensive, especially for writer submitting to US-based agencies from outside the country, who not only have to figure out what the return postage would be in dollars instead of their local currency, but have to wrap their eager fingertips around some US stamps.

Don’t worry, foreign readers: there’s a trick to it. I’ll be getting to that.

I’m constantly barraged with questions from readers about why, in the age of fairly universal paper recycling and cheap, high-quality printers, a writer shouldn’t just ask an agent to recycle a rejected manuscript. Quoth, for instance, clever reader Melospiza:

Why on earth would you want your manuscript back (after it has been rejected)? It won’t be pristine enough to send out again. Why spend the money? And any parcel over one pound can’t be dropped in a mailbox, but must be taken to the post office, not something an agent will appreciate. Let the agent recycle the paper and enclose a (business-size) SASE only.

Oh, would only that were possible, Melospiza, but there’s a rather basic, practical reason to include the SASE for safe return of the manuscript. Chant it with me now, campers: as with a SASEless query, not including a SASE in a submission is usually an automatic-rejection trigger.

Yes, you read that correctly: leaving a SASE out of the submission packet can, and often does, result in a submission’s being rejected unread; ask about it sometime at a writers’ conference. The vast majority of agents will be perfectly up front about the fact that they train their screeners accordingly.

The owners of all of those eyebrows are clutching their heads now, aren’t they, thinking of all of those SASEless submissions — or, more likely, submissions accompanied by only a #10 SASE, rather than one with sufficient postage for the manuscript’s return — they sent out in the dark days of yore. “Okay, I can understand why Millicent would reject SASE-free queries without reading them,” the head-clutchers cry, “but why, in heaven’s name, would an agent who asked to see pages reject them unread?”

Good question, retrospective panickers. The short answer: because it’s obvious to Millicent that a writer who submits without a manuscript-size SASE doesn’t know the secret handshake.

The longer answer is hardly more comforting, I’m afraid. In the publishing industry, it’s considered downright rude for a writer not to include a SASE both large enough and loaded down with enough pre-paid postage to send — wait for it — EVERYTHING enclosed back to the sender. If the SASE isn’t tucked into the packet, or if the postage is not sufficient, and if the agency is going to keep its side of the tacit agreement allowing it to read a writer’s unpublished work, it is going to have to shell out the dosh to mail the rejected manuscript back. Ditto with a query letter that arrives unaccompanied by a SASE.

The result in both cases is generally a form-letter rejection — which costs the agency not only the price of the return postage, but also an envelope and Millicent’s time to address it — or, as is increasingly popular, no response at all. Yes, even for a submission. Pages often go bye-bye, because it would be expensive for the agency to ship back the whole shebang.

I implore you, no matter how little you want to see that manuscript again, do not omit the SASE for the return of the manuscript. Unless, of course, the agency’s website or listing in one of the standard agency guides says specifically that they will recycle rejected manuscripts. (Practically none of them do, but check anyway.)

“You must be pulling our collective leg, Anne,” I hear some of you muttering. “Okay, maybe SASEless queries do tend to get rejected unread, but I can’t believe that it happens to submitted manuscripts or book proposals. By the time an agent is sufficiently interested in you to want to see actual chapters of your book, your foot is too firmly in the door for your submission to be tossed aside unread for a reason as unrelated to the quality of the writing as not including a SASE. I mean, really, what purpose would being that touchy serve?”

A fairly tangible one, actually: it would be one less manuscript for Millicent to read.

Remember, it’s her job to reject 98% of what crosses her desk; even a very successful agent at a giant agency seldom picks up more then 5 or 6 new clients per year, even including ones poached from other agencies. (Which happens all the time, by the way. It would astonish most aspiring writers to know just how many of us agented writers are unhappy with our current representation. As I say early and often, you don’t want just any agent to represent you — you want a well-connected, fully engaged agent who loves your writing and will defend it to the death.) Every submission that disqualifies itself on technical grounds is another step toward that ongoing goal of thinning the pack of contenders.

Do you really want to volunteer your precious manuscript for that particular kamikaze mission?

Admittedly, from the submitter’s point of view, a good argument could be made that this practice inevitably leads to, as Melospiza rightly points out, a big ol’ waste of money, not to mention trees, without really providing much benefit to the gentle, tolerant souls who actually pay for the return postage. After all, from the writer’s perspective, a SASE included with a submission is only going to be used if the news is bad. If the agency likes a partial, they’re going to ask to see the entire manuscript — which means your initial submission will get filed, you will send another packet (with another SASE), and your first SASE may well end up in the trash.

Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll never see it again, because it will end up in a file drawer in your new agent’s office. Fingers crossed!

If, on the other hand, the agent of your dreams does not like it, all you are doing by providing the postage is paying to get the news that they’re turning you down in a way that will make your postal carrier’s back ache, rather than via a nice, light #10 envelope. So why not just send the manuscript along with a business-size SASE, and be done with it?

Because that’s not how the industry works, that’s why. (See commentary above re: secret handshakes.)

If you’re willing to risk it, you could always include a line in the cover letter, politely asking the agency to recycle the manuscript if they decide not to offer representation and mentioning the business-sized SASE enclosed for their reply. Do be aware, however, that this strategy sometimes backfires with screeners trained to check first for a manuscript-sized SASE: it’s not unheard-of for the Millicents of the world to toss aside such a manuscript without reading the cover letter.

As I believe I may have mentioned before, I don’t make the rules of submission; I only try to render them comprehensible. Let’s all pray that when Millicent does engage in the summary rejection of the SASEless, she flings that precious ream of paper into a recycling bin.

Originally, the whole paper-wasting arrangement was set up this way in order to protect writers. The logic behind this one is so pre-computer — heck, it’s pre-recycling, if you don’t count Abe Lincoln’s scrawling the Gettysburg Address on the back of a used envelope — that it’s likely to be counterintuitive to anyone querying or submitting for the first time today.

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when books were widely read, writers didn’t need agents because publishing houses still read through their slush piles, and the photocopier had not yet been invented. Prior to the advent of personal computers (and nice laser printers in workplaces that might conceivably be accessible after the boss goes home for the day), you could not print out spare copies of your precious manuscript to submit to every Tom, Dick, and Random House in the biz, obviously. Nor could you attach a Word document to an e-mail and send it off via Pony Express. Or even pop down to the corner copy store to run off half a dozen copies.

Equally obviously, no sane human being would entrust her only copy of a manuscript to the vagaries of the mails. So how did writers reproduce their work to submit to several publishing houses or agencies simultaneously?

They retyped it, that’s how. Every single page, every single syllable, every single time.

Think those hardy souls wanted to get their rejected manuscripts back? Darned tootin’. It might save them weeks of retyping time.

My long-term readers will have heard my favorite concrete example of how these returned manuscripts helped writers before, but it’s such a terrific illustration of just how much the SASE used to assist the average aspiring writer that I have no qualms about trotting it out again. Back in the far-away 1950s, my mother, Kleo, was married to Philip, a struggling science fiction writer. While she toiled away at work and went to school, Philip spent his days composing short stories.

Dozens of them. Type, type, type, week in, week out. She would come home and edit them; he would type a revised version. One or the other of them would get a good idea, and they would collaborate in writing the result: one dictating, one typing. She would take them to writing classes and the magazine editors who were already publishing her brother’s SF short stories, returning with still more feedback. Off he went to type another draft.

From scratch. Every single time either of them wanted to change a word. Hard for those of us who write on computers even to imagine, isn’t it?

As writers did in those dark days prior to e-mail, Philip and Kleo stuffed each of those short stories into gray Manila envelopes with a second envelope folded up inside as a SASE and sent them off to any magazine that had evinced even the remotest interest in SF or fantasy. (Except for the ones that Kleo hand-sold by taking to a magazine editor, which is actually how Philip got his first story published. She was, in effect, his original agent. But I digress.)

Each time a short story was rejected — as, in the beginning, all of Philip’s and Kleo’s were — and landed once again in their mailbox with the accuracy of a well-flung boomerang, they acted as professional writers should act: they submitted the rejected story to another magazine immediately. To minimize retyping, they would iron any pages that had gotten bent in the mail, slip the manuscript into a fresh envelope (yes, with a fresh SASE), and pop it into the mail.

Since there were not very many magazines that accepted SF or fantasy back then, they had to keep impeccable records, to avoid sending a rejected story back to a magazine that had already refused it. But Philip kept typing away, and kept as many stories in circulation at once as possible.

How many? Well, no one knows for sure anymore — since occasionally the only copy of a story got sent by mistake, some inevitably got lost.

(Which reminds me to nag those of you sending out manuscripts in the computer age: when was the last time you made a back-up of your manuscript? If, heaven forfend, a gigantic anvil fell from one of those anvil-toting zeppelins we’re always seeing overhead these days onto your main writing space, would it crush both your computer and your back-ups? Do you really want to be crawling about in the ashes, frantically trying to find the remnants of your hard disk?)

One day, the young couple opened their front door to find 17 rejected manuscripts spread all over their minuscule front porch. Their tiny mailbox apparently hadn’t been able to hold that many emphatic expressions of “No!”

So what did the aspiring writers of yesteryear do when faced with that many rejections on the same day? Did they toss all of that paper into the recycling bins that had not yet been invented? Did they rend their garments and give up writing forever? Did they poison their perfectly nice mail carrier for bringing so much bad news all at once?

No, they did what professional writers did back then: Philip had his wife iron the pages so they could be sent out again and resubmitted.

Lest you find the story depressing, the science fiction writer was Philip K. Dick, and one of those stories was THE MINORITY REPORT. Which a director who shall remain nameless (because he changed the ending in a way that would have caused any author’s resentful spectre to dive-bomb LA, howling) made into a rather lucrative movie, decades later.

Which only goes to show you: contrary to the common writerly fantasy/daydream/self-flagellation-after-rejection theme, even the best writers generally have to brazen through quite a bit of rejection before hitting the big time. As my mother likes to say, the only manuscript that stands NO chance of getting published is the one that sits in the bottom drawer, unseen by human eyes.

Admittedly, it was not the most comforting lullaby to have sung above one’s cradle, but she knew whereat she spoke. It’s as true today as it was six decades ago, when there were no photocopying machines, no computers, and no guarantee that the copy you sent would ever be retrievable if it went astray in some publisher’s office.

For our purposes today, the important thing to take away from this story is not the warm glow from the implied pep talk (although that’s nice, too), but the understanding that agencies don’t ask for SASEs in order to inconvenience, annoy, or impoverish aspiring writers. They do it today for precisely the same reason that they did it in the 1950s: to get your work back to you as expeditiously as possible, so you may try its fortunes elsewhere.

You’re welcome.

Also, as I mentioned last time, the practice was intended to protect the writer’s copyright. Just as an e-mailed attachment could conceivably end up, through the magic of multiple forwarding, anywhere on the planet, a loose manuscript that isn’t either in an agent or editor’s office, safely tucked away in that proverbial bottom desk drawer, or being conveyed through sleet, snow, and/or dark of night between one and the other could in fact be stolen.

I know; creepy even to consider. But think about it: is it more or less likely than something pointy falling on your house from a zeppelin?

I’ll answer that one for you: it does happen from time to time, so a savvy writer keeps very, very good track of who precisely has his manuscript when. (If this prospect tends to keep you up at night, please see the SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT MY WORK BEING STOLEN? category on the list at right for tips on how to protect your work.)

Three other things of which a savvy writer keeps very good track: which agents she has already queried (and with what unsolicited-but-permitted extra materials), which already-queried agents have requested materials (and what they requested; every agency asks for the submission packet to contain different components), and which agents are still waiting for her to send them those materials. If an aspiring writer is querying and/or submitting to multiple agents at once — and she should, unless the agent of her dreams has a no simultaneous submissions policy — she had better maintain excellent records; otherwise, it’s just too easy to mix things up.

Or not to know where to send Query #18 when the first 17 SASEs turn up in her mailbox. Or her inbox.

Speaking of minding the details, a savvy writer also takes care when applies postage to her SASE. Let’s take a gander at what postage-related fears were keeping intrepid reader Rachel up at night:

I have a question about the SASE that you put in with your materials. I understand it was always better to use stamps so that the agent can just toss it in the outgoing mail bin at the agency. But I was talking to the postal clerks yesterday and they said that post-911 rules are now in effect: any stamped package over 13 ounces has to be brought to the post. I asked to get metered mail instead, and they said it wouldn’t work because it would have that date (yesterday) on it. A dilemma!

I explained my situation to them and the clerks suggested just using a priority stamp (and the same shipping box), because if a SASE were expected, then stamps are really the only way to go. Is that how they’re doing it now?

Good question, Rachel. Before I answer it, let’s clarify the situation by reiterating the difference between a query packet’s SASE (a missive containing the query letter + any unsolicited materials an agency’s website said were permissible to send with it) and one tucked into a submission (requested materials).

When sending a query, SASE use is pretty straightforward: the writer takes a second envelope, writes his own address on it, adds appropriate postage, folds it, and stuffs it — neatly, please, as becomes a Sanitary Author — into the query envelope. (Oh, like you’ve been able to get the SA out of your mind since yesterday’s post.)

When sending a submission packet, the process is similar, but the packaging is different. If the agent only asks to see limited number of pages, few enough that they could be comfortably placed in a Manila envelope without wrinkling them (the Sanitary Author deplores crumpled pages; so do many agents), all you need to do is take a second Manila envelope, self-address it, affix the same amount of postage you’re going to use to send the whole packet to the agency, fold it, and place it neatly within the submission envelope.

Don’t worry; I shall be devoting some of our collective time in the week to come to explaining how to handle a request for a partial. I wouldn’t leave you hanging.

SASE-wrangling becomes a bit trickier if you’ve been asked to send the entire manuscript, because that generally entails using a box. (For a detailed explanation of what types of box should and shouldn’t be used, complete with glamorous photographs of cardboard in its various manifestations, again, tune in tomorrow.)

Obviously, it’s going to be unwieldy to stuff a second box inside the first, so it’s completely acceptable just to include a self-addressed mailing label and postage. Be sure to mention both in your cover letter, so they won’t get lost on the agency end. (Again, don’t panic: I’ll be talking about how to pull off including such necessary-but-prosaic details gracefully early next week.

If you have already submitted a partial, and then the agent asks for the whole manuscript, don’t just send the rest of the pages: by the time they arrive, Millicent probably will not have a clear enough recollection of the partial just to pick up the story where your initial submission left off. (Heck, by then, Millicent may already have moved on to pastures new; the turnover amongst screeners can be pretty remarkable.) Send the entire manuscript, in the aforementioned box.

Equally obviously (but I’m going to mention it anyway, just in case), the stamps on the SASE need to be US stamps, if the agency is US-based. That requirement means that SASEing is invariably a great deal more challenging — and expensive — for writers in foreign climes querying or submitting to US agencies. The far-flung are not exempt from the SASE expectation, I’m afraid, which can make e-mailed querying a more attractive option.

Good news for the far-flung: the US Postal Service’s website sells stamps at face value, rather than at the exorbitant mark-up one frequently finds for them abroad. The USPS more than happy to ship ‘em to your doorstep in exotic climes so you may stick ‘em onto your SASE before popping your submission into the mail.

But let’s get back to the crux of Rachel’s question: has the post-9/11 alteration in post office policy altered what agencies expect to see on a SASE?

The last decade has indeed seen some changes in how agencies handle packages, but actually, most of them date from before 9/11, back to the anthrax scare. Before that, virtually no agency accepted electronic submissions. A few scary mailings later, and suddenly, agencies all over New York were opening e-mail accounts. Hey, they may not pay their Millicents much, but the average agency certainly doesn’t want its screeners to get sick from opening a poisoned query envelope.

E-mailed queries and submissions don’t carry the risk of that sort of infection (and I think we can all guess how the Sanitary Author would feel about that). They do, however, occasionally contain computer viruses, so few agents will open an attachment unless they have already specifically requested an electronic submission from a writer.

That’s why, in case you’d been wondering, most agencies have policies forbidding e-queriers from sending unsolicited materials as attachments. Too much risk of computer contamination. Instead, they will usually ask queriers to copy any permissible additional materials and paste them into the body of an e-mail.

Rachel’s clerk was quite right about heavier packages having to be physically carried into the post office by human being, rather than blithely dropped into a mailbox or dumped in a mailroom — a policy shift that would affect virtually any submitted full manuscript, since they tend to be heavy little critters. However, that most emphatically does not mean is that the agent is going to be taking a rejected manuscript to the post office herself, or even that the Millicent who screened it will. Some luckless agency intern will be toting a whole mess of them there every few days.

Or not; since the USPS changed its regulations in this respect, many agencies have side-stepped the return mail problem by ceasing to return submitted manuscripts to their writers at all. (Sensing a pattern here?) Check policies before you submit.

Interestingly, agencies that operate this way virtually always still expect submitters to include SASEs with their submissions. Go figure. The moral: unless you are querying or submitting electronically OR an agency specifically says it doesn’t use SASEs, you should always include one.

And always use actual stamps, rather than metered postage. It’s called a STAMPED, self-addressed envelope for a reason, you know. The goal here is not merely convenience in mailing, but the submitter’s paying for his own manuscript’s return. Regardless of whether that means tossing it into the nearest mailbox (which would still be possible for most partial manuscripts) or assigning Millicent to do it, stamps have always served the purpose best.

That being said, I must confess that I don’t quite understand the clerk’s recommendation to Rachel to affix Priority Mail postage to the SASE, unless he was either lobbying her to use a flat-rate Priority Mail envelope as a SASE (not a bad idea, especially if the submission is just a few chapters; they fold nicely into a submission envelope) or simply trying to hawk a more expensive stamp. The distinction between Priority Mail and regular mail is the speed with which it arrives; the ease of mailing is identical.

Buying a more expensive stamp or a cheaper one to affix to the SASE is entirely up to the writer; coughing up the dosh for speedier return is not going to impress Millicent. Like overnighting requested materials vs. sending them regular mail, whether a submitter elects to pay a shipper extra money to convey a manuscript from point A to point B is generally a matter of complete indifference to the agent receiving it, as long as it gets there in one piece.

(“And looking pretty,” adds the Sanitary Author. “None of those pesky wrinkles. Print your manuscript on nice, bright-white, 20-pound paper while you’re at it, please. It’s aesthetically more pleasing than the cheap stuff.”)

To be blunt about it, the agent has absolutely no reason to care how quickly a rejected manuscript reaches its submitter. All she’s going to care about is whether you’ve included the means to mail it back to you at your expense, not hers.

And that, my friends, is the logic that most agencies’ listings in the standard agency guides and websites compress into the terse advice Include SASE. Apparently, somewhere on earth, there lurks a tribe of natural-born queriers who realize from infancy precisely what that means, so it requires no further explanation.

I’ll bet our old pal, the Sanitary Author, is one of that happy breed. For the rest of us, learning how agencies work requires a bit of homework — and the asking of trenchant questions. Keep up the good work!

March 21, 2011 - No Comments

Bursting the boundaries: Author! Author! Rings True freestyle category winners John Turley and Fiona Maddock

John, author of Macondo 20/20

Fiona, author of Infinite Loop

Welcome to the second group of winning entries in the Author! Author! Rings True literary competition. Today, I am delighted to be bringing you the extremely interesting top entries Category III: fiction that could legitimately fit into several book categories, John Turley and Fiona Maddock. Well done, both!

As shall be the case with those who carried off top honors in each of the Rings True categories, I shall be discussing page 1 and a synopsis with Heidi Durrow, author of the recent literary fiction debut, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, now available in paperback. Heidi was generous enough to help me critique these intriguing pages.

We shall be approaching today’s winners slightly differently than our last set, however. Because the author’s personality (or, more accurately, public persona plus platform) is part of what is being pitched in memoir, we began the previous prize post with each winner’s bio, then moved on to her first page and synopsis. With fiction, however, the writer’s platform is significantly less important at the querying and submission stages — or, to put it as bluntly as our old pal Millicent the agency screener might, all the charm in the world won’t make up for a story that doesn’t grab her on page 1.

As they say in the biz, what matters is the writing. Oh, and the query’s being aimed at an agent or editor with a solid track record of handling books in that manuscript’s book category.

Why? Chant it with me now, long-time readers of this blog: since no agent represents every kind of book, it’s a waste of time to query those who do not habitually handle books like yours. Queries addressed to agents who do not represent the book category in question get rejected automatically; pervasive writerly fantasy to the contrary, Millicent will not make an exception for a submission that happens to be well-written. Therefore, selecting the appropriate category for your manuscript is vital.

As the gargantuan wail of writerly angst can attest, many, if not most, aspiring writers find this imperative a tad stressful. “What if I get it wrong?” they fret, and who can blame them? “I hate the idea of my work being pigeonholed.”

While this attitude is completely understandable, it also represents a fairly complete lack of comprehension for how books are marketed. All books currently published in the United States have been pigeonholed — that’s how the hardworking employees of Barnes & Noble and other brick-and-mortar bookstores know where to shelve them. It’s also how book buyers for those stores look for what to stock, how book distributors describe their current offerings, how publishers think of their lists, and how editors’ job descriptions limit what they can acquire. It thus follows as night the day that if agents want to pitch books, they must also adhere to the prevailing practice of assigning each client’s projects to already-established book categories.

Which is to say: a book category is nothing but a conceptual container, intended to help a manuscript end up on the desk of someone who can actually bring it to publication. Basically, these categories exist to save everyone time and effort, including the writer.

Still don’t believe me? All right, let’s take a gander at today’s category-defying entries. Image that you are sitting in Millicent’s desk chair: if you want to recommend these manuscripts to your boss, the agent, you will need to be able to tell her in a sentence or two what each book is about. You will also have to assign it to a category.

Everyone clear on the brief? Excellent. First, here is the first page of John Turley’s MACONDO 20-20. Ready, set, screen!

How did you do? Were you able to categorize it? Or — and I hope this is the case, given how much attention we’ve devoted in recent weeks to learning to spot small problems on manuscript pages — were you too distracted by these details to focus on book category?

On the off chance that some of you were not as distracted by them as Millicent would have been, here’s that first page again with the formatting, punctuation, and word use problems corrected. Notice how much correcting these minuscule matters changes how it reads.

Amazing what a difference those small revisions make, is it not? Now, we may return to our initial question: how would Millicent categorize this book?

If you’re having some trouble, step back and ask yourself an even more basic question: based on this page alone, is this book fiction or nonfiction?

Oh, you may laugh, but you would be surprised at how often it’s not possible to tell from an opening page — or how frequently queriers leave this pertinent fact out of their queries. But since there is no such thing in the publishing world as a book that’s sort of fiction, sort of nonfiction, it’s honestly not in a writer’s interest to make Millicent guess which a manuscript is.

Of course, I already know which, because I have John’s synopsis sitting in front of me. Before we get to it, however, let’s keep our nit-picking hats on and peruse Fiona Maddock’s entry. Much to Millicent’s relief, it’s substantially simpler to categorize — or is it?

If you found your focus shifting from questions of category, spelling, and even writing almost immediately, congratulations: you’re starting to read like a pro. (And if you instantly noted the missing slug line, you’re reading like Millicent.)

If not — which would be quite understandable in this case; it’s one heck of an opening — here’s that page again as a professional reader would have preferred to see it, so you may compare formatting and punctuation directly.

If you did not catch the problems the first time around, do not despair — you’re not only like the overwhelming majority of submitters, but very much like the general reading public. These days, we’re also used to the pervasive typos brought on by the rise in on-screen editing that small things like using dashes correctly or adding commas where they are necessary may well seem like piddling details, unworthy of contemplation.

To those who love literature and have devoted their lives to its publications, however, these seemingly small gaffes are far from irrelevant. In these days of dwindling staffs, prose-polishing is the writer’s responsibility, an essential part of the job description. These manuscript faux pas are also important because to a professional’s eye, they indicate that the author is either too busy to proofread her own work between revisions or just isn’t very attentive to detail.

Either way, the Millicent can predict pretty confidently from page 1 that the rest of the manuscript will contain similar problems — and thus that this writer would be more time-consuming (and therefore expensive) to represent than others with similarly compelling stories and talent. They know from long experience that if a writer does not consistently produce clean manuscripts, some luckless soul at the agency and/or publishing house will have to invest valuable hours in polishing the prose.

They also tend to suspect that a submitter who has not invested the time in learning the rules of standard format — which, lest we forget, people in the publishing world believe to be so pervasive that a writer would have to be deliberately avoiding in order not to apprehend them — is going to have difficulty following directions from an agent or editor. So while forgetting (or, more commonly, not being aware) that standard format requires a space at either end of a dash, or that dashes in manuscripts should be doubled, or that each page needs a slug line may be easy for an aspiring writer to overlook, to Millicent, it’s all part of the diagnosis of the submission.

I’m bringing this up not to chide today’s winners, but because I couldn’t resist the object lesson: even when the writing and the premise is this good, presentation matters. Please, for your book’s sake, don’t ever assume that a professional reader is going to cut your manuscript slack because s/he likes the writing or considers the subject matter intriguing.

Speaking of diagnosis and subject matter, how have you been coming with your categorization projects? Let’s turn to our winners’ 1-page synopses and bios to see if they offer any clues.

Ah, a forest of hands just shot into the air out there. “But Anne,” those who were paying close attention at the beginning of this post protest, and rightly so. “You said that for fiction, the writer’s platform does not matter nearly so much as for nonfiction. I don’t expect that every police procedural to be written by a police officer, any more than I would expect a middle-grade novel about an undersea soccer league to be penned by a mermaid. So why would a fiction-screening Millicent glance at a bio at all until her agency had already decided to pick up a client, much less after reading only the first page of a submission?”

You’re probably right, oh attentive ones — generally speaking, even a professional reader who really loves a fiction manuscript will not read the bio until fairly late in the game. After Millie has finished the submission, she might well scan the bio for additional selling points to mention to her boss. (“This safari novel is great — and the writer once had three toes bitten off by a lion!”)

In the case of John’s manuscript, any expertise he might have in offshore drilling or marine biology might well render his take on a certain recent oil spill more credible for readers. That’s going to be especially true if the book is nonfiction, but because any major event in the news is likely to generate a few novels, an extensive background in the subject matter would help set his book apart from the rest.

Then, too, our goal here is to establish these books’ respective categories, right? Although most of you have probably made an educated guess that Fiona’s book category would fall into the fiction range, from her first page alone, it’s also possible that she’s written a memoir about being a plastic surgery survivor.

The suspense is killing me. Let’s take a gander at her synopsis and bio.

Fiona Maddock is a self-taught artist and writer. She’s a secret scribbler and a closet geek. She’s travelled across Europe, India and round the world. She’s tinkered around with web sites and built on-line art galleries for her work. In 2010, she graduated from the University of Reading with a BSc in Information Technology and this experience inspired her to write science fiction. She lives in Reading, United Kingdom and spends her time on her fiction writing, blogging and supporting disabled students at uni. Contact her through her blog, Novel Thinking.

Eureka! Although she’s just come out and told us what her chosen book category is in her bio — an unusual choice, and one that I think is an inefficient use of page space in what is already a rather information-light bio by U.S. standards — actually, the synopsis renders it perfectly clear. There’s no reason to hesitate for even a moment in assigning this book permanently to the science fiction category.

I have to confess, it always strikes me as a trifle apologetic when writers insist upon including the information that they are self-taught in their bios — or queries, where that fact pops up with astonishing frequency. It’s a statement guaranteed to perplex Millicent: the vast majority of published writers were self-taught; while an M.F.A. in writing makes for some nice ECQLC (Eye-Catching Query Letter Candy), and thus might render Millicent a trifle more likely to ask to see pages, it won’t help necessarily help a submission’s chances. The knowledge that a writer taught herself the ropes, however, isn’t unusual enough to strike Millicent one way or the other. Besides, to a pro, the mere fact that the bio mentions no writing credentials implies that the writer has not had any formal training.

That’s mere quibbling, however, over a quite exciting first page and synopsis — and a sultry authorial voice that draws the reader into the story, pronto. Here’s what Heidi and I had to say about them.

While Fiona’s synopsis is still fresh in our collective mind, I’d like to flag a very, very common Millicents’ pet peeve: placing words and phrases within quotation marks that are not actually quotes. Remember, professional readers are paid to be hyper-literal: if words are presented within quotation marks, they will expect that either (a) those words are dialogue, (b) the words within the quotes are intended ironically, in a manner that casts doubt on the aptness of the moniker, or (c) the words within quotes are the title of a short story. Thus, while “Hi, Stan,” or she was wearing a “Chanel” suit would not cause our Millie’s eyebrows to elevate, the fact that one of the characters’ names is consistently presented within quotation marks would send them rocketing into her hairline. That’s especially likely to happen with this synopsis, as Fiona has used UK-proper single quotation marks, rather than US-proper doubled ones. (Also, when quoted words end a sentence, the period belongs within the quotation marks, not outside.) As we have been discussing in the comments lately, while UK and Canadian formatting and spelling are perfectly correct for manuscripts being submitted in those countries, a US-based Millicent will expect every manuscript she sees to be in American English. (Unless, of course, what she’s seeing is about to be reprinted domestically after successful publication elsewhere in the English-speaking world.) Why? Chant it with me now, those of you who paid close attention above: in the current literary market, the writer, not agent, is generally held to be responsible for proofreading the manuscript. If Millicent approves a submission, but the pages of a story not set in the UK and intended for publication in the US do not adhere consistently to prevailing US standards, some luckless individual will have to make all of those tiny changes individually. I’m bringing this up not merely because many, many UK-based science fiction and fantasy writers query New York-based agents every year — it’s a significantly stronger market here, one that supports quite a few more agents — but also because I’d rather like to be able to buy Fiona’s book over here someday. And here, the little things often do make the vital difference in a submission. Let’s move on to John’s synopsis and bio. Intriguingly, they render the question of book category even more complex than what we were facing on page 1. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-synopsis.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Turley-synopsis.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley Macondo synopsis" width="466" height="603" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14616"/></a> <blockquote> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/JAT-Photo-for-BIO.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/JAT-Photo-for-BIO-150x150.jpg" alt="" title="John Turley author photo" width="75" height="75" class="aligncenter size-thumbnail wp-image-14593"/></a>John Turley grew up in San Diego, California, loving rocks and the sea. Advanced degrees in petroleum engineering and ocean engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Miami preceded a three-year professorship and propelled him into the world of offshore drilling. His drilling-management responsibilities with a major oil-and-gas company began with the Gulf of Mexico, evolved to the North Sea, were bolstered by Harvard Business School, and culminated with management of worldwide drilling. He elected to retire early as an officer of the company to focus on writing. In his second career, Turley writes novel-length fiction and short stories. In 2008, he won Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ prestigious Colorado Gold award for his mystery Body Shots (think of Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip, but the sharks win). He describes his recently completed novel, Macondo 20-20, as a facts-based, on-the-rig, character-driven story about the Gulf of Mexico well that became the infamous BP blowout. The Turleys live in Littleton, Colorado. On a lake. By a lot of rocks. </blockquote> Eureka again! John does in fact have precisely the credentials to induce either a nonfiction- or fiction-representing agency’s Millicent to leap squealing from her desk chair and go running into her boss’ office, exclaiming, “This guy is going to be a GREAT interview! He’s got a wonderful platform for writing about the platform!” But have these additional tidbits cleared up the question of book category? Here’s what Heidi and I had to say on the subject. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UyXthmAkY-o?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> So have we resolved the question of book category? I’m afraid not, at least not without reading more of the manuscript: as the last line of the synopsis states point-blank, MACONDO 20-20 is a mixture of fiction and narrative nonfiction; unfortunately, in the current literary market, there is no book category for such a mix. Fiction is fiction, nonfiction nonfiction, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Now, of course, we’ve all seen books that are in fact made up of both fiction and nonfiction; during the height of the narrative nonfiction craze, such hybrids were rather common, often labeled as based on a true story to save the author a few legal headaches. Part of the definitional problem with hybrids lies outside the publishing world. To the average person, nonfiction is true and fiction is false, period: thus the huge scandal when James Frey’s A MILLION LITTLE PIECES turned out to contain a few fictionalized episodes. To those who write, represent, and edit books, however, the line between fiction and nonfiction can be far less clear: we all know novelists who import real-life incidents virtually wholesale into works of fiction, as well as nonfiction writers who tweak reality in order to make it a slightly better story. Heck, I know an exceedingly well-established short story author/essayist who says she never knows for sure whether her latest work is fiction or nonfiction until her agent sells it to an editor. Who promptly labels it as either fiction or nonfiction. The prevailing logic is that the public simply doesn’t like ambiguity. I wonder about that, since creative nonfiction remains so popular. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, creative nonfiction is the practice of using fiction-writing techniques to write a true story. The usual examples are Truman Capote’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Blood-Truman-Capote/dp/0375507906/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300777134&sr=1-1">IN COLD BLOOD</a> (or the lesser-known but to my mind more interesting short piece “Hand-Carved Coffins” in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Music-Chameleons-Truman-Capote/dp/0679745661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1300777286&sr=1-1">MUSIC FOR CHAMELEONS</a>, John Berendt’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Garden-Good-Evil-Savannah/dp/0679763317/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300777176&sr=1-3">MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL</a>, and most of the opus of Tom Wolfe. The writer essentially sticks to the truth, typically backing it up with massive research, but rather than maintaining a journalistic narrative distance from the subject matter, the narrative places the reader in the moment, as in a novel. Depending upon the current mix of fiction and nonfiction in John’s manuscript, narrative nonfiction might therefore be an excellent choice — especially if the manuscript is not yet completed. Narrative nonfiction, like other nonfiction, is typically sold not on a full manuscript, but via book proposal. (If you’re curious about how much work that would be, John, you might want to skim through the HOW TO WRITE A BOOK PROPOSAL category on the archive list located on the lower right-hand side of this page.) However, the synopsis makes it pretty clear that the book as it stands is fiction. That’s potentially great news, too: this is a fantastic premise for a thriller, and he’s already got the pacing down cold. Thriller expectations would dictate keeping any political message pretty subtle, however. John could still pull upon his experience to lend insight and credibility to the narrative, but he would not be speaking as an expert per se. It all depends upon what he wants this intriguing book to achieve — and how he wants to make his mark as a writer. Heidi and I could not resist speculating a little. While I was at it, I introduced her to Millicent. <iframe loading="lazy" width="500" height="281" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aCYjepAmfpg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/> The scope of the story, then, is the decisive factor here. Which side of the fiction/nonfiction fence John ultimately chooses — whether to label it narrative nonfiction and follow real-life characters (which would make the best use of his credentials, and thus probably be easier to sell) or a thriller set within real events (which I suspect is closer to the manuscript he currently has in hand — will determine how the synopsis would need to be revised. As compelling as the story told in the synopsis is, its jumble of fiction and nonfiction is just too likely to leave Millicent wondering, “So where would this book sit in a bookstore?” How are fiction and nonfiction synopses different, you ask? Well, a synopsis for a novel tells its story directly, as a story. It introduces the protagonist(s), their environment, and the challenges they face. In a nonfiction synopsis, on the other hand, sets up the central premise or argument of the book, makes it clear to the reader what is at stake, and establishes the writer’s platform. In a novel synopsis, it’s usually not very effective to review the book or talk about it in analytical terms — or, to borrow Millicent’s term for a synopsis that professes to analyze the book in question, high school term paper. Phrases like the reader follows… or review-like qualitative statements about the book merely distance the reader from the story being told. Why is distance a problem in a fiction synopsis? Part of its point of a fiction synopsis is to show not just the plot’s many twists, but to demonstrate that the writer is a good storyteller. That’s a lot harder to pull off if the reader is told about the characters in summary terms (Antigone is brave, resilient, and doomed.) than if the characters are revealed — yes, even in a synopsis as short as a page — through their actions (Torn between conflicting family loyalties, Antigone defies her uncle and secretly buries her slaughtered brothers.) Nor is it considered proper to discuss the writer’s platform in a novel’s synopsis, for the same reason that a novelist’s author bio is not typically read until late in the game: for fiction, expert credentials matter less. By presenting a novel in the terms Millicent would expect to see used to describe nonfiction, both professional readers eager to read fiction and those seeking nonfiction on this topic are likely to be confused. Again, a copse of raised hands has arisen in the ether. “Um, Anne? Am I alone in finding it rather ironic that you should be devoting so much of the prize post for Category III: fiction that could legitimately fit into several book categories to trying to nailing down book categories for John and Fiona? Couldn’t we just, you know, revel in their books’ not fitting into pre-defined molds?” Well, we could, irony-lovers, but frankly, I would rather see these two talented writers sailing over the many hurdles between finished manuscript and publication as quickly and easily as possible. Not committing to a book category generally stretches out the agent-seeking process, for the exceedingly simple reason that it’s far, far harder to track down agents who represent your kind of book if you don’t know what agents would call your kind of book. It also tends to drag out the process if you do know, but are unwilling to narrow your agent search to the one or two categories that best fit your book. Embracing many categories may render it easier to compile a long list of agents to query, but sadly, there’s no submission less painful to reject than one that does not fit comfortably into an agent’s category preferences. Yes, no matter how wonderful the book in question may be. Remember, Millicent is under orders. Even if a miscategorized submission causes her to exclaim, “Oh, the writing here is nice, and the premise intriguing,” she has been trained to add regretfully, “but my boss doesn’t represent this kind of book. Next!” Fiona and John’s first pages are too good to deserve such a fate. Choosing an apt book category is the first step toward successful querying and submission, enabling the writer to focus upon both the norms of that part of the literary market and why the book will appeal to those readers. Best of luck in the search, John and Fiona, and again, many thanks to Heidi Durrow for her trenchant analysis. Keep your eyes peeled for those vital small details, everybody, and keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4226" class="post-4226 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-approaching-agents-online-or-by-e-mail category-e-mailing-queries category-formatpalooza category-formatting-a-book-manuscript-a-step-by-step-guide category-how-to-format-an-e-mailed-query category-how-to-put-together-a-query-packet category-how-to-query-via-e-mail category-industry-etiquette category-query-sample-pages category-query-letters-for-beginners category-query-packets-and-things-that-go-in-them category-querying category-querying-faux-pas category-querying-forms-on-agency-websites category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-querying-via-e-mail-or-online category-turn-around-times category-what-an-agent-will-expect-a-new-client-to-know-about-the-publishing-industry-a-crash-course"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/01/23/just-what-am-i-getting-myself-into-part-ivformatpalooza-part-xxiv-the-e-mailed-query-6/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/approaching-agents-online-or-by-e-mail/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2011-01-23T00:00:00+00:00">January 23, 2011</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/01/23/just-what-am-i-getting-myself-into-part-ivformatpalooza-part-xxiv-the-e-mailed-query-6/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/approaching-agents-online-or-by-e-mail/#comments">8 Comments on Just what am I getting myself into? Part IV/Formatpalooza, part XXIV: the e-mailed query</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2011/01/23/just-what-am-i-getting-myself-into-part-ivformatpalooza-part-xxiv-the-e-mailed-query-6/agents-landing-the-right-one-for-your-book/approaching-agents-online-or-by-e-mail/" rel="bookmark">Just what am I getting myself into? Part IV/Formatpalooza, part XXIV: the e-mailed query</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/colorful-flashing-lights-2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/colorful-flashing-lights-2.jpg" alt="" title="colorful flashing lights 2" width="512" height="381" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14261"/></a> Last time, if you will recall, we bent our substantial collective cranial capacity to the fascinating question of what happens to a query or submission after it arrives at an agency, with particular emphasis upon a subject endlessly hypnotic to agent-seeking writers everywhere, submission gaffes that might prompt our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, to snap into instant rejection-on-sight mode. Within that context, we dwelt long and hard upon the ways in which an electronic submission — i.e., pages that the agent has actually asked a writer to send via e-mail — might be received differently than a paper submission. In case any of you missed that discussion, allow me to summarize it for you: it’s significantly faster to reject an electronic submission or query. Not to mention immensely easier to lose one or the other accidentally. Why, you ask? Have you tried to lift a 400-page manuscript lately? The darned things are heavy. Which is, of course, one of the reasons that more and more agencies are permitting — nay, even insisting upon — electronic submissions: it keeps them from being buried in paper, and their Millicents are less likely to rupture a spleen while processing Monday morning’s influx of queries and submissions. Oh, and a Kindle is quite a bit lighter to tote onto an airplane than fifteen full-length manuscripts. But lest any of us kid ourselves, electronic submissions were practically unheard-of prior to the 2001 anthrax scare; prior to that, the overwhelming majority of US-based agencies did not even have websites. Immediately after those poisoned envelopes hit the news, however, quite a few agencies abruptly began accepting e-queries for the first time. Even in an industry where working one’s way up has long been the norm, expecting Millicent to risk her life by opening envelopes was considered a bit de trop. (Hey, she may be paid very much — heck, at some agencies, she is an intern — but our Millie is a much-valued member of the agency team.) They’ve been on the rise ever since; indeed, some agencies (but not most, by any stretch of the imagination) now accept only e-mailed queries. Others (but again, a minority) ask queriers to fill out an electronic form instead. Most of these forms allow writers to paste a query letter into the form, but some only allow queriers to type in a limited amount of information, with perhaps a space to paste in the first few pages of the manuscript. Have these developments been good or bad for aspiring writers? Like so many aspects of both the changing publishing industry and technological advance, the answer is both. There are, of course, distinct advantages to e-querying, although not as many as there were five years ago: it’s a significantly less expensive option for writers querying US-based agents from other countries, for instance. When computer-savvy agents first began accepting e-queries, they did tend to respond faster than their counterparts who worked purely in paper. Then, too, junior agents frequently screened their own e-mail for queries, rather than relying upon a Millicent. And even today, if an agency does indeed accept e-mailed queries, the querier may hear back a trifle more quickly and/or be slightly more likely to reach the agent herself by sending an e-mail. Did the Internet-lovers out there just do a double-take? Yes, it’s true: even at this late date, there are many agents who will not read e-mailed queries. Ever. Period. So before you even consider this option, check one of the standard agency guides to make sure it’s acceptable. (If you are unfamiliar with how to use an agency guide — the shorthand can be tricky — please see the HOW TO READ AN AGENCY LISTING category at right.) Or the agency’s website. If it has one. Yes, seriously. Contrary to widespread writerly assumption, not every agency has a site posted on the web. This means that simply doing a web search under literary agency will not necessarily provide you with an exhaustive list of all of your representation possibilities. (For tips on how to come up with a list of agents to query, check out the HOW TO FIND AGENTS TO QUERY category on the list at right. How do I come up with these obscure category titles, anyway?) But let’s assume for the moment that the agent of your dreams does indeed accept both paper and e-queries. Which is more to your advantage to send? Well, it depends on the agency — and your timeline. You might well hear back about an e-query within a matter of hours, a most unlikely outcome for a paper query; then again, you might not. As I mentioned last time, turn-around times in agencies have gotten significantly longer over the last few years: what used to take just a couple of weeks now often takes a couple of months. Or more. However, if an agency’s submission guidelines state point-blank that they do not respond to e-mailed queries unless they are interested, but that they do send out actual replies to mailed queries that include SASEs (a fairly common policy, amongst agencies that accept both), then it might be very much worth your while to query that agency via regular mail. Especially if you happen to be one of the vast majority of queriers who prefers to send out only one or two queries and wait until the agent(s) respond(s) before sending out any others: if that’s your strategy, you should be avoiding non-responders like the proverbial plague. I frown upon the one-by-one strategy, by the way, and not just for electronic queries. Your time is just too valuable. Think about it: if you have six hot prospects on your querying list, and it takes two months on average to hear back on each, it will take you a year to query them all. But since practically no agencies insist upon exclusive queries anymore, why would you do that, when you could send out all six queries in the first week — and move on to another 6 if those do not garner the response you want? Stop groaning. I would be as delighted as you if your first query happened to hit precisely the right Millicent working for precisely the right agent on precisely the right day — and not thirty seconds after she just burned her lip on that latte she always seems to be too impatient to allow to cool. However, even for beautifully-written first books by immensely talented aspiring writers, that’s exceedingly rare; finding the right fit for a book can be very time-consuming. It’s only prudent to plan to query widely. Is that one-at-a-time strategy starting to seem less appealing yet? Or the prospect of hearing back sooner on any given query like a positive boon? The relatively quicker response time on e-queries is not always an advantage, however. The human eye reads, on average, 70% faster on a backlit screen than on paper — not an insignificant increase, when Millicent is already skimming queries at top speed. She’s unlikely to have time for second thoughts: once her always-itchy trigger finger taps that DELETE key, that query is gone. Which suggests a troubling philosophical question: isn’t the outcome identical whether she hits that key deliberately or by mistake — say, as an unconscious response to burning her lip on a too-hot latte? And now that so many agencies simply don’t respond to queriers (or even submitters) if the answer is no, how can the hapless writer of that deleted query letter ever know whether he never heard back due to Millicent’s determination that the book being offered would not interest her boss, her conviction that the book is inherently unmarketable in the current literary climate (not necessarily the same logic as the first), her reaction to a query that’s poorly put together — or her purely instinctive response to having spilled scalding coffee all over herself and her keyboard? But most of you are not scared away by the possibility of having your baby rejected by caffeine, are you? “That’s right, Anne,” those of you excited about saving all of that paper (or just plain sick of licking stamps) shout. “I get most of my querying information online, and mirabile dictu, most of the agents who give advice online favor electronic submissions. So do a lot of agencies that pop up when I Google literary agency, remarkably enough. And it just seems a whole lot less time-consuming to copy and paste my query letter template — with suitable personalization for each agent, of course — into an e-mail than to print it up each time. So let’s have at it!” Okay, electronic enthusiasts. Let’s talk about how to do this thing right. E-mailing your query As the shouters above indicated, e-mailing a query is pretty straightforward: it involves — wait for it — sending precisely the same query letter by e-mail that a writer would have sent via regular mail, minus the SASE. (You also don’t need to include the date or the recipient’s complete mailing address, as you would with a mailed letter. Just start with Dear Ms. Agentofmydreams, and proceed as with a regular letter.) In fact, if one composes the letter in Word, one can just copy it and paste it into the body of the e-mail. There’s another big difference between an e-query and one that’s printed, a differential that should make business format-lovers everywhere rejoice: because most e-mail programs are hostile to indentation, it is considered quite acceptable not to indent the paragraphs in an e-query. Millicent might shake her head over the rapid decline in literacy amongst constructors of e-mail programs, but she will not blame you for it. If you prefer to preserve the indentation (as I do, personally), go ahead and write a normal query letter in Word, then copy and paste it into the e-mail. If you find that one of the tabs disappears in transit — the last being the most prone to disappear in transit — you’ve not copied the final paragraph marker. Try this nifty trick: when you write the letter in Word, add an extra paragraph to the end of the letter. Copy and paste it into an e-mail; the actual text of the letter should arrive with the tabs all intact. Then hand-delete the extra verbiage. Whatever you do, don’t send your letter as an attachment, or send a missive with a link to a generic query on your website. Most agencies have strict policies against opening unsolicited attachments (out of fear of downloading viruses), and I can tell you now that Millicent is not going to follow that link. Why, you ask? Feel free to pull out your hymnals and sing along, campers: it’s Millie’s job to cull queries as quickly as humanly possible, to narrow down a roaring river to a manageable trickle. If she’s spending only about 30 seconds per query — probably even less on each e-query, because of that skimming-eye tendency — why on earth would she invest a couple of minutes in following a link to the website of someone too unfamiliar with how queries work to present her with a proper one? My, we’re delving into a lot of deep philosophy today, aren’t we? Let’s lurch our way back to practicalities. Composing the query first in a word processing program carries a couple of advantages. First, it’s easier to spell- and grammar-check. Second, it renders keeping good records of whom you have queried a little bit simpler: you can simply save each query as its own document, so you can keep track of what you have said to whom and when. (You do keep meticulous querying records, don’t you, so you will not approach the same agency twice with the same book project within a year? Repeat queries are considered quite rude in Millicent’s circles.) Adhering to a two-step process also encourages a writer to re-read each query before sending it out in a way that simply resending the same e-mail over and over again (copy-and-paste works in most e-mail programs, too) does not. It will help you avoid some of the more common querying mix-ups: if you’re sending out a whole flotilla of queries at once, it’s pretty easy to hit SEND without realizing that your Dear Mr. Readerson missive just went to Ms. Picky. Or not to include the synopsis Ms. Picky’s agency’s submission guidelines request. Another astonishingly common mistake in e-queries: not including any contact information. “But Anne,” computer-huggers everywhere cry, “isn’t that unnecessary? After all, Millicent could just hit REPLY if she wanted to ask me to send the manuscript, right?” Not necessarily, no. Remember that nightmare scenario above, where her scalded hand accidentally hit DELETE? It’s also not all that uncommon for successful e-queries and e-submissions to be forwarded around an office, so the agent’s just pressing REPLY would merely send her opinion back to Millicent’s inbox, not yours. And seriously: why wouldn’t you want to make it as easy as possible for these people to say yes to you? Copying and pasting a query from Word can cause formatting problems, however — and not merely the tab disappearing act I mentioned above. If recent comments are any indication, many e-queriers have been horrified to discover after they have sent their e-mails (and having taken the prudent step of also e-mailing the letter to themselves, so they can see it as Millicent would), that there is an extra-large space between paragraphs. “Hey, why is the formatting different?” they wonder indignantly. “When I pasted the letter into the e-mail, there was only a single line between paragraphs. Why the expansion? And will Millicent conclude that I am an idiot who doesn’t know how to format a letter properly?” Since self-deprecating terms like idiot, moron, and complete dolt are a regular feature of comments by readers who have experienced this problem, I’m inclined to believe that it’s causing disproportionate chagrin. To set all of those worried (and not idiotic at all) minds at ease: no, Millicent won’t think the less of you if your e-query sports extra-wide spacing; it’s too common a problem. She’s knows that it’s the result of a rocky transition between Word and a lot of e-mail programs. So don’t worry your smart little heads about it, okay? You’ve got bigger fish to fry. Oh, dear — that didn’t convince all of you, did it? All right: let’s talk about how to eliminate this problem. First, you could write your query IN your e-mail program the first time around, then copy that to subsequent missives. You’d lose the advantages of composing in Word, but you wouldn’t have to worry about the formatting. Or you could recognize that most e-mail programs and Word don’t have completely compatible word-processing bells and whistles. What constitutes a hard line break in Word (i.e., that skipped line between paragraphs) may well be a prompt for a two-line skip in your e-mail. So how does one get around that? Don’t skip a line between paragraphs in the Word version. Just hit RETURN once at the end of each paragraph, as you would when typing in standard format. The sent e-mail will have only a single skipped line between paragraphs. Seriously, it works. Send yourself a test query and see. Querying via form on a website Those forms are self-explanatory (part of their popularity, I suppose): many of them simply tell aspiring writers to paste their query letters into a form, along with a writing sample. I trust that you can figure them out on your own. And if you can’t, I probably won’t be able to help: they’re too individualized for me to create general rules of thumb for dealing with ‘em. Sorry about that. Have you considered checking one of the standard agency guides to see if the agency with the troublesome form would accept a mailed query letter instead? E-mailed query packets Here again, the rule of thumb is precisely the same as for mailed queries: send precisely what the agency’s submission guidelines ask to see — no more, no less. To tell you the truth, I’ve resisted writing much on this topic, for the exceedingly simple reason that I didn’t want anyone to confuse a query packet (i.e., the stack of things an agency’s website or listing in one of the standard agency guides might ask a querier to send along with the query letter) with a submission packet (the array of papers an agent has SPECIFICALLY asked a writer to send after a query or a pitch). The former known in the industry as unsolicited materials, the latter as requested materials. “But Anne,” some of you new to the process protest, and who could blame you? “I’m confused. If the agency’s website, guide listing, or page on that always-useful resource for writers seeking agents, <a href="http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/">Publishers’ Marketplace</a> tells aspiring writers that they should send a synopsis or the first 50 pages with a query, in what sense is that not a request? Especially when half of those listings refer to their standards as submission requirements?” I see your logic, oh rules lawyers, but you’re confusing passive guidelines with an active request. Anyone able to track down an agency’s website or listing might discover its submission guidelines, the prerequisites to which an aspiring writer must adhere in order to get a query under one of their agents’ spectacles at all. But as any agent or editor in the biz could tell you, agencies draw a very firm distinction between preliminary materials sent out of the blue (from their perspective) and pages that they actually asked a writer to submit, based upon a successful query or pitch. How seriously do they take that distinction? Well, let me put it this way: I’ve seldom heard anyone who has worked within five blocks of an agency refer to any pages sent with a cold query (i.e., a query letter from a writer who has had no previous contact with the agency and hasn’t been referred by someone they know) as a submission. Judging by the knitted brows out there, that little explanation didn’t leave you unconfused, did it? “Okay, Anne,” the brow-knitters say, arms folded and all ready for an argument, “I believe that they make a distinction, but I still think I’m right to think of those 50 pages the agent of my dreams’ website told me to send as both requested materials and a submission. If not, why would they call them submission guidelines, huh? Got a glib answer for that one?” Actually, I have several. You’d better get comfortable. In the first place, if your dream agent’s website stated that queriers should go ahead and send sample pages, it didn’t ask you personally to do so; it asked everyone who might submit to them. Given that such a public request effectively narrows down the potential pool of querier to every writer on earth who currently doesn’t have an agent, you can hardly blame those who work at the agency for not considering those guidelines in the same light as a specific request to a specific writer. In the second place, submission guidelines is an industry term; publishing houses use it as well, but like word count or literary fiction, the definition in use at the moment is in the mind of the speaker. It’s not as precise as those coming into the conversation from the outside might like. For all its imprecision, the term’s use in this context performs a pretty specific function: it catches the eye of writers so new to the industry that they are unaware that they shouldn’t just mail off a full manuscript to any agent who happens to catch their innocent imaginations. (You do know that such manuscripts are simply rejected unread, right?) Understood that way, an agency’s guidelines are in fact submission guidelines — they tell aspiring writers not to submit at all, but to query instead. In the third place, I hate to be the one to bring this up, have you by any chance compared the guidelines on the agency’s website with those in one of the standard agency guides and/or the individual agent’s listing on the aforementioned Publishers’ Marketplace? It’s a bit time-consuming to check multiple sources, but often worthwhile: not only do guide listings tend to have different emphases than website blurbs (thus enabling you to fine-tune your query list), but it’s also surprisingly common for the various sources to ask queriers to send different things. Yes, really. It’s not at all unheard-off for the most recent <a href="http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/">Guide to Literary Agents</a> to suggest querying with a synopsis, the agency’s website to ask for a query plus the first ten pages, and the individual agent’s Publisher’s Marketplace page to specify a query plus the first chapter and an author bio. Heck, it isn’t even all that unusual for one source to say that an agency welcomes paper queries, while another insists that it will only accept queries via e-mail and the website has a form to fill out and submit electronically. No wonder writers are confused. I’m not bringing this up, however, to criticize agencies — heaven forbid! — but as part of my ongoing quest to convince agent-seeking writers that being hyper-literal and rules-lawyerish is not necessarily helpful at the querying stage. Why, you ask? Well, remember how I had mentioned earlier in the summer that conference-goers sometimes confuse an individual agent’s personal preferences with an industry-wide norm? Sometimes, what guidelines end up in an agency guide are a function of the preferences of whoever happened to fill out the form — or of no one at the agency’s thinking to go back and update its Publishers’ Marketplace listing when the guidelines on the agency’s website have changed. It doesn’t really matter why it happens, does it? If a particular agency has two or three sets of guidelines floating around out there, it follows as night the day that its resident Millicent must be seeing two or three different kinds of query packet on any given morning. What were you saying about taking a guide listing or website’s guidelines as a request? In the fourth place (yes, I’m still working on that pesky question), just because if an agency’s site/listing/representative at a writers’ conference expresses a generic interest in seeing extra materials — a synopsis, for instance, or a bio, or even pages — that doesn’t mean its Millicent will necessarily read them. If the query doesn’t spark her interest, she’s extremely unlikely to give the book project a second chance just because additional materials happen to be in front of her. Before you get all huffy about that, brow-knitters, allow me to add hastily: this is largely a function of time not being infinitely elastic. It’s Millie’s job to weed out queries, right? “But wait,” my brow-knitting friends ask hesitantly, “is it possible that I’m misunderstanding you here? From what you’re saying, it sounds as though my being able to send pages along with my query isn’t necessarily an advantage — all it really does is save Millicent the trouble of asking to see them.” Well, if that’s the conclusion you want to draw from all this, I would be the last to stop you. I can only advise: do your homework before you send out that query. And send precisely what the agent expects to see. How might one figure out just what that means, in the face of conflicting guidelines? Generally speaking, although the Publishers’ Marketplace and <a href="http://www.jeffherman.com/guide/">the Herman Guide</a> listings tend to offer the most information (again, useful for figuring out which agent at the agency to approach), agencies’ websites usually offer the most up-to-date guidelines. I’d advise following them — but checking another source or two is always a good idea. Especially if you’re not especially fond of copying and pasting your first few pages into the body of an e-mail or into a miniscule box on an online form. It can wreak havoc with formatting. Ah, we’re back to formatting, after that long digression. Can we actually talk about how to put together an e-mailed query packet now? If (and only if) the agency’s submission guidelines (wherever you found them) ask for additional materials, check very carefully to see if the guidelines tell you how to send them. Most of the time, they will ask that you include them in the body of the e-mail, not as an attachment. Which is to say, unless the submission guidelines SPECIFICALLY ask you to do so, do not, under any circumstances, include attachments in an e-mailed query, for precisely the reason we discussed above: virtually every agency in North America has an iron-clad policy against opening unrequested attachments. They’re just too likely to contain viruses. Hey, I’m not casting aspersions upon your no doubt squeaky-clean computer. I’m just reporting what the process looks like from the other side of the desk. If the agency’s website SPECIFICALLY asked for attachments, send them in Word (the industry standard), but as we discussed yesterday, send them as .doc files; do not send them as .docx. Many, many agencies are running older versions of Word (on PCs, usually) and will not be able to open .docx files. Like any file-transferring snafu between an agency and a writer, this is considered the writer’s fault. And no, Millicent won’t necessarily e-mail you back, asking you to send a different version. Nor will the agency call upon its crack computer support staff, for the simple reason that, as astonishing as this may seem to those of us living in the Pacific Northwest, NYC-based agencies seldom have an in-house computer expert. (Possibly because s/he would be so like to tell them to upgrade what version of Word they’re using.) I’m telling you: a little foresight will go a long way toward getting her a document someone at the agency can actually open. If you happen to be running a recent version of Word, your document may be saved as a .docx automatically, so use the SAVE AS… function to save your document as a Word 97-2004 document (.doc). Mac users, do be aware that your system may allow you to give your documents longer names than an older PC’s system might recognize as valid. How do you include additional materials without attachments? Copy and paste them into the body of your e-mail, a few skipped lines after the end of your query. Fair warning, though: as I mentioned above, formatting often gets lost in the transition. Particularly vulnerable, for some reason: double-spacing. Even if you have to change the spacing in the e-mail by hitting the RETURN key at the end of every line, make sure any manuscript pages you send are double-spaced. If formatting disappears in transit, you’re probably not copying all of the formatting codes. The trick I mentioned above usually solves this problem: add an extra paragraph above and below the text you want to transfer, copy and paste the whole shebang into your e-mail, then hand-delete the extra words. Usually works like a charm. And don’t worry your aforementioned smart little head about reproducing the exact format of your manuscript page; Millicent isn’t expecting text within the body of the e-mail to reproduce the printed page. She’s been around e-submissions long enough to know the havoc most e-mail programs can play with Word’s formatting. Just start with the first line of text on page 1 of your manuscript — the chapter title isn’t particularly necessary, but you may include it if you wish — and include as much of the text as requested. Oh, scrape your jaws off the floor. The point of asking for those pages is not to see if you can produce a manuscript in standard format, after all — if an agent wanted to see that, the submission guidelines would ask for a Word attachment. (As some of them do: make sure to check every time.) What Millicent will be casting her bloodshot eyes across that writing sample for is to see if you can write. You don’t mind that, do you? No matter what other materials are specified in the guidelines, always start an e-mailed query packet with the query letter itself, then move on to any requested materials in the order they were listed in the guidelines. As I mentioned above (but it always bears repeating), unlike a paper query, an e-mailed query need not include date and full address of the recipient, but do open with a salutation: Dear Ms. Smith… Why? Well, think about it from Ms. Smith’s perspective: wouldn’t a mass e-mail be the most efficient way of broadcasting 2,000 generic Dear Agent queries? Do you really want your e-query mistaken of one of those? Most of you probably knew most of this, though, right? Let’s move on to a little-known trick o’ the trade — located in the part of the e-mailed query to which writers tend to give the least thought. The subject line of an e-mailed query The subject line is key to an e-query’s ending up in the right place, so you are going to want to make that space count. Or at any rate, prevent your e-mail from getting relegated to the spam file. Most agents prefer writers to include the word QUERY in it, presumably so they don’t mix up your e-mail with that invitation to their high school reunion. If you just heard the agent speak at a conference, include the name of the conference in both the subject line and the first line of your query; many agencies will give priority to post-conference queries. Conversely, if you already have an in with the agent, make sure to include that in the subject line, too. If you met the agent at a conference and she told you to send her a query (as opposed to sending materials; it happens), write REQUESTED QUERY and the name of the conference in the subject line; if you were lucky enough to garner a referral from an existing client, type QUERY — (Client’s name) REFERRAL. Getting the picture? Good. Like so much else in writer-agent relations, the practices were much more streamlined back in the days before the rise of the personal computer, much less the Internet. In fact, a case could be made, and a cogent one, for the popularity of the Internet’s being the cause of each agency’s specifying that it wants different materials in query packets: back when the standard agency guides and word of mouth were the primary ways that writers found out what standards were, pretty much everyone just asked for a query, or query + synopsis. In fact, the industry truism of yore dictated that a writer should NEVER send manuscript pages or a proposal unless and agent had specifically asked him to do so. Frankly, I think that expectation was a bit easier on writers: there was far less stressful guesswork involved. So are agencies asking for more materials up front just because they can — or because there now isn’t so much paper involved? Maybe, or maybe some of them just wanted to streamline the rejection process by arranging to have a writing sample on hand as soon as Millicent read the query letter: that way, she can rule out promising book concepts whose writing doesn’t deliver in one contact with the writer, rather than the former two. Or perhaps — and I’m not saying this is true; I’m merely speculating — providing guidelines that are unlike those of other agencies may be a clever means of discovering just how good a prospective client is at following directions; if every agency asks for something slightly different, the Dear Agent queriers who treat every agent on earth as identical are going to stand out like the proverbial sore thumbs, right? Just in case I’m right on that last one, follow the individual agency’s directions. To the letter. And if that means choosing from amongst several sets of guidelines, pick one and cling to it like a leech. Trust me, both you and Millicent will feel better if you do. In an often confusing and alienating process, concrete direction can be very reassuring. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-1148" class="post-1148 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-agents category-figuring-out-which-agents-to-query category-finding-agents-to-query category-generating-a-querying-list category-how-to-find-agents-to-query category-querying category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-realistic-expectations-for-queriers"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/11/18/identifying-agents-to-query-part-x-how-much-does-size-matter-really-2/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-11-18T00:00:00+00:00">November 18, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/11/18/identifying-agents-to-query-part-x-how-much-does-size-matter-really-2/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/#respond">No Comments on Identifying agents to query, part X: how much does size matter, really?</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/11/18/identifying-agents-to-query-part-x-how-much-does-size-matter-really-2/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/" rel="bookmark">Identifying agents to query, part X: how much does size matter, really?</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/props-for-incredible-shrinking-man.jpg" alt="giant scissors, pencil" title="giant scissors, pencil" width="451" height="600" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6417"/> Well, that was an unexpected blogging hiatus, wasn’t it? I plead ambitiousness: in addition to prepping for this coming Saturday’s at the <a href="http://www.wordsandmusic.org/schedule.html">master class on querying</a> at <a href="http://www.wordsandmusic.org/wordsandmusic.html">Words & Music conference</a> in New Orleans, I have also been gearing up for the close textual analysis component of the third-place prizes in the <a href="/index_p_11293.html">Author! Author! Great First Pages Made Even Better Contest</a>. Since giving feedback on the winning entries is so rightfully time-consuming — and something that I was not originally going to do alone — I’ve kept telling myself, “Oh, you need a few solid hours to devote to this — you can fit that in tomorrow.” Then tomorrow came…and the day after…and before I knew it, a few days had gone by between posts. Sorry about that. I should have a few hours this evening to leap into that much-anticipated close textual analysis. Just in case I get distracted again (what’s the probability?), I wanted to post again this morning on our ongoing topic, how to find agents for your query list. Because, let’s face it, even if you weren’t planning to drop by the <a href="http://hotelmonteleone.com/">Hotel Monteleone</a> Saturday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. for a crash course in querying, there’s nothing like talking about what kind of agent is right for your book to get one’s momentum going for that end-of-the-year querying push. You were planning an end-of-the-year querying push, were you not? Or a beginning-of-next-year one? If not, why not? Last time, I mentioned that, contrary to popular belief amongst aspiring writers, a great big agency is not necessarily the best choice for any particular book project, any more than signing with just any agent is a sure path to publication. While queriers, understandably, tend to focus on how picky agents are about what projects they take on, it’s worth giving some serious thought at the query list-generating stage to what kind of agency — and agent — is most likely to have the connections not only to sell your book well, but to walk you through the often difficult and perplexing publication process. So while admittedly every agency — and indeed, every agent — is different, let’s spend this morning pondering some sweeping generalities about size, shall we? I am certainly not the first to write on this topic, nor, I suspect, the last. Writers’ periodicals seem to have an especial fondness for the issue — so much so that I sometimes wonder if a visiting alien picking up a writers’ magazine would not automatically assume that every writer in America chooses representation based upon size alone. It’s a big country, the alien might reason. They like everything big. There are, of course, some reasons for this preference — and not just because it’s kind of cool when you mention your agency at writers’ conferences or industry parties and people say, “Oh!” as if they’ve just learned that you won the silver medal in pole-vaulting two Olympics ago. (Although admittedly, that’s gratifying.) As the client of a large agency, a writer does enjoy many benefits: the prestige of signing with a recognized name, more support staff to answer your questions (or not, depending upon prevailing attitudes), and often more collective experience upon which you can draw. Just as with a well-known agent, in going with a major agency of good repute, you are working with a known quantity, with verifiable connections. Emphasis on connections. Read Publishers Weekly or Publishers Marketplace for even a couple of months — not a bad idea, by the way, if you intend to stick with this writing gig for the long haul — and you’re likely to notice the same agency names turning up again and again, coupled with particular publishing houses. Agencies do specialize, and obviously, it’s in a writer’s interest to be affiliated with one of the top agencies for her book category. Even when an agency does not focus on a particular category to the exclusion of others, the agents within it often will — and that, too, sets a discernable pattern. It’s not at all uncommon for an editor who concurs an agent’s literary tastes to buy books from several of his or her clients. Which makes a certain amount of empirical sense, right? There isn’t universal agreement across the industry about what constitutes good writing, even within a single book category. Individual tastes differ, and what one editor at Random House likes to see in a mainstream novel will not necessarily be what an editor at HarperCollins is seeking. If Editor Sam already knows from past acquisitions that she likes the kind of books that Agent Maureen enjoys, Sam is probably going to be more open to a pitch from Maureen than one from Agent Joe, who hasn’t sold her a book before. Remind yourself of this dynamic, please, the next time you hear an agent say at a conference that a particular kind of book just can’t be sold anymore. What this usually means is that he would have trouble selling it to his already-established editorial connections. How is a savvy querier to find out what connections any given agent has? Chant it with me now, long-time readers: research. And I’m not just talking about plugging a book category into a search engine or Googling literary agency, either: I mean going through the standard agency guides, reading carefully through agency websites, checking the acknowledgements pages of first and second books by authors in your category. In order to track down who might be able to sell a book like yours right now, you will — wait for it — need to find out who has been selling books like yours recently. At a big, well-established agency, this information is usually pretty easy to track down: my great big agency, for instance, simply lists its clients on its website (although the list is not always current). With a new agency, it can be harder to assess connection claims until a track record of sales has been established. Don’t write off an agency just because it is new or small, however. As I mentioned last time, it’s not uncommon for a successful agent to break off and form her own agency, taking her connections — and often her clients as well — with her. At the moment, there seem to be many more new agencies than usual; since the economic downturn, quite a few agents have been branching off on their own. (This is one reason why, in case you were wondering, I like the <a href="http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/">Publishers Marketplace</a> database so much — you can look up agents by name, not just by agency, so you can see how their representation preferences change as they move around. An agent with a passion for SF might not be able to give free rein to it as the junior agent at an agency that specializes in mysteries, but might well have leapt into SF after a promotion or move elsewhere.) That can be a good thing for a querying writer: often, new agencies are actively seeking out new clients. As are, typically, junior agents even at large agencies, so don’t overlook the young and the hungry. The hungry can be excellent gambles — they are often more energetic in pursuing sales. Even if a relatively new agent does not appear to have a long solo track record, check her bio: a lot of junior agents were formerly assistants at large agencies. (Or even Millicents. Hey, everyone has to begin somewhere.) An former assistant may well walk into her first solo gig with some pretty good connections already established. She may well be more open to first-time authors than her better-known counterparts. In fact, she may be counting on discovering the next Great American Novel in her inbox — and with good reason: lest we forget (because it’s not mentioned much at writers’ conferences, for some reason), how many of the big agents initially established themselves in the industry was by taking a chance on an unknown client who turned out to be a major author. So f your book sells quickly and/or well, you can be the favorite steed in the shiny, new stable. Which probably means you and your work will get more attention than with a similar achievement at a larger agency, where you would be just one of their in-house stars. Even before that (and frequently after as well), a hungry agent often offers services that a bigger agency or a busier agent might not provide. Intensive coaching through rewrites, for instance. Bolstering the always-tenuous authorial ego. Extensive free editing. (If you missed my earlier discussions of fee-charging agencies, or you are unfamiliar with how much freelance editing can cost, you might want to check out the relevant categories on the archive list at right before you discount the value of such an offer.) This is more a matter of math than a matter of nice: an agent with 10 clients is going to have a lot more time to devote to these helpful services than an agent with 80. If you are a writer who wants a lot of personal attention from an agent, the less busy agent might well be the way to go. Does it seem presumptuous to think about what an agent can offer you, rather than what you can offer an agent? To the kind of thoughtful querier who knows better than to send out rude letters that say things like, “This is the next bestseller!” it often does. (Begging for attention for a good long while can do that to you.) But think about it: if you are a writer lucky enough to garner multiple representation offers — and let’s all keep our fingers crossed for that — do you really want to realize with a shock that you do not have any criteria for picking an agent other than the willingness to say yes to you? Stop laughing; established authors don’t admit this much, but this is not an uncommon dilemma for good writers to face. It certainly happened to me. Some years back, I received simultaneous offers from three agents, each of whom was apparently a nice person AND I had researched enough to know that each had a dandy track record selling the kind of book I had been pitching them — and I was stunned to recognize that I was utterly unprepared to judge them on any other basis. Fortunately, I had many agented friends eager to offer me advice. Mountains of it, in fact. But that’s a luxury not every writer has. So believe me when I tell you: giving some advance thought to what you want from your future agent, over and above the willingness and ability to sell your book, is not a symptom of creeping megalomania. It’s a means of coming to understand the value of your work and how it might conceivably fit into the already-existing literary world. It can also, to descend from the heady heights of hope for a moment, give you some solid clues about how to prioritize a lengthy potential query list. It would be prudent, for instance, to consider very, very carefully how important personal contact is to you, because if this relationship works out, you will be living with your decision for a very long time. Will you, for instance, go nuts with speculation if an editor has your manuscript — and you haven’t heard from your agent in a month? Many writers would, you know; I’ve heard justifications by authors of manuscripts that have been sitting on an agent’s desk for 4 or 5 months that positively rival the tales of the Brothers Grimm for invention. The actual reason a writer hasn’t heard back tends not to be all that interesting, by comparison: typically, if you haven’t been told yea or nay, the submission has yet to be read. The paperweight was invented for a reason, you know: to keep bits of unread manuscripts from migrating all over agents’ and editors’ desks. Once you have established where you fall on the update-need continuum, there are other questions to ask yourself. Do you want to hear the feedback of editors who have rejected your work, so you can revise accordingly, or would you rather get through as many submissions as quickly as possible? Would you prefer an agent who wants to micro-manage your book proposal, guiding you through its steps, or would you be happier with one who leaves more of the writing decisions to you? How prone are you to ask questions or take concerns to your agent? When you do, would you be happy with the occasional e-mail to answer your questions, or would you prefer telephone calls? (If you live outside the United States, this last question is even more essential: the farther away you reside, the less likely it is that you will ever meet your agent face-to-face, right? Many small agencies would not be able to afford unlimited international phone calls.) The answers to all of these are very much dependent upon how busy the agent is, and what kind of demands the agency places upon her time. Generally speaking, the bigger the agency, the busier the agent. Seems a bit counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? Big agencies have greater resources for support staff (or did before the economic downturn), whereas in a small agency (or with a stand-alone agent) the agents may be doing support work as well; it would make sense if the small agency agents were busier. However, nowhere is the old adage tasks expand in direct proportion to the time available to perform them more evident than in the publishing industry: as an agent becomes more important, he takes on more clients. Big equals powerful here. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. A few boutique agencies deliberately keep themselves small in order to occupy a very specific niche, but it is rare. There’s no mistaking these agencies — they ALWAYS identify themselves as boutique in their blurbs, lest anyone mistakenly think that they were small because they were unsuccessful. Often, they sharply limit the proportion of unpublished writers that they will represent, or do not represent the unpublished at all. They do, however, tend to lavish attention upon the few they select. As do, admittedly, some agents at major agencies, but do bear in mind that no matter who represents you, no matter how much your agent loves your work, you will be only one of the authors on the agent’s list. Time is not infinitely flexible, despite anyone’s best intentions. So before you set your heart upon a big agency or a major agent, it’s a good idea to ask yourself: do I really want to be someone’s 101rst client? This sounds like a flippant question, but actually, it is a very practical one, and one that speaks very directly to your personal level of security about your work. Big agencies and important agents have made their names, generally speaking, on high-ticket clients; often, that high-recognition client is why aspiring writers covet their representation skills. However, it takes time to cater to a bigwig client. I once had a lovely chat with a past president of AAR who handled one of the biggest mystery writers in the biz; apart from handling her book negotiations, he told me, he also spent a week a year with her in a mountain retreat — not skiing, but micro-editing her next work to make its market appeal as broad as possible. Nice perq of fame, isn’t it? Beulah, peel me a grape. Before you float off into fantasies about being successful enough to command your own personal slave copyeditor and/or mountain lodge, stop and think about the implications of being one of this agent’s other clients. That’s a week a year when he is not available to pay even the most fleeting attention to the needs of Clients 2 – 143. So who do you think ended up handling those other clients’ concerns? That’s right: not the bigwig agent at all, but his I’m-working-my-way-up-the-ladder assistant. Who was, to put it mildly, somewhat overworked — and ended up moving on to become a full agent at another agency within the next year or two. She’s so successful now that she is no longer accepting new clients. Which raises an interesting question: if a writer is actually dealing most of the time with the agent’s assistant, rather than the agent, with whom is the long-term, mutually beneficial interaction occurring? Still, you cannot deny the appeal of the contacts and oomph of a big agency, even if you are not represented by the most important agent in it. Ultimately, it’s going to take more than enthusiasm about your project for an agent to sell your first book. It’s going to take connections — the right connections for your project. You don’t have to attend very many conferences before you meet your first hungry new agent, willing to promise the moon, nor to meet your first 100-client bigwig. It’s in your interests to look beyond the generalities. Again, chant it with me now, campers: there’s no such thing as an agency that’s perfect for every single conceivable book. This process is — or should be — about finding not just acceptance, but forming the best possible alliance with someone who is going to help you build a career as a writer. Give some hard thought to how you want to be supported on that path, and make your querying choices accordingly. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3675" class="post-3675 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-you-receive-a-request-for-pages category-after-youve-been-rejected category-agency-guides category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-how-to-write-a-query-letter-from-scratch category-keeping-the-faith category-query-sample-pages category-query-letters-for-beginners category-query-packets-and-things-that-go-in-them category-querying category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-querypalooza category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-at-all category-requested-material-wrangling category-sase-guidelines category-unsolicited-submissions"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/10/querypalooza-part-xvi-the-logic-and-illogic-behind-the-sase-or-how-to-be-prepared-if-something-falls-on-you-from-a-zeppelin-2/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-09-10T00:00:00+00:00">September 10, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/10/querypalooza-part-xvi-the-logic-and-illogic-behind-the-sase-or-how-to-be-prepared-if-something-falls-on-you-from-a-zeppelin-2/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/#respond">No Comments on Querypalooza, part XVI: the logic — and illogic — behind the SASE, or, how to be prepared if something falls on you from a zeppelin</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/10/querypalooza-part-xvi-the-logic-and-illogic-behind-the-sase-or-how-to-be-prepared-if-something-falls-on-you-from-a-zeppelin-2/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/" rel="bookmark">Querypalooza, part XVI: the logic — and illogic — behind the SASE, or, how to be prepared if something falls on you from a zeppelin</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/zeppelin.gif"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/zeppelin.gif" alt="" title="zeppelin" width="474" height="308" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1287"/></a> I have a few more insights into query-construction, campers — hard as it is to believe that I left anything out over the last week, I’ve just realized that I had yet to address the problems inherent to writing a query for a multiple-protagonist, multi-perspective, and/or multi-voiced novel. I shall be addressing those burning issues tonight, never fear. And yes, it was in poor taste to use the phrase burning issues immediately below a photo of a zeppelin, now that you mention it. Sorry about that, but as it happens, the matters I shall be tackling this morning are ones notorious for blowing up in aspiring writers’ faces when they least expect it. Last time, I began talking about the infamous and ubiquitously-requested SASE, industry-speak for the Stamped, Self-Addressed Envelope (get it?) that should accompany EVERY mailed query letter and/or submission packet. (E-mailed queries and submissions cannot include them, obviously, as these forms of communication have no temporal heft to them.) Forgetting to include a SASE is an instant-rejection offense at most agencies, and with good reason: if the agent decides to pick up the manuscript, the writer’s having included the expected SASE demonstrates a pleasing ability to follow directions, and if the agent decides to pass, s/he may return rejected pages at the writer’s expense. Yes, I know: it’s annoying to be underwriting one’s own rejection, but there actually are some benefits for the writer in this arrangement. To name but one: finding out that your query or submission has in fact been rejected, rather than gnawing your fingernails in perpetual worry for a year or two. Contrary to popular opinion, a SASE shouldn’t always take the form of a business-size envelope; it varies according to what was sent in the first place. For a query, it’s usually letter-sized, but should you happen to be querying an agency whose guidelines call for writers to include more than five pages of additional materials (e.g., writing sample, synopsis, author bio, book proposal, a chapter or two), you’d be sending that in a Manila envelope, right? In that case, the SASE would need to be a second Manila envelope, stuffed inside the first, carrying sufficient materials to ship all of those additional materials back to you. Why? Because the point of the SASE is to ensure the safe return of whatever a writer sends to an agency; you should always include enough postage on your SASE that everything you submitted may be popped into it and mailed. The basic rule of thumb is to include a container and enough postage for the recipient to be able to ship any materials you may have submitted back to you. Oh, you hadn’t been thinking of the SASE in those terms? Or was that giant whoosh I heard not a collective gasp, but a whole bunch of eyebrows out there hitting the ceiling? Probably the latter, I’m guessing, because I’m constantly meeting aspiring writers who are unaware that a SASE should also accompany a manuscript submission. And I’m not just talking about the stamped, self-addressed #10 envelope one would send with a mailed query letter: I’m talking about a package with enough postage to get all of those requested pages back to the writer in one piece. It can get cumbersome, once the time comes to pack it all up. Not to say expensive, especially for writer submitting to US-based agencies from outside the country, who not only have to figure out what the return postage would be in dollars instead of their local currency, but have to wrap their eager fingertips around some US stamps. Don’t worry, foreign readers: there’s a trick to it. I’ll be getting to that. The expectation that an aspiring writer will ALWAYS include a SASE with any kind of paper query or submission is universal, at least among U.S. agencies and publishers, so much so that I’ve noticed that many agencies don’t even explain what it means on their websites or listings in the standard guides anymore. It’s become one of those secret handshake things — you know, a practices that the industry just assumes that any writer who is serious about getting published will magically know all about without being told. Call me zany, but as those of you have been reading this blog for a while are already aware, I’m not a big fan of unspoken assumptions; they place the writer new to the game at a serious strategic disadvantage. So I hope those of you who have been at this for some time will forgive my taking a second post to explain to those new to querying what a SASE is and why, to put it bluntly, the writer is expected to pay the postage for a rejection letter or returned manuscript. SASE logic seems to be counterintuitive for many aspiring writers. I’m constantly barraged with questions from readers about why, in the age of fairly universal paper recycling and cheap, high-quality printers, a writer shouldn’t just ask an agent to recycle a rejected manuscript. Quoth, for instance, <a href="/index_p_577.html">clever reader Melospiza</a>: <blockquote> Why on earth would you want your manuscript back (after it has been rejected)? It won’t be pristine enough to send out again. Why spend the money? And any parcel over one pound can’t be dropped in a mailbox, but must be taken to the post office, not something an agent will appreciate. Let the agent recycle the paper and enclose a (business-size) SASE only. </blockquote> Oh, would only that were possible, Melospiza, but thereâ€™s a rather basic, practical reason to include the SASE for safe return of the manuscript: as with a SASEless query, NOT including a SASE in a submission is usually an automatic-rejection trigger. Yes, you read that correctly: leaving a SASE out of the submission packet can, and often does, result in a submission’s being rejected unread; ask about it sometime at a writers’ conference. The vast majority of agents will be perfectly up front about the fact that they train their screeners accordingly. The owners of all of those eyebrows are clutching their heads now, aren’t they, thinking of all of those SASEless submissions — or, more likely, submissions accompanied by only a #10 SASE, rather than one with sufficient postage for the manuscript’s return — they sent out in the dark days of yore. “Okay, I can understand why Millicent would reject SASE-free queries without reading them,” these head-clutchers cry, “but why, in heaven’s name, would an agent who asked to see pages reject them unread?” Good question, oh retrospective panickers. The short answer: because it’s obvious to Millicent that a writer who submits without a manuscript-size SASE doesn’t know the secret handshake. The longer answer is hardly more comforting. In the publishing industry, itâ€™s considered downright rude for a writer not to include a SASE both large enough and loaded down with enough pre-paid postage to send EVERYTHING enclosed back to the sender. Which means, in practical terms, that if the agency is going to keep its side of the tacit agreement allowing it to read a writer’s unpublished work, IT is going to have to shell out the dosh to mail the rejected manuscript back. Ditto with a query letter that arrives unaccompanied by a SASE. The result in both cases is generally a form-letter rejection — or no response at all. (Yes, even for a submission. Pages often go bye-bye.) I implore you, no matter how little you want to see that manuscript again, do not omit the SASE for the return of the manuscript — UNLESS the agencyâ€™s website or listing in one of the standard agency guides says specifically that they will recycle rejected manuscripts. (Practically none of them do, but check anyway.) Okay, before the disgruntled muttering out there becomes too deafening, letâ€™s voice it: â€œYou must be pulling our collective leg, Anne,â€ I hear some of you saying. â€œOkay, maybe SASEless queries do tend to get rejected unread, but I can’t believe that it happens to submitted manuscripts or book proposals. By the time an agent is sufficiently interested in you to want to see actual chapters of your book, your foot is too firmly in the door for your submission to be tossed aside unread for a reason as unrelated to the quality of the writing as not including a SASE. I mean, really, what purpose would being that touchy serve?â€ A fairly tangible one, actually: it would be one less manuscript for Millicent to read. Remember, it’s her job to reject 98% of what crosses her desk; even a very successful agent at a giant agency seldom picks up more then 5 or 6 new clients per year, even including ones poached from other agencies. (Which happens all the time, by the way. It would astonish most aspiring writers to know just how many of us agented writers are unhappy with our current representation. As I say early and often, you don’t want just any agent to represent you — you want a well-connected, engaged agent who loves your writing and will defend it to the death.) Thus every submission that disqualifies itself on technical grounds is another step toward that ongoing goal of thinning the pack of contenders. Do you really want to volunteer your precious manuscript for that particular kamikaze mission? Admittedly, from the submitter’s point of view, a good argument could be made that this practice inevitably leads to, as Melospiza rightly points out, a big olâ€™ waste of money, not to mention trees, without really providing much benefit to the people who actually pay for the return postage. After all, from the writer’s perspective, a SASE included with a submission is only going to be used if the news is bad. If the agency likes the MS, theyâ€™re going to ask to see the rest of the manuscript — which means your initial submission will get filed, you will send another packet (with another SASE), and your first SASE may well end up in the trash. Or, if you’re really lucky, you’ll never see it again, because it will end up in a file drawer in your new agent’s office. Fingers crossed! If they donâ€™t like it, all you are doing by providing the postage is paying to get the news that theyâ€™re turning you down in a way that will make your postal carrierâ€™s back ache, rather than via a nice, light #10 envelope. So why not just send the manuscript along with a business-size SASE, and be done with it? Because thatâ€™s not how the industry works, thatâ€™s why. (See commentary above re: secret handshakes.) If you’re willing to risk it, you could always include a line in the cover letter, POLITELY asking the agency to recycle the manuscript if they decide not to offer representation and mentioning the business-sized SASE enclosed for their reply. Do be aware, however, that this strategy sometimes backfires with screeners trained to check first for a manuscript-sized SASE: itâ€™s not unheard-of for the Millicents of the world to toss aside such a manuscript to be tossed aside without reading the cover letter. As I believe I may have mentioned before, I donâ€™t make the rules of submission; I only try to render them comprehensible. Letâ€™s all pray that when Millicent does engage in the summary rejection of the SASEless, she flings that precious ream of paper into a recycling bin. Originally, the whole paper-wasting arrangement was set up this way in order to PROTECT writers. The sad thing is, though, the logic behind this one is so pre-computer — heck, itâ€™s pre-recycling, if you don’t count Abe Lincoln scrawling the Gettysburg Address on the back of a used envelope — that itâ€™s likely to be counterintuitive to anyone querying or submitting for the first time today. Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when books were widely read, writers didnâ€™t need agents because publishing houses still read through their slush piles, and the photocopier had not yet been invented. Prior to personal computers (and nice laser printers in workplaces that might be accessible after the boss goes home for the day), you could not print out spare copies of your precious manuscript to submit to every Tom, Dick, and Random House in the biz, obviously. Nor could you attach a Word document to an e-mail and send it off via Pony Express. Equally obviously, no sane human being would send out his only copy. So how did writers reproduce their work to submit to several publishing houses simultaneously? They retyped it, thatâ€™s how. Every single page, every single syllable, every single time. Think those hardy souls wanted to get their rejected manuscripts back? Darned tootinâ€™. It might save them weeks of retyping time. My long-term readers will have heard my favorite concrete example of how these returned manuscripts helped writers before, but it’s a terrific illustration of just how much the SASE used to assist the average aspiring writer. Back in the far-away 1950s, my mother, Kleo, was married to Philip, a struggling science fiction writer. While she toiled away at work and went to school, Philip spent his days composing short stories. Dozens of them. Type, type, type, week in, week out. She would come home and edit them; he would type a revised version. One or the other of them would get a good idea, and they would collaborate in writing the result: one dictating, one typing. She would take them to writing classes and the magazine editors who were already publishing her brother’s SF short stories, returning with still more feedback. Off he went to type another draft. From scratch. Every single time either of them wanted to change a word. Hard for those of us who write on computers even to imagine, isn’t it? As writers did in those dark days prior to e-mail, Philip and Kleo stuffed each of those short stories into a gray Manila envelope with a second envelope folded up inside as a SASE and sent them off to any magazine that had evinced even the remotest interest in SF or fantasy. (Except for the ones that Kleo hand-sold by taking to a magazine editor, which is actually how Philip got his first story published. She was, in effect, his original agent. But I digress.) Each time a short story was rejected — as, in the beginning, all of Philipâ€™s and Kleoâ€™s were — and landed once again in their mailbox with the accuracy of a well-flung boomerang, they acted as professional writers should act: they submitted the rejected story to another magazine immediately. To minimize retyping, they would iron any pages that had gotten bent in the mail, slip the manuscript into a fresh envelope (yes, with a fresh SASE), and pop it in the mail. Since there were not very many magazines that accepted SF or fantasy back then, they had to keep impeccable records, to avoid sending a rejected story back to a magazine that had already refused it. But Philip kept typing away, and kept as many stories in circulation at once as possible. How many? Well, no one knows for sure anymore — since occasionally the only copy of a story got sent by mistake, some inevitably got lost. (Which reminds me to nag those of you sending out manuscripts in the computer age: when was the last time you made a back-up of your manuscript? If, heaven forfend, a gigantic anvil fell from one of those anvil-toting zeppelins we’re always seeing overhead these days onto your main writing space, would it crush both your computer and your back-ups? I don’t want to see you crawling about in the ashes, frantically trying to find the remnants of your hard disk.) One day, the young couple opened their front door to find 17 rejected manuscripts spread all over their miniscule front porch. Their tiny mailbox apparently hadnâ€™t been able to hold that many emphatic expressions of â€œNo!â€ So what did the aspiring writers of yesteryear do when faced with 17 rejections on the same day? Did they toss all of that paper into the recycling bins that had not yet been invented? Did they rend their garments and give up writing forever? Did they poison their mail carrier for bringing so much bad news all at once? No, they did what professional writers did back then: Philip had his wife iron the pages so they could be sent out again and resubmitted. Lest you find the story depressing, the science fiction writer was Philip K. Dick, and I have it on good authority that one of those stories was THE MINORITY REPORT. Which a director who shall remain nameless (because he changed the ending in a way that would have caused any authorâ€™s resentful spectre to dive-bomb LA, howling) made into a rather lucrative movie, decades later. Which only goes to show you: contrary to the common writerly fantasy/daydream/self-flagellation-after-rejection theme, even the best writers generally have to brazen through quite a bit of rejection before hitting the big time. As my mother likes to say, the only manuscript that stands NO chance of getting published is the one that sits in the bottom drawer, unseen by human eyes. Admittedly, it was not the most comforting lullaby to have sung above one’s cradle, but she knew whereat she spoke — and it’s as true today as it was five decades ago, when there were no photocopying machines, no computers, and no guarantee that the copy you sent would ever be retrievable if it went astray in some publisherâ€™s office. For our purposes today, the important thing to take away from this story is not the warm glow from the implied pep talk (although that’s nice, too), but the understanding that agencies don’t ask for SASEs in order to inconvenience, annoy, or impoverish aspiring writers. They do it today for precisely the same reason that they did it in the 1950s: to get your work back to you as expeditiously as possible, so you may try its fortunes elsewhere. Also, as I mentioned last time, the practice was intended to protect the writer’s copyright. Just as an e-mailed attachment could conceivably end up, through the magic of multiple forwarding, anywhere on the planet, a loose manuscript that isn’t either in an agent or editor’s office, safely tucked away in that proverbial bottom desk drawer, or being conveyed through sleet, snow, and/or dark of night between one and the other could in fact be stolen. I know; creepy even to consider. But think about it: is it more or less likely than something falling on your house from a zeppelin? I’ll answer that one for you: it does happen from time to time, so a savvy writer keeps very, very good track of who precisely has his manuscript when. (If this prospect tends to keep you up at night, please see the SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT MY WORK BEING STOLEN? category on the list at right for tips on how to protect your work.) Three other things of which a savvy writer keeps very good track: which agents she has already queried (and with what unsolicited-but-permitted extra materials), which already-queried agents have requested materials (and what they requested; every agency asks for the submission packet to contain different components), and which agents are still waiting for her to send them those materials. If an aspiring writer is querying and/or submitting to multiple agents at once — and she should, unless the agent of her dreams has a no simultaneous submissions policy — she had better maintain excellent records; otherwise, it’s just too easy to mix things up. Or not to know where to send Query #18 when the first 17 SASEs turn up in her mailbox. Or her inbox. Speaking of minding the details, a savvy writer also takes care when applies postage to her SASE. Let’s take a gander at what postage-related fears were keeping <a href="/index_p_3705.html">intrepid reader Rachel</a> up at night: <blockquote> I have a question about the SASE that you put in with your materials. I understand it was always better to use stamps so that the agent can just toss it in the outgoing mail bin at the agency. But I was talking to the postal clerks yesterday and they said that post-911 rules are now in effect: any stamped package over 13 ounces has to be brought to the post. I asked to get metered mail instead, and they said it wouldn’t work because it would have that date (yesterday) on it. A dilemma! I explained my situation to them and the clerks suggested just using a priority stamp (and the same shipping box), because if a SASE were expected, then stamps are really the only way to go. Is that how they’re doing it now? </blockquote> Good question, Rachel. Before I answer it, let’s clarify the situation by reiterate the difference between a query packet’s SASE (i.e, a missive containing the query letter + any unsolicited materials an agency’s website said were permissible to send with it) and one tucked into a submission (requested materials). When sending a query, including a SASE is pretty straightforward: the writer takes a second envelope, writes his own address on it, adds appropriate postage, folds it, and stuffs it — neatly, please, as becomes a Sanitary Author — into the query envelope. (Oh, like you’ve been able to get the SA out of your mind.) When sending a submission packet, the process is similar, but the packaging is different. If the agent only asks to see 50 pages or a chapter or two, few enough that they could be comfortably placed in a Manila envelope without wrinkling them (the Sanitary Author deplores crumpled pages; so do many agents), all you need to do is take a second Manila envelope, self-address it, affix the same amount of postage you’re going to use to send the whole packet to the agency, fold it, and place it neatly within the submission envelope. (Don’t worry; I shall be devoting part of this coming weekend about how to handle a request for a partial. I wouldn’t leave you hanging.) SASE-wrangling becomes a bit trickier if you’ve been asked to send the entire manuscript, because that generally entails using a box. (For a detailed explanation of what types of box should and shouldn’t be used, complete with glamorous photographs of cardboard in its various manifestations, again, tune in this weekend.) Obviously, it’s going to be unwieldy to stuff a second box inside the first, so it’s completely acceptable just to include a self-addressed mailing label and postage. (Be sure to mention both in your cover letter, so they won’t get lost on the agency end; I’ll be talking about how to pull off including such necessary-but-prosaic details gracefully, you guessed it, this weekend.) Equally obviously (but I’m going to mention it anyway, just in case), the stamps on the SASE need to be US stamps, if the agency is US-based. That requirement means that SASEing is invariably a great deal more challenging — and expensive — for writers in foreign climes querying or submitting to US agencies; the far-flung are not exempt from the SASE expectation, I’m afraid, which can make e-mailed querying a more attractive option. Good news for the far-flung: the <a href="http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductCategoryDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10152&categoryId=11834">US Postal Service’s website</a> sells stamps at face value, rather than at the exorbitant mark-up one frequently finds for them abroad. The USPS more than happy to ship â€˜em to your doorstep in exotic climes so you may stick ‘em onto your SASE before popping your submission into the mail. But let’s get back to the crux of Rachel’s question: has the post-9/11 alteration in post office policy altered what agencies expect to see on a SASE? The last few years have indeed seen some changes in how agencies handle packages, but actually, most of them date from before 9/11, back to the anthrax scare. Before that, virtually no agency accepted electronic submissions, for instance; they may not pay their Millicents much, but the average agency certainly doesn’t want its screeners to get sick from opening a poisoned query envelope. E-mailed queries and submissions don’t carry the risk of that sort of infection (and I think we can all guess how the Sanitary Author would feel about that). They do, however, occasionally contain computer viruses, so few agents will open an attachment unless they have already specifically requested an electronic submission from a writer. That’s why, in case you’d been wondering, most agencies have policies forbidding e-queriers from sending unsolicited materials as attachments. Too much risk of computer contamination. Instead, they will usually ask queriers to copy any permissible additional materials and paste them into the body of an e-mail. Rachel’s clerk was quite right about heavier packages having to be physically carried into the post office by human being, rather than blithely dropped into a mailbox or dumped in a mailroom — a policy shift that would affect virtually any submitted full manuscript, since they tend to be heavy little critters. However, that most emphatically does not mean is that the agent is going to be taking a rejected manuscript to the post office herself, or even that the Millicent who screened it will. Some luckless agency intern will be toting a whole mess of them there every few days. Or not; since the USPS changed its regulations in this respect, many agencies have side-stepped the return mail problem by ceasing to return submitted manuscripts to their writers at all. Check policies before you submit. (Interestingly, agencies that operate this way virtually always still expect submitters to include SASEs with their submissions.) The moral: unless you are querying or submitting electronically OR an agency specifically says it doesn’t use SASEs, you should always include one. And always use actually stamps on it, rather than metered postage. It’s called a STAMPED, self-addressed envelope for a reason, you know. Despite the changes I mentioned above, the imperative to use stamps on a SASE has never wavered: the goal here is not convenience in mailing, but the submitter’s paying for his own manuscript’s return. Regardless of whether that means tossing it into the nearest mailbox (which would still be possible for most partial manuscripts) or assigning Millicent to do it, stamps have always served the purpose best. That being said, I must confess that I don’t quite understand the clerk’s recommendation to Rachel to affix Priority Mail postage to the SASE, unless he was either lobbying her to use a flat-rate Priority Mail envelope as a SASE (not a bad idea, especially if the submission is just a few chapters; they fold nicely into a submission envelope) or simply trying to hawk a more expensive stamp. The distinction between Priority Mail and regular mail is the speed with which it arrives; the ease of mailing is identical. Which means that buying a more expensive stamp or a cheaper one to affix to the SASE is entirely up to the writer. Like overnighting requested materials vs. sending them regular mail, whether a submitter elects to pay a shipper extra money to convey a manuscript from point A to point B is generally a matter of complete indifference to the agent receiving it, as long as it gets there in one piece. (“And looking pretty,” adds the Sanitary Author. “None of those pesky wrinkles. And print your manuscript on nice, bright-white, 20-pound paper while you’re at it, please. It’s aesthetically more pleasing than the cheap stuff.”) To be blunt about it, the agent has absolutely no reason to care how quickly a rejected manuscript reaches its submitter. All she’s going to care about is whether you’ve included the means to mail it back to you at your expense, not hers. And that, my friends, is the information that most agencies’ listings in the standard agency guides and websites compress into the terse advice Include SASE. Apparently, somewhere on earth, there lurks a tribe of natural-born queriers who realize from infancy precisely what that means, so it requires no further explanation. I’ll bet our old pal, the Sanitary Author, is one of that happy breed. For the rest of us, learning how agencies work requires a bit of homework — and the asking of good questions. Tune in at 7 p.m. PST tonight for a few more thoughts on query construction. In the meantime, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-957" class="post-957 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-youve-been-rejected category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-critique-groups category-e-mailing-queries category-eye-catching-query-letter-candy category-how-to-figure-out-your-books-category category-industry-terminology category-memoir-querying category-nonfiction-querying category-platform-paragraph-in-a-query category-query-letter-troubleshooting category-query-letters-for-beginners category-querying category-querying-fatigue category-querying-faux-pas category-querying-memoir category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-querypalooza category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-why category-what-is-a-book-category category-when-are-the-best-and-worst-times-to-query"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/07/querypalooza-part-x-its-been-a-hard-days-night-several-in-a-row-actually-2/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-09-07T00:00:00+00:00">September 7, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/07/querypalooza-part-x-its-been-a-hard-days-night-several-in-a-row-actually-2/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/#respond">No Comments on Querypalooza, part X: it’s been a hard day’s night. Several in a row, actually.</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/07/querypalooza-part-x-its-been-a-hard-days-night-several-in-a-row-actually-2/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/" rel="bookmark">Querypalooza, part X: it’s been a hard day’s night. Several in a row, actually.</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ringo-and-the-clean-old-man-300x239.jpg" alt="ringo and the clean old man" title="ringo and the clean old man" width="150" height="119" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11936"/><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ringo-and-the-clean-old-man2-300x239.jpg" alt="ringo and the clean old man2" title="ringo and the clean old man2" width="150" height="119" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11937"/><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ringo-and-the-clean-old-man3-300x239.jpg" alt="ringo and the clean old man3" title="ringo and the clean old man3" width="150" height="119" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11938"/> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ringo-and-the-clean-old-man4-300x239.jpg" alt="ringo and the clean old man4" title="ringo and the clean old man4" width="150" height="119" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11978"/><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ringo-and-the-clean-old-man4a-300x239.jpg" alt="ringo and the clean old man4a" title="ringo and the clean old man4a" width="150" height="119" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11979"/><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ringo-and-the-clean-old-man5-300x239.jpg" alt="ringo and the clean old man5" title="ringo and the clean old man5" width="150" height="119" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11980"/> As promised, we’re nearing the end of Querypalooza, our high-speed crash course on how to write a better-than-average query letter — if, by the end of Labor Day week, your query letter is not polished to a high gloss, I shall not be to blame. But oh, as the old joke goes, are my arms ever tired! You know how much I enjoy being thorough. Let’s turn our attention back to query letter diagnostics. And already eyes across the English-speaking world roll. “Isn’t there an easier way to go about this?” the time-strapped cry. “No offense, Anne, but you’ve been making me concentrate so intensely on a single piece of paper for three days straight. Now, on day 4, every fiber of my being ties itself in a sailor’s knot at the very mention of a query. On top of everything you’ve pointed out here, I’m also going to have to do some research on each of the agents to whom I intend to address my highly-personalized queries. PLEASE tell me that I won’t need to write an entirely fresh missive for each one.” Not entirely, no: quite a few paragraphs will probably be recyclable, unless you plan to gain a new credential or two between the time you send Query A and when you pop Query B into the mailbox. However, it’s never, ever, EVER a good idea to use an entire query letter again wholesale. Why not, you ask? Do I hear sweet music in the distance? <blockquote> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/broken-record-150x150.jpg" alt="broken-record" title="broken-record" width="75" height="75" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-2446"/>Like any other reader, individual agents have individual likes and dislikes. As a logical result, there is no such thing as a query letter that will please every agent currently in practice. </blockquote> Thus Querypalooza: the goal here is not to help you construct a generic letter that will work for every agent to whom you might conceivably decide to send it, but to assist you in ferreting out problems with the personalized missives you’re constructing for each one. Yes, you may well reuse sentences and even entire paragraphs from letter to letter, but as anyone who has had much contact with agents can tell you, these are not generalists. Which means, to put it bluntly, that while Millicents share common pet peeves, each is looking for slightly different things in a query letter. Stop groaning; it wouldn’t have made good strategic sense to send an identical letter out to everyone, anyway, for reasons we have been discussing for days. Besides, there is no such a thing as a universally perfect query letter, one that will wow every agent currently hawking books on the planet. It is logically impossible: agents represent different kinds of books, for one thing, so the moment you mention that your book is a Gothic romance, it is going to be rejected by any agent who does not represent Gothic romances. It honestly is as simple as that. More fundamentally, though, I do not accept the idea of a magical formula that works in every case. Yes, the format I have been going over here tends to work well; it has a proven track record across many book categories. However — and I hate to tell you this, because the arbitrary forces of chance are hard to combat — even if it is precisely what your targeted agency’s screener has been told to seek amongst the haystack of queries flooding the mailroom, it might still end up in the reject pile if the screener or agent is having a bad day. What factors might produce that outcome, you ask? A million and one that are utterly outside the querier’s control. If the agent has just broken up with her husband of 15 years that morning, for instance, it’s probably not the best time to query her with a heartwarming romance. If she slipped on the stairs yesterday and broke both her wrists, she’s probably not going to be all that receptive to even the best knitting book today. And if he has just sprained his ankle in tripping over that stack of manuscripts he meant to read two months ago, it’s highly unlikely that any query is going to wow him within the next ten minutes, even if it were penned by William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and William Shakespeare in an unprecedented show of time-traveling collaboration. No writer, however gifted, can win in such a situation; even the query that wins most will lose some. Don’t squander your precious energies worrying about it. A strategic-minded querier can, however, avoid sending e-mailed queries or submissions over the weekend, the most popular time to hit the SEND button: Millicent’s inbox is pretty much guaranteed to be stuffed to the gills on Monday morning. Ditto with the first few days after her boss has returned from a writers’ conference, Labor Day (hint, hint), or, heaven help us, the single heaviest querying time of all, immediately after January 1. Trust me, all of those New Year’s resolution-fulfillers will provide her with more than enough reading material to keep her cross and rejection-happy for a few weeks. Best to avoid slipping anything you want her to approve under her nostrils then. Unless, of course, she’s just fallen in love, or her college roommate just won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism, or she’s found a hundred-dollar bill on the street. <blockquote> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/broken-record-150x150.jpg" alt="broken-record" title="broken-record" width="75" height="75" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-2446"/>There will always be aspects of querying success that you cannot control, and you will be a significantly happier writer in the long run if you accept that there is inevitably an element of luck involved — as well as writing talent, marketing savvy, and query-construction skill. </blockquote> Frankly, the luck part took me quite a long time to accept myself. I once received a rejection from an agent who had hand-written, This is literally the best query letter I have ever read — but I’ll still have to pass in the margins of my missive — as if that was going to make me feel any better about being rejected. To tell you the truth, this compliment annoyed me far more than it pleased me, and like so many aspiring writers, my mind flooded with resentful questions. Had the agent just completed a conference call with every editor in the business, wherein they held a referendum about the marketability of my type of novel, voting it down by an overwhelming margin? Had she suddenly decided not to represent the kind of book I was presenting due to a mystical revelation from the god of her choice? Or had the agent just gotten her foot run over by a backhoe, or just learned that she was pregnant, or decided to lay off half her staff due to budget problems? Beats me; I’ll never know. Which is kind of funny, because I’ve had some very nice chats with this agent at conferences since. The important thing to recognize is that whatever was going on at that agency, it was beyond my control. Until I am promoted to minor deity, complete with smiting powers, love potions, and telepathic control of the mails, I just have to accept that I have no way of affecting when any query — or manuscript, or published book — is going to hit an agent, editor, reviewer, or reader’s desk. (Okay, so I do have more control over when my agent sees my manuscripts — but even then, it’s up to him when to read them. You can lead a horse to water, etc.) My advice: concentrate on the aspects of the interaction you CAN control. Like, say, the matters on our troubleshooting list. (25) If I intend to submit this query to agents based in the United States, have I used ONLY US-spellings throughout my query packet? Or UK spellings, if I am sending it there or to Canada? This is true of submissions as well. While honour, judgement, and centre are perfectly correct in some places in the English-speaking world, they are technically incorrect in the US, just as honor, judgment, and center are on the other side of the pond, or even north of the border. Tailor your query and submission to what will look right to your intended audience: the agent. You don’t want Millicent to think that you just don’t know how to spell, do you, oh centred, honourable person of sound judgement? (26) When I mentioned the book category in the first paragraph of my query, did I use one of the established categories already in use by the publishing industry, or did I make up one of my own? Queriers new to the game often believe, mistakenly, that claiming that their books are so completely original, so unlike anything else currently for sale to the English-reading public, that even trying to squeeze them into one of the conceptual boxes provided by the industry would undersell their originality. Instead, these well-meaning souls just make up their own categories with names like Hilarious Western Romance Travelogue or Time-Travel Thriller. They think — again, mistakenly — that such names are helpful to agents. How could being more specific than the average bookseller’s shelving system be bad? In quite a number of ways, actually. To name but two, mythical book categories are unprofessional, and using them betrays a misunderstanding of why agents want to see them in query letters: to figure out whether the book presented is the kind that they currently want to sell. Also, an aspiring writer who clearly knows that he’s supposed to name a book category but tries to wiggle around it is playing rules lawyer, not a strategy likely to convince Millicent and her boss that he’s the type who just loves following directions without a fight. Do it because they say so. If you’re at a loss about how to go about narrowing down the choices, please see the HOW TO FIGURE OUT YOUR BOOK’S CATEGORY section on the archive list at right. “Can’t make me!” some rebels shout. “No one’s going to put MY book in a conceptual box.” That’s quite true: no one can force an aspiring writer to commit to a book category — at least before she’s signed with an agent, of course. Agents make their clients commit all the time; in fact, it’s not all that unusual for an agent to accept a new project as one category, ask for targeted revisions, then pitch it to editors as a different category. A book category is nothing but a conceptual box, after all, merely a marketing label used to get a manuscript to the people who represent and sell similar books. So a categorical (so to speak) refusal to allow your work to be labeled at the query stage isn’t going to impress anybody familiar with how books are sold in this country. Especially not Millicent — and especially if she happens to open your query at an inopportune moment. Don’t believe me? Okay, picture this: Millicent’s subway train from her tiny apartment in Brooklyn that she shares with four other underpaid office workers has broken down, so she has arrived at work half an hour late. There’s an agency-wide meeting in an hour, and she needs to clear her desk of the 200 query letters that came yesterday, in order to be ready for the 14 manuscripts her boss is likely to hand her at the meeting. After she has speed-read her way through 65 of the queries, a kind co-worker makes a Starbucks run. Just before Millicent slits open your query (#126), she takes a big gulp of much-needed caffeine — and scalds her tongue badly. Your query with its fanciful pseudo book category is now in her hand. What is she more likely to do, to humor your reluctance to place your book in the traditional conceptual box, as her boss will require her to do if she recommends picking you up as a client, or to shrug, say, “Here’s another one who doesn’t understand how the business works,” and move on to the next envelope? Blistered tongue or not, do you really want to bait her? If you’re absolutely, positively convinced that it would be an outrage upon the very name of truth to commit your novel to any one category, PLEASE don’t make up a hyphenate like Western-Fantasy-How-to, in order to try to nail it with scientific precision. In a pinch, if your novel doesn’t fall clearly into at least a general category, just label it FICTION and let the agent decide. Provided, of course, that you are querying an agent who routinely represents fiction that does not fit neatly into any of the major established categories. I definitely wouldn’t advise this with, say, an agent who represents only romantica or hard-boiled mysteries. But whatever you do, avoid cluttering up your query letter, synopsis — or indeed, any communication you may have with an agent or editor prior to clutching a signed contract with them in your hot little hand — with explanations about how your book transcends genre, shatters boundaries, or boldly goes where no novel has gone before. Even if it’s true. Perhaps especially if it’s true. Yes, such a speech makes a statement, but probably not the one the writer intends. Here’s how it translates into agent-speak: “This writer doesn’t know how books are sold.” (27) Have I listed my credentials well in my platform paragraph? Do I come across as a competent, professional writer, regardless of my educational level or awards won? I’m going to be revisiting the platform paragraph in more detail in a future post, but here’s the short version: if you have any background that substantially aided you in writing this book, you need to make sure you mention it in your query. Period. Even your camp trophy for woodworking can be a selling point, in the proper context. Ditto with any publication, anytime, anywhere, regardless of whether you were paid for writing it. But truthfully, unless you are writing a book that requires very specific expertise, most of your credentials will not actually be relevant to your book. But do say where you went to school, if you did, and any awards you have won, if you have. To professional eyes, these too are what I like to call ECQLC (Eye-Catching Query Letter Candy). If you are a member of a regularly-meeting writers’ group, feel free to mention that, too: anything that makes you sound like a serious professional is appropriate to include. But if you don’t have anything you feel you can legitimately report here, don’t stretch the truth: just leave out this paragraph. Unless, of course, you happen to be trying to find an agent or editor for a nonfiction work. Which brings me to… (28) If I am querying nonfiction, have I made my platform absolutely plain? Would even a Millicent in a hurry understand why I am uniquely qualified to write this book, if not actually the best-qualified person in the known universe to do it? A platform, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is the background that renders a nonfiction author qualified to write a particular book. Consequently, “What’s the author’s platform?” is pretty much always the first question either an agent or an editor will ask about any nonfiction book. Which means — and I do seem to being blunt quite a bit today, don’t I? Blame it on lack of sleep — that a nonfiction query that does not make its writer’s platform absolutely clear and appealing will practically always be rejected. And yes, you do need to satisfy this criterion if your nonfiction field happens to be memoir. I know, I know: it’s self-evident that a memoirist is the world’s leading authority on his own life, but as I’ve mentioned before, a memoir is almost invariably about something other than the author’s sitting in a room alone. If your memoir deals with other subject matter, the platform paragraph of your query letter is the ideal place to make the case that you are an expert on that. (29) Have I made any of the standard mistakes, the ones about which agents often complain? I like to think of this as a primary reason to attend writers’ conferences regularly: they are some of the best places on earth to collect massive lists of the most recent additions to agents and editors’ pet peeves. I’ve been going through most of the major ones throughout this series, but some of them can be quite itty-bitty. Referring to your book as a fiction novel, for instance, is invariably on the top of every agent’s list; in point of fact, all novels are fiction, by definition. A nonfiction memoir, a real-life memoir, a true memoirand nonfiction based on a true story, as well as permutations on these themes, are all similarly redundant. Just don’t do it. Waffling about the book category is also a popular choice, as are queries longer than a single page, including promotional blurbs from people of whom the agent has never heard (Chester Smith says this is the most moving book about trout fishing he’s ever read!), or — chant it with me now, folks — ANY mention of the book’s potential for landing the author on Oprah. Any or all of these will generally result in the query being tossed aside, unread. Especially the last; the average screener at a major NYC agency could easily wallpaper her third-floor walk-up in Brooklyn seven times over with query letters that make this claim — and I’m talking about ones received within a single month. Is this the last of the query checklist, since it’s now officially after Labor Day? Not quite, but close. I can’t absolutely promise that my arms are going to be up to posting again today — I’m due to drag myself to the physical therapist in a few hours, and he’s bound to frown at least a little on how much I’ve been typing this weekend — but I really would like to polish off Querypalooza as soon as possible. So tune in this evening at our usual Querypalooza time — and, of course, to keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3581" class="post-3581 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-agency-guides category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-being-an-agents-dream-client category-conference-lore category-dealing-with-rejection category-dear-agent-letters category-e-mailing-queries category-finding-agents-to-query category-frankenstein-queries category-industry-etiquette category-is-it-ok-to-query-several-agents-at-once category-query-letter-troubleshooting category-query-letters-for-beginners category-querying category-querying-faux-pas category-querying-multiple-agents-at-once category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-querypalooza category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-at-all category-small-publishers category-why-generic-queries-dont-work"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/06/querypalooza-part-vii-pretty-is-as-pretty-does-or-what-makes-you-think-that-bell-bottoms-are-still-in-style-barbie/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-09-06T00:00:00+00:00">September 6, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/06/querypalooza-part-vii-pretty-is-as-pretty-does-or-what-makes-you-think-that-bell-bottoms-are-still-in-style-barbie/industry-etiquette/#respond">No Comments on Querypalooza, Part VII: pretty is as pretty does, or, what makes you think that bell bottoms are still in style, Barbie?</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/09/06/querypalooza-part-vii-pretty-is-as-pretty-does-or-what-makes-you-think-that-bell-bottoms-are-still-in-style-barbie/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark">Querypalooza, Part VII: pretty is as pretty does, or, what makes you think that bell bottoms are still in style, Barbie?</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Barbie-ad.jpg" alt="Barbie ad" title="Barbie ad" width="421" height="275" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-11021"/> Still hanging in there, campers? Last night, I threw all of you queriers a bit of a curve ball: in the midst of talking about how to polish a basic query letter — polite salutation, title, book category, brief description, writing credentials/platform for writing the book, courteous sign-off, your contact information, SASE if you’re going to send it via mail — I <del datetime="2010-09-06T08:33:12+00:00">insisted</del> <del datetime="2010-09-06T08:33:12+00:00">ordered</del> <del datetime="2010-09-06T08:33:12+00:00">blandished you into</del> suggested that you write it not in your own good prose, but in the language of the publishing industry. Why might you want to invest the time in doing that? To elevate a ho-hum query that features just the basics into one that veritably leaps off the incoming mail stack at Millicent the agency screener. That made your eyes pop open this fine morning, didn’t it? “Wait,” some of the bleary-eyed call out, “back up a little. Did you just give a formula for a bare-bones query in the middle of that paragraph? Before I was fully awake? Is that fair?” Never mind that — you’re beyond basic querying now, my friends. You’ve even, if you have been following Querypalooza with an open heart and inquisitive mind (or even vice-versa) moved past <a href="/index_p_11697.html">the quite good query letter we discussed in Part I of this series</a>. (Was that only 48 hours ago? This weekend has, I must confess, been a lengthy one for me.) You’re ready to become so conversant with the logic of querying that you could toss out future queries in a pain-free hour or two, instead of an anguish-filled week or month. And what’s the magic wand that’s going to enable you to make that radical transformation? Learning how to describe your work as an agent or editor would. The first two steps: nailing down a book category for it and figuring out who your ideal reader is. A savvy querier needs to do more than assert that such a reader exists, however; she must provide some evidence of it. Which is to say: once you’ve identified your target audience, it’s greatly to your advantage to do a bit of research on just how big it is. Throwing some concrete numbers into your query, demonstrating just how big your target market actually is, will make it MUCH easier for Millicent to talk about your book to higher-ups — and, in turn, for an agent to pitch it to anyone at a publishing house. Why? Well, sales and marketing departments expect agents and editors to be able to speak in hard numbers — and no matter how much the editors at a publishing house love any given book, they’re unlikely to make an actual offer for it unless the sales and marketing folks are pretty enthused about it, too. So doesn’t it make sense to make sure the agent and editor fighting for your book have that demographic information at their fingertips, when it’s relatively easy for you to put it there? Some of you are still not convinced that it would behoove you to go to the additional effort, aren’t you? “But Anne,” I hear those of you writing for some of the bigger markets protest. “Surely, everyone with a pulse is aware of how big my particular target audience is and why they would find my book appealing. Wouldn’t it be, you know, a little insulting if my query assumed that the agent wasn’t sufficiently aware of the world around him to know these things?” Well, yes, if you happen to be pitching a YA book about a teenage girl’s relationship with a vampire or another book whose appeal to a recent bestseller’s already-established readership is so self-evident that any agent with a brain would pitch it as, “It’s basically TWILIGHT, but with twist X…” But the fact is, few books that aren’t really, really derivative of current bestsellers have that obvious a target audience. Let me tell you a parable about what can happen if a writer is vague about her target market’s demographics. <blockquote> Aspiring writer Suzette has written a charming novel about an American woman in her late thirties who finds herself reliving the trauma of her parents’ divorce when she was 12. Since the book is set in the present day, that makes her protagonist a Gen Xer, as Suzette herself is. (“It’s sort of autobiographical,” she admits, but only amongst friends.) Like the vast majority of queriers, she has not thought about her target market before approaching agent Briana. So she’s stunned when Briana tells her that there’s no market for such a book. But being a bright person, quick on her feet, Suzette comes up with a plausible response: “I’m the target market for this book,” she shoots back in an e-mail. (Something a rejected querier should NEVER, EVER do, by the way, but necessary here for the sake of drama.) “People like me.” Now, that’s actually a pretty good answer — readers are often drawn to the work of writers like themselves — but it is vague. What Suzette really meant was: <blockquote> “My target readership is women born between 1964 and 1975, half of whom have divorced parents. Just under 12 million Americans, in other words — and that’s just for starters.” </blockquote> But Briana heard what Suzette SAID, not what she MEANT. Since they’ve just met, how reasonable was it for Suzette to expect Briana to read her mind? Given this partial information, Briana thought: “Oh, God, another book for aspiring writers.” (People like the author, right?) “What does this writer think my agency is, a charitable organization? I’d like to be able to retire someday.” And what would an editor at a major publishing house (let’s call him Ted) conclude from Suzette’s statement? Something, no doubt, along the lines of, “This writer is writing for her friends. All four of them. Next!” </blockquote> Clearly, being vague about her target audience has not served Suzette’s interests. Let’s take a peek at what would have happened if she had been a trifle more specific, shall we? <blockquote> Suzette says: “Yes, there is a target market for my book: Gen Xers, half of whom are women, many of whom have divorced parents.” Agent Briana thinks: “Hmm, that’s a substantial niche market. 5 million, maybe?” Sounding more marketable already, isn’t it? But when Briana pitches it to editor Ted this way, he thinks: “Great, a book for people who aren’t Baby Boomers. Most of the US population is made up of Baby Boomers and their children. Do I really want to publish a book for a niche market of vegans with little disposable income?” </blockquote> So a little better, but still, no cigar. Let’s take a look at what happens if Suzette has thought through her readership in advance, and walks into her pitch meetings with Briana and Ted with her statistics all ready to leap off her tongue. <blockquote> Suzette says (immediately after describing the book in her query): “I’m excited about this project, because I think my protagonist’s divorce trauma will really resonate with the 47 million Gen Xers currently living in the United States. Half of these potential readers have parents who have divorced at least once in their lifetimes. Literally everybody in that age group either had divorces within their own families as kids or had close friends that did. I think this book will strike a chord with these people.” Agent Briana responds: “There are 47 million Gen Xers? I had no idea there were that many. I want to see the manuscript; this has market potential.” And editor Ted thinks: “47 million! Even if the book actually appealed to only a tiny fraction of them, it’s still a market well worth pursuing. Yes, Briana, send me that manuscript by your new client.” </blockquote> The moral of this exciting fairy tale: even the best book premise can be harmed by vague assertions about its target audience; it can only helped by the query’s talking about in marketing terms. There is one drawback to using up-to-the-minute demographic statistics, of course — if you end up querying the same project over a long period (not at all unusual for even very well-written manuscripts, at this point in literary history), you may have to go back and update your numbers. Actually, it’s not a bad idea to reexamine your query’s arguments every so often anyway. it’s quite easy to fall into the habit of pumping out those queries without really pondering their content — or whether this particular letter is the best means of marketing to that particular agent. Speaking of which, let’s return to our ongoing query-improvement list. (10) Have I addressed this letter to a specific person, rather than an entire agency or any agent currently walking the face of the earth? Does it read like a form letter? Some of you just did a double-take, didn’t you? “But Anne,” you cry in unison, and who could blame you? “I’m experiencing déjà vu. Didn’t we already cover this in #5, Is it clear from the first paragraph that I am querying the appropriate agent for my work?” Well, yes and no. Yes, I made some suggestions in <a href="/index_p_11761.html">Querypalooza VI</a> (was that only last night?) for some tried-and-true reasons for explaining why approaching a particular agent makes sense for your book. But no, we didn’t discuss how to fix a generic-sounding first paragraph. Basically, you fix it by not using the same first paragraph in every query. As I mentioned in <a href="/index_p_11804.html">an earlier post in this series</a>, experienced queriers will tweak their basic query letters to personalize them for each agent on their list. Less experienced serial queriers, though, often do not change anything but the first paragraph, address, and salutation between each time they sent out their mailed letters, more or less insuring that a mistake made once will be replicated a dozen times. Copying and pasting the text of one e-mailed query into the next guarantees it. And those of you who habitually did this were surprised to receive form-letter rejections? The electronic age has made it much, much easier to be dismissive. Although it may seem needlessly time-consuming, it’s worth reviewing every single query to ascertain that the opening paragraph speaks specifically to the recipient’s tastes and placement record. Most aspiring writers don’t even consider doing this — and frankly, it’s easy to see why. Many approach quite a few agents simultaneously — and with good reason. At this point in publishing history, when many agencies don’t even respond to e-mailed queries if the answer is no, waiting to hear back from one agent before approaching the next is poor strategy. One-by-one queries can add years to the agent-finding process. Do I sense some restless murmuring out there? “But Anne,” some of you conference veterans protest, “I heard that some agents will become furious if they find out that a writer is sending out many queries simultaneously. I don’t want to scare them away from my book by breaking their rules right off the bat!” I agree with the general principle imbedded in this cri de coeur — it’s only prudent to check an agency’s website and/or its listing in one of the standard agency guides to ascertain what precisely the agent you are addressing wants to see in a query packet. The differentials can be astonishing: some want queries only, others want synopses, many ask for pages to be placed in the body of an e-mail, a few ask queriers just to go ahead and send the first 50 pages unsolicited. <blockquote> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/broken-record-150x150.jpg" alt="broken-record" title="broken-record" width="75" height="75" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-2446"/>There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all query packet. In order not to run afoul of these wildly disparate expectations, a querier must be willing to do a bit of homework and follow individualized directions. </blockquote> Admittedly, sometimes an agency’s listing in one of the standard guides, its website, and what one of its member agents will say at a conference are at odds. In the event of a serious discrepancy, don’t call or e-mail the agency to find out which they prefer. Go with the information that appears to be most recent — in my experience, that’s usually what’s posted either on the website or on <a href="http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/">Publisher’s Marketplace</a>. What no agency will EVER leave off any of its expressions of preference, however, is mention of a policy forbidding simultaneous querying, the practice of sending out queries to more than one agent at a time — if it has one, which is exceedingly rare. Some do have policies against simultaneous submissions, where more than one agent is reading requested materials at the same time, but believe me, the agencies that want an exclusive peek tend to be VERY up front about it. So If you have checked to ascertain that the agent of your dreams — or at least the next on your list — does not have an exclusivity policy, you should assume that s/he doesn’t. Trust me, if an agent who does prefer an exclusive peek doesn’t want other agents seeing it, s/he will let you know. Until then, it’s a waste of your valuable time to grant a de facto exclusive to someone who hasn’t asked for it. (For some tips on dealing with an actual request for an exclusive if and when it comes up, please see the EXCLUSIVES TO AGENTS category on the list at right.) So why does the rumor that that agents secretly crave exclusives (and thus penalize queriers who don’t read their minds and act accordingly) remain so pervasive? Beats me. If I had to guess, I would say that it is an unintended side effect of agents’ standing up at writers’ conferences and saying, “For heaven’s sake, don’t send out mass queries — if I see a query that’s clearly been sent to every agent in the book, I send straight it into the rejection pile.” In other words, don’t send out generic queries. They’re just not worth your time. A query letter designed to please all is unlikely to be geared to the specific quirks and literary tastes of any particular agent — one of the many reasons that this shotgun approach seldom works. The other, believe it or not, is that mass submitters often render the fact that they don’t know one agent on their lists from another by sending out what is known in the biz as a Dear Agent letter. As in one that begins: <blockquote> Dear Agent, I haven’t the vaguest idea who you are or what you represent, but since the big publishing houses don’t accept submissions from unagented authors, I come to you, hat in hand, to beg you to represent my fiction novel… </blockquote> Why, when there is so much to resent in this (probably quite honest) little missive, would the salutation alone be enough to get this query rejected without reading farther? Well, to folks who work in agencies, such an opening means only one thing: the writer who sent it is sending an identical letter to every agent listed on the Internet or in one of the standard agency guides. Willy-nilly, with no regard to who represents what and consequently who is likely to be interested in the book at hand. Which means, they reason, that it is unlikely to the point of mockery that the book being proposed is going to fit the specific requirements and tastes of any of the agents currently domiciled at the agency. And, most will additionally conclude, the writer hasn’t bothered to learn much about how the publishing industry works. Virtually any Millicent will simply toss it into the reject pile, if not actually the trash. (Dear Agent letter-writers seldom know to include SASEs, alas.) Since this is such a NOTORIOUS agents’ pet peeve, I’m going to trouble you with yet another question aimed at making that first paragraph a beautiful case that you — yes, you — are the best possible fit for the agent you happen to be querying at the moment. And to make that case pellucidly clear even to a Millicent who has only 30 seconds or so to devote to each query. (11) Do I make it clear in the first paragraph of the letter SPECIFICALLY why I am writing to THIS particular agent — or does it read as though I could be addressing any agent in North America? This is a corollary of the last, of course — to put it another way, writers aren’t the only ones screaming at the heavens, “Why me? Why me?” (Agents scream it, too, but with a slightly different meaning.) No, but seriously, agents (and their screeners) wonder about this. So it’s worth taking a look at your query letter and asking yourself if it answers the question: there are hundreds and hundreds of literary agents in the United States alone — why did you choose this one, out of all others, to query? What specifically about this agent’s track record, literary tastes, and/or bio led you to say, By gum, I would like this person to represent my work? And no, in this context, because she is an agent and I desperately want to sell my book to a publisher is not a reason likely to impress Millicent. She hears it too often. The best way to justify your agent choice is by mentioning one of the agent’s recent sales. Remember, agents — like most other people — tend to be proud of their best work: if you want to get on their good side, showing a little appreciation for what they have done in the past is just good strategy. Especially if you can honestly compliment them on a project they really loved, or one that was unusually difficult to sell. I picked this little trick up not at writers’ conferences, but in academia. When a professor is applying for a job, she is subjected to a form of medieval torture known as a job talk. Not only is she expected to give a lecture in front of the entire faculty that is thinking of hiring here, all of whom are instructed in advance to jump on everything she says with abandon, but she is also expected to have brief private meetings with everyone on the faculty first. It’s every bit as horrible as it sounds, like going through a series of 20 or 30 interviews with authors who think simply everyone in the universe has read their work. (Everyone smart, anyway.) If you’re the job candidate, you’d better have at least one pithy comment prepared about each and every faculty member’s most recent article, or you’re toast. Gee, I can’t imagine why I didn’t want to remain in academia. But it did teach me something very valuable indeed: pretty much every human being affiliated with any book ever published likes to be recognized for the fact. Fortunately, it’s very easy to work a compliment into a query letter without sounding cheesy or obsequious. If the agent you are querying has represented something similar to your work in the past, you have a natural beginning: <blockquote> Since you so ably represented X’s excellent book, {TITLE}, I believe you may be interested in my novel…” </blockquote> There are many ways to find out what an agent has represented. Check the acknowledgments of books you like (authors often thank their agents), or check the agency’s website to see whom the agent represents. If all else fails, call your favorite book’s publisher, ask for the publicity department, and ask who the agent of record was; legally, it’s a matter of public record, so they have to tell you. Actually, with small publishers, this isn’t a bad method for finding out what they are looking to publish. I once had a charming conversation with an editor at a small Midwestern press, who confided to me that when she had acquired the book about which I was inquiring, the author did not yet have an agent. Sensing an opportunity, I promptly pitched my book to her — and she asked me to send her the first fifty pages right away. Sometimes opportunities are hiding in some unexpected places. For instance… (12) If I met this agent or editor at a conference, or am querying because I heard him speak at one, or picked him because s/he represents a particular author, do I make that obvious immediately? If I picked him purely because he represents my book category, have I at least made that plain? Queriers often seem reluctant to mention bring up having heard an agent speak, but since such a low percentage of the aspiring writers out there attend conferences (under 4%, according to the last estimate I saw), attending a good one that the agent you’re querying also attended is in fact a minor selling point for your book. <blockquote> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/broken-record-150x150.jpg" alt="broken-record" title="broken-record" width="75" height="75" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-2446"/>The prevailing wisdom dictates that writers who make the investment in learning how to market their work professionally tend to have more professional work to present. A kind of old-fashioned notion, true, but if you’re a conference-goer, it’s one you should be riding for all it is worth. </blockquote> I would suggest being even more upfront than this, if the conference in question was a reputable one and you did in fact attend it. Why not write the name of the conference on the outside of the envelope, in approximately the same place where you would have written REQUESTED MATERIALS had you pitched to the agent successfully there? And if you are an e-querying type, why not mention it in the subject line of the e-mail? (Also a good idea to include: the word QUERY.) If you have not heard the agent speak at a conference, read an article she has written in a writer’s magazine or online, or noticed that your favorite author thanked her in the acknowledgments of a book you liked — all fair game to mention in the first line of your query — don’t give in to the temptation not to personalize the first paragraph. Be polite enough to invent a general explanation for why you added her to your querying list: <blockquote> Since you represent such an interesting array of debut fiction about women in challenging situations, I hope you will be interested in my novel… </blockquote> (13) Am I sending this query in the form that the recipient prefers to receive it? If I intend to send it via e-mail, have I quadruple-checked that the agency accepts e-mailed queries? If I am sending it via regular mail, have I checked that the agency still accepts paper queries? Stop laughing, hard-core web fiends. The publishing world runs on paper — even as I write this, it’s still far from unusual for a prestigious agency not to accept e-submissions at all. Even agencies with websites (which not all of them maintain, even today) that accept submissions directly through the website often employ agents who prefer paper queries, even from writers residing in foreign countries for whom getting the right stamps for the SASE is problematic. Double-check the agency’s policy before you e-query. This information will be in any of the standard agency guides, and usually on the website as well. If you’re in doubt, query via regular mail — strategically, it’s a better idea, anyway. <blockquote> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/broken-record-150x150.jpg" alt="broken-record" title="broken-record" width="75" height="75" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-2446"/>it’s far, far less work to reject someone by the press of a single button than by stuffing a response into a SASE. Also, the average reader scans words on a screen 70% faster than the same words on paper. Thus, a truly swift-fingered Millicent can reject 50 writers online in the time that it would take her to reject 10 on paper. </blockquote> The relative speed of scanning e-queries is why, in case you’re wondering, quite a few of the agencies that actively solicit online queries tend to respond more quickly than those that don’t. Or not at all — which means that it’s also worth your while to check an agency’s policy on responding to e-queries before you approach them; many have policies that preclude responding to a querier if the answer is no. “But Anne,” I hear many of you shout, “what happens if I accidentally send an e-query to an agent who doesn’t like them, or a paper query to one who prefers to be approached electronically? That won’t result in an automatic rejection, will it?” Not necessarily, but often. But let me ask you this: who would you prefer to read your letter, an agent calmly going through a stack (or list) of queries, or an agent whose first thought upon seeing your epistle is, “Oh, God, not another one! Can’t any of these writers READ? I’ve said in the last ten years’ worth of <a href="http://www.jeffherman.com/guide/">Herman’s Guides</a> that I don’t want to be queried via e-mail!” I don’t know about you, but given my druthers, I would select the former. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe that just as it’s polite to address a person the way he prefers to be addressed, rather than by a hated nickname, a courteous writer should approach an agent in the manner she prefers to be approached. Those with strong preferences either way seldom make a secret of it; verify before you send. And before anyone out there asks: yes, most agents will assume that a writer worth having as a client will have gone to the trouble of learning something about their personal preferences. If they have expressed a pet peeve in one of the standard agency guides, they will assume that you are aware of it. While we’re on the subject of double-checking, allow me to sneak in one more quick question before I sign off for the morning: (14) Am I absolutely positive that I have spelled the agent’s name correctly, as well as the agency’s? Am I positive that the letter I have addressed to Dear Mr. Smith shouldn’t actually read Dear Ms. Smith? Heck, am I even sure that I’m placing the right letter in the right envelope? I hear some titters out there, but you wouldn’t BELIEVE how common each of these gaffes is. The last is usually just the result of a writer’s being in a hurry to get the next set of queries in the mail, and tend to be treated accordingly, but the first two constitute major breaches of etiquette. And yes, an agent with a first name that leaves gender a tad ambiguous is every bit as likely to resent an incorrect salutation as a Rebecca or Stephen would. Often more, because a Cricket, Chris, or Leslie would constantly be receiving queries apparently addressed to someone of the opposite sex. If you’re in serious doubt, call the agency and ask point-blank whether the agent is a Mr. or Ms. (Quick note for those querying US agents from other parts of the world: currently, Mr. or Ms. are the only two options, unless the person in question happens to be a doctor or a professor; unless a woman makes a point of identifying herself as a Miss or Mrs., Ms. is the proper salutation.) I know: you’ve heard 4500 times that a writer should NEVER call an agency until after she has a signed representation contract in hand or the agent has left a message asking him to call back, whichever comes first. While it is quite true that allowing the agent to set the level of familiarity in the early stages of exchange is good strategy, most offices are set up to allow a caller to ask a quick, anonymous question, if she’s polite about it. As long as you don’t ask to speak to the agent personally and/or use the occasion to pitch your book, you should be fine. Have you noticed how many of these tips boil down to some flavor of be clear, do your homework, and be courteous? That’s not entirely accidental: as odd as it may seem in an industry that rejects so many talented people so brusquely, manners honestly do count in this business. As my grandmother was fond of saying, manners cost nothing. But as I am prone to tell my clients and students, not exhibiting courtesy can cost an aspiring writer quite a lot. So sit up straight, brush your teeth, and help little old ladies across the street; it will be great practice for working with an agent or editor. Think we’re at the end of the query-refining questions? Not by a long shot. Tune in at 6 pm for my next installment, and keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4444" class="post-4444 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-you-submit category-agency-screeners-pet-peeves-of-the-notorious-variety category-art-of-revision category-business-format-vs-indented-paragraphs category-contest-entry-bugbears category-contest-entry-prep category-e-mailed-submissions category-e-mailing-queries category-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-book-proposal-but-were-afraid-to-ask category-formatting-manuscripts category-how-to-format-a-book-proposal category-memoir-book-proposals category-proofreading category-query-letter-troubleshooting category-querying category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-rejection-when-they-dont-tell-you-why category-standard-format-basics category-submission-troubleshooting category-unsolicited-submissions"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/02/24/the-mysteriously-mysterious-strictures-of-standard-format-part-xi-page-137-deserves-your-loving-scrutiny-too-or-no-time-for-napping-yet-gargoyle-3/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2010-02-24T00:00:00+00:00">February 24, 2010</time><time class="updated" datetime="2021-01-04T13:31:56+00:00">January 4, 2021</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/02/24/the-mysteriously-mysterious-strictures-of-standard-format-part-xi-page-137-deserves-your-loving-scrutiny-too-or-no-time-for-napping-yet-gargoyle-3/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/#comments">4 Comments on The mysteriously mysterious strictures of standard format, part XI: page 137 deserves your loving scrutiny, too, or, no time for napping yet, gargoyle!</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/02/24/the-mysteriously-mysterious-strictures-of-standard-format-part-xi-page-137-deserves-your-loving-scrutiny-too-or-no-time-for-napping-yet-gargoyle-3/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/" rel="bookmark">The mysteriously mysterious strictures of standard format, part XI: page 137 deserves your loving scrutiny, too, or, no time for napping yet, gargoyle!</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8930" title="napping gargoyle in Carcassonne" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/napping-gargoyle-in-Carcassonne.jpg" alt="napping gargoyle in Carcassonne" width="512" height="399" /> Have you been enjoying our in-depth guided tour of the manuscript from the top down? Literally: so far, we’ve talked about the piece of paper on top of the submission stack, the title page; we’ve talked about the next sheet of paper, the first page of text and how it differs from both the title page and the pages that come after it; we’ve extrapolated from that first page to standards for the first page of each chapter and any titled section breaks. Now, it’s time to talk about all of those pages in the middle, don’t you think? Perhaps, while we’re at it, we could engage in some more of those nifty compare-and-contrast exercises we engaged in so fruitfully yesterday. I know, I know: hard to contain your enthusiasm, isn’t it? Okay, so it’s not a particularly sexy topic, but as I mentioned yesterday, it’s a really, really good idea for an aspiring writer to devote a spot of time in comparing properly and improperly formatted manuscripts. Yes, yes, writing time is precious for all of us — and scarce for most of us — and school compare-and-contrast exercises left most graduates with but think of it as an investment in your writing career: once you’re learned to spot formatting problems easily, you’ll be a much, much more effective proofreader. Not to mention being able to format your manuscripts correctly from the get-go. Oh, that doesn’t sound like much of a door prize to you? Just wait until you’re trying madly to pull a submission packet together in response to a request for materials, or frantically constructing a contest entry four hours before it needs to be postmarked. Or, even more stressfully marvelous, responding to a last-minute revision request from your editor. Believe me, you’ll be very grateful then for every nanosecond that you don’t have to devote to wondering if your margins are consistent. With an eye to building up those vital professional skills, I have been running through the strictures of standard manuscript format and some common deviations from it, to demonstrate just how clearly our old pal, Millicent the agency screener, discerns the differences between a professionally-formatted manuscript and, well, everything else. At the end of a long day’s reading, they definitely jump out at her, and with good reason: once a professional reader gets used to seeing the similarities that pretty much all professional manuscripts share, submissions formatted in other ways might as well have UNPROFESSIONAL stamped on them in bright red ink. And while Millicent may strive valiantly not to allow that impression to color her reading of the submission itself, it’s just not a good idea to assume that it won’t. She’s only human, after all. It’s an even worse idea to assume a charitable reading for a contest entry, by the way. If anything, contest judges tend to be even more sensitive to the beauty of standard format than Millicent, for the simple reason that they’ve usually been reading a whole lot longer. The agency gig may well be Millie’s first job out of college, but the judge handed your entry may well have just retired from a long and fruitful career teaching English composition. Her fingers positively ache for the red pen of correction. This is not entirely accidental — most well-respected contests require some professional credentials from their judges, either as writers, editors, or teachers. Which means, in practice, that judges have often been writing in standard format themselves for years or bludgeoning other writers into compliance with its requirements. Translation: other kinds of formatting won’t look right to them, either. By now, you’re having a similar reaction, aren’t you? Don’t think you’re developing professional eyes? Or don’t want to believe you could conceivably share any traits with Millicent? Let’s test the proposition by trying a little Aphra Behn on for size. If you don’t know her work, you should, at least historically: as far as we know, she was the first woman paid for writing in English — which, as Virginia Woolf pointed out, means that every female writer who earns so much as a sou from it now should be laying wreaths on her grave in gratitude. Our girl Aphra’s also hilarious — and if you think it’s easy for a joke written in 1688 to remain funny today, well, I look forward to reading your comedic stylings in the year 2332. Don’t believe me? Here is a page from THE FAIR JILT. (If you’re having trouble reading the small writing, try double-clicking on the image, then enlarging the resulting window.) Try not to be too distracted by the story to notice how the page is put together. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-wrong.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1228" title="aphra-behn-wrong" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-wrong.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="603" /></a> You clever souls could tell instantly that there was something wrong here, couldn’t you, and not just because Miranda’s trying to seduce her priest? (For convent, read monastery.) Set aside Aphra’s practically Dickensian affection for semicolons for the moment — which would tend to turn off a modern Millicent pretty quickly — why might this page have a hard time as a submission. Before you commit to a final answer, here’s what it should have looked like in standard format: <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-right.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1229" title="aphra-behn-right" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-right.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="603" /></a> Let’s take the problems in the first version from the top of the page: the incorrect version does not have a proper slug line. Seeing this lone page out of context, it’s quite obvious why a slug line is a dandy idea, isn’t it? Without it, how would it be even remotely possible to return this wandering page back into the manuscript from whence it came. “Who wrote this?” Millicent cries in ire, glaring around her cubicle at the 47 manuscripts lying there. “This stray piece of paper could be from any of these!” At least Ms. Behn thought to number the pages of Example #1 — but did you catch the problem with how she did it? The page number is in the bottom right-hand margin, rather than in the slug line, where it belongs. Okay, that’s enough review from my last post. Did you catch any other problems that might register on Millicent’s umbrage meter?? What about the 10-point type, which will strain Millicent’s already overworked eyes? Or the Ariel typeface? There is nothing inherently wrong with either, but when she’s used to see practically every manuscript that heads out of the agency to publishing houses in 12-point Times New Roman, (chant it with me here) it just doesn’t look right. Anything else? What about that right margin? Mighty straight, isn’t it? That look proper to you? What’s going on here is called block-justification, another problem that can be laid squarely at the feet of those who insist that a manuscript and a published book should be identical. The text in many published books, and certainly in many magazines and newspapers, is spaced so that each line begins at exactly the same distance from the left-hand edge of the page and ends (unless itâ€™s the last line of a paragraph) at exactly the same distance from the right-hand edge of the page. Which, to let you in on why this type of neatness bugs the heck out of professional readers, renders skimming quite a bit more difficult. Why? Well, as you may see for yourself, block formatting provides fewer landmarks, as it were; to the glancing eye, practically every line of narrative text resembles every other. To those of us used to the ragged right margins and even letter spacing of standard format, it’s actually kind of hard to read. So there’s quite a bit in Example #1 that’s distracting from the actual writing, isn’t there? Doesn’t help sell the text, does it? Okay, all of these rhetorical questions in a row are beginning to make me dizzy, so I’m going to wind down for the day. But before I do, let’s take one more look at Example #2, the one Millicent and a contest judge would like: <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-right.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1229" title="aphra-behn-right" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-right.jpg" alt="" width="466" height="603" /></a> Now, let’s take a gander at the same page in — ugh — business format; if you don’t know why it’s ugh-worthy, you might want to revisit <a href="/index_p_8570.html">this series’ earlier post on the immense value of indentation</a>. <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-business.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1230" title="aphra-behn-business" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/aphra-behn-business.jpg" alt="" width="465" height="604" /></a> Startlingly different, isn’t it, considering that I made a grand total of two formatting changes? You did catch both of them on your skim through, right? All I did was I eliminate the indentations at the beginning of each paragraph and skipped a line between paragraphs to produce the norm for business correspondence, as well as for most of the text currently posted on the Internet. Including this blog, unfortunately. As a professional writer and reader of manuscripts, it drives me nuts that my blogging program won’t allow me to indent paragraphs. Why? Because — wait for it — it just doesn’t look right. So much so that in a contest entry, as in a submission, business format is often grounds all by itself for knocking a manuscript out of finalist consideration. Finding yourself asking why again? Well, technically, indented paragraphs are grammatically requisite, so to a judge, non-indented paragraphs may well seem as great a violation of everything we hold dear as frequent misspellings or use of the wrong form of there, their, and they’re. Fortunately for judges and Millicents who care deeply about the health of the language, errors seldom come singly in entries and submissions. Like spelling errors, formatting mistakes are apparently social: they like to travel in packs, roving all over a manuscript like Visigoths sacking Rome. As a result of this convenient phenomenon, a manuscript that contains errors within the first few lines (or on the first page) is easy for a professional reader to dismiss; statistically speaking, it’s a pretty good bet that if Millicent kept reading after a technically flawed opening, she would find more causes for umbrage. Given how many submissions she has to screen between now and lunch, do you think she is going to (a) press on in the hope that the first error was a fluke, or (b) leap to the (perhaps unwarranted) assumption that there is more of the same to come and reject it right away? I leave that one to your fine critical faculties to answer. Let’s just say that her umbrage-taking threshold tends to be on the low side. Why am I bringing this up in the middle of a discussion of the perils of business format, you ask? Well, for starters, an ever-increasing number of agents are not only accepting e-mailed queries (a genuine rarity until astonishingly recently), including some who ask queriers to include the opening pages, a synopsis, and/or other writing samples with their queries. Since few agents open attachments from writers with whom they’ve had no previous contact, many request that those opening pages be included in the body of the e-mail, pasted just below the letter. See a potential problem there? That’s right: most e-mail programs are not set up for easy tabbing; consequently, business format is the norm for e-mail communications. But that doesn’t mean that the Millicent assigned to screen those queries won’t turn up her nose at non-indented paragraphs in those pages. Again, why? Are you sitting down, dislikers of indentation? I hate to be the one to break this to you, but there are Millicents out there (and agents, editors, and contest judges as well) who will leap directly from noticing a lack of indentation and unwarranted spaces between paragraphs to our friend, option (b): if the submitter is not aware of how to format a paragraph of English prose properly, she reasons, aren’t there inevitably more snafus to come? Not every Millicent — or agent, judge, etc. — will have this knee-jerk reaction, of course. But do you really want to take the chance that she’s not going to seize the opportunity to save herself a little time? The specter of illiteracy is not the only reason using business format is likely to cost you, either. To a professional reader, the differences between the last two examples would be more than visually jarring — they’d be downright confusing. In standard format, the only reason for a skipped line between paragraphs would be a section break, so Millicent would be expecting the second paragraph to be about something new. Okay, so a misconception like that might distract her attention for only few consecutive seconds, but let’s not kid ourselves: your garden-variety Millicent is spending less than a minute on most of the submissions she rejects — it’s actually not all that uncommon for her not to make into the second or third paragraph before reaching for the SASE and a copy of that annoying form rejection letter. Take a moment for the implications of that to sink in fully. Don’t worry; I’ll wait. While those of you new to the speed with which rejection typically occurs are already in shock, let me add for the sake of anyone who doesn’t already know: those who regard business format as a symptom of creeping illiteracy — hey, I just report the news; I don’t dictate it — are every bit as likely to frown upon it just as much in a query letter or synopsis as in a manuscript submission. Time loss is not the only reason she might take umbrage at momentary confusion. Let me let you in on a little secret: professional readers, especially those who inhabit agencies and publishing houses, tend not to be overly fond of having their mental image of the story they are reading at the moment jarred. How do I know this? Well, for one thing, they commonly refer to it as being tricked. As in, “I hate being tricked by a first paragraph that is about someone other than the protagonist.” There’s a practical basis to this dislike, of course, but it’s kind of complicated. I wrote a couple of fairly extensive posts on the subject a while back (here’s a link to <a href="/index_p_332.html">the first</a>, and here’s a link to <a href="/index_p_335.html">the second</a>, in case you’re interested), but I’ll run over the thumbnail version now. Is everybody comfortably seated? My thumbnails are a tad long. (Just try to get THAT image out of your head anytime soon.) To get through all of those manuscripts she’s assigned to screen each week, Millicent has to read quite quickly, right? If she doesn’t, she’ll get buried in paper, as basically, she’s got to make it through WAR AND PEACE several times over in a week. That’s a whole lot of material to remember, by anyone’s standards — and remembering actually is important here. If she decides to allow a manuscript to make it to the next level of consideration, she is going to need to be able to tell her boss what the book is about: who the protagonist is, what the conflict is, why that conflict is important enough to the protagonist for the reader to be drawn into it, and so forth. In essence, she’s going to need to be able to pitch it to the higher-ups at the agency, just as the agent is going to have to do in order to sell the book to an editor, and an editor is going to have to do in order to convince his higher-ups that the publishing house should acquire the book. And, often, as first-round contest judges will need to do on an evaluation form in order to pass an entry onto the next round. Okay, brace yourself, because explaining what comes next involves delving into one of the great cosmic mysteries that has long perplexed aspiring writers the world over. It’s not for the faint of heart. Remember earlier in thus series, when I mentioned that agents and editors don’t read like other people? Well, one of the primary differences is that from line one of page one, they’re already imagining how they’re going to pitch this book. So if paragraph 2 or 3 (or page 2 or 3) suddenly informs them that their mental patter has been about the wrong character, they feel as if they’ve been backing the wrong horse. And while there may have been any number of perfectly reasonable narrative reasons for the text to concentrate upon an alternate character for the opening, unless the writing and the story have already really wowed Millicent, her resentment about being <del datetime="2008-08-14T00:21:46+00:00">tricked</del> mistaken about the identity of the protagonist is often sufficient to make her reach for that SASE and form letter. Feel free to go scream into the nearest pillow over that last piece of convoluted logic; you don’t want to keep that kind of existential cri de coeur pent up inside. I’ll wait until it’s out of your system. Feel better? Good. Before you go rushing off to see if your opening paragraphs might possibly be laying you open to a charge of trickery — because, for instance, you might have taken the bold authorial step of noticing that there is more than one human being in the world, and written about an interpersonal relationship accordingly — let’s return to the formatting issue that prompted my little segue into the psychology of resentment. Can we extrapolate any practical lesson about business format from it? You bet your boots we can: it’s not a good idea to give the impression of a section break where there isn’t one. And when producing pages for people who read all day, you might want to stick to the rules governing written English and indent your paragraphs. Starting to feel more at home with standard format? Excellent; my <del datetime="2010-02-25T08:40:10+00:00">evil plan</del> <del datetime="2010-02-25T08:40:10+00:00">plot for world domination</del> teaching strategy is working. More compare-and-contrast exercises follow in the days to come, so keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-4436" class="post-4436 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-an-agent-makes-an-offer category-after-you-land-an-agent category-agency-contracts category-agents category-being-an-agents-dream-client category-book-publishing-basics category-changing-nature-of-publishing category-finances-for-writers category-genre-fiction category-getting-a-book-published-basics category-getting-paid-for-your-writing category-how-can-i-tell-if-an-agent-is-reputable category-how-the-publishing-industry-works-and-doesnt category-industry-etiquette category-keeping-the-faith category-legal-issues-for-writers category-must-reads category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-royalties-and-how-they-work category-strategizing-a-writing-career category-what-to-ask-an-agent-who-offers-to-represent-you"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/01/21/the-getting-a-book-published-basics-part-x-the-agency-contract-revisited-or-excuse-me-sirs-but-could-any-of-you-tell-me-which-one-of-you-will-be-representing-my-book-tomorrow-5/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2010-01-21T00:00:00+00:00">January 21, 2010</time><time class="updated" datetime="2020-12-26T22:09:28+00:00">December 26, 2020</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/01/21/the-getting-a-book-published-basics-part-x-the-agency-contract-revisited-or-excuse-me-sirs-but-could-any-of-you-tell-me-which-one-of-you-will-be-representing-my-book-tomorrow-5/industry-etiquette/#comments">4 Comments on The getting-a-book-published basics, part X: the agency contract revisited, or, excuse me, sirs, but could any of you tell me which one of you will be representing my book tomorrow?</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/01/21/the-getting-a-book-published-basics-part-x-the-agency-contract-revisited-or-excuse-me-sirs-but-could-any-of-you-tell-me-which-one-of-you-will-be-representing-my-book-tomorrow-5/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark">The getting-a-book-published basics, part X: the agency contract revisited, or, excuse me, sirs, but could any of you tell me which one of you will be representing my book tomorrow?</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8278" title="police line-up" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/police-line-up.jpg" alt="police line-up" width="470" height="304" /> <a href="/index_p_8269.html">Last time</a>, I broached the seldom-discussed issue of agency contracts — you know those handy documents that spell out explicitly what the agent offering to represent you will do for you in exchange for how much. While most aspiring writers simply squeal and shout, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” the nanosecond an offer emerges from an agent’s mouth, it’s very much in your interest to know what you’re agreeing to before you agree to it. In other words: not all agencies are created equal. Nor do they all operate in the same manner. There are, however, some norms. As those of you who pored over yesterday’s post may recall to your sorrow, in going over how (and how much) US-based agents typically get paid for representing their clients’ work, I mentioned that US agency contracts typically specify 15% for books sold to a North American English-language publisher, 20% or more for sales to non-North American publishers, whether the book is published in English or not. “Um, Anne?” a small, confused chorus has been piping out there in the ether ever since I first brought it up. “Was the bit about English-language North American sales just a really complicated, drawn-out typo? Aren’t there other people in the world who read English — like, say, the people in England? Why aren’t all of the English-language sales lumped together, and the foreign ones together?” Ah, because that would make sense, my friends. The industry likes to keep all of us guessing by throwing a cognitive curve ball every now and again, so this is going to require a fairly extensive and rather convoluted explanation. Before I launch into it, you might want to pop into the kitchen and make yourself some tea, or fluff up the pillows on your ottoman. I’ll wait. Okay, everybody comfortable? Here goes. North American vs. world rights From the point of view of your garden-variety US publisher, books published in the English language fall into three categories: those sold in North America (meaning in the US and Canada), those sold in Great Britain, and those sold in other countries. So when folks in the industry speak about a US-based agent selling a book to a US-based publisher, they’re generally talking about the first North American rights: the publisher has bought the ability to be the only source of the first addition of the book in the US and Canada. Of the three categories, only North American rights are considered English-language sales, for contractual purposes. The last two are considered foreign-language sales, which is why — pay close attention here — if your agent manages to sell your book to a UK-based publisher, you will be selling the world rights. Believe it or not, the world excludes North America — which I imagine might come as something of a surprise to those of us who live here. There — and you thought it wasn’t going to make sense. What might all of this rigmarole mean for the writer? Perversely, if EXACTLY the same English-language book by a US author was sold in Canada and Great Britain, the author’s US agent would take 15% of the royalties on the first and 20% on the second. Sometimes, the Canadian rights are subsumed in the world rights (if, say, the publisher is UK-based), instead of under the North American rights. Before you laugh out loud, I should warn you that this scenario is not particularly far-fetched: all of the books in the HARRY POTTER series were sold in a slightly different form in the former Commonwealth than in the U.S. Why? Well, chips mean one thing to a kid in London and another to a kid in LA, and while apparently the industry has faith that a kid in Saskatchewan could figure that out, it despairs of the cultural translation skills of a kid in Poughkeepsie or Omaha. This is why, in case you were curious, you will see the notation NA in industry discussions of book sales — it refers to first North American rights, minus Mexico. Rights to sell books south of the border, in any language, fall under foreign language rights, which are typically sold on a by-country basis. However, occasionally an American publisher will try to score a sweet deal on a book expected to be a bestseller and try to get the world rights as part of the initial deal, but this generally does not work out well for the author. Why? Well, do the math: if a book is reprinted in a second language and a North American publisher owns the foreign rights, the domestic house scrapes an automatic 20% off the top of any foreign-language royalties accrued by the author. (If this discussion seems a trifle technical, chalk it up to the rather extended struggle I had to retain my memoir’s foreign rights; back in the day, my now-gun-shy publisher wanted ’em, big time. But they’re mine, I tell you, all mine!) I cannot stress enough, though: read your contract. Ask some questions. Norms are just norms; individual agencies’ policies do vary. But what if I am represented by an agent based outside North America — or if I’m unsure if a North American one is asking me to agree to legitimate terms? Obviously, what constitutes a domestic sale would vary depending upon the country in which the agent does his primary business. So if you are reading this somewhere outside North America, or translated into a language other than English, you should not blithely assume that what I am saying here applies to your home country; it’s always worth your while to check with your national literary agents’ association. For the English-speaking world, the top ones are: <blockquote>In the United States, contact the <a href="http://www.aar-online.org/">Association of Authors’ Representatives</a>. In the United Kingdom, contact the <a href="http://www.agentsassoc.co.uk/">Association of Authors’ Agents</a>. In Australia, contact the <a href="http://www.austlitagentsassoc.com.au/">Australian Literary Agents Association</a>. I couldn’t find a specific association for Canada (if anyone knows of one, please let me know, and I’ll be delighted to update this), but the <a href="http://www.publishers.ca/publishing-literary-agents.htm">Association of Canadian Publishers’</a> website does include information about literary agencies north of the border.</blockquote> Not all agents are members of these organizations, but if there have been complaints from writers in the past, these groups should be able to tell you. They are there to help writers make crucial decisions about who should represent their work. So are writer-protection sites like <a href="http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubagent.htm">Preditors and Editors</a> or the <a href="http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=22">Absolute Write Water Cooler</a>, excellent places to check who is doing what to folks like us these days. <a href="http://www.sfwa.org/Beware/">Writer Beware</a>, a website sponsored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, provides a wealth of resources for those who want to learn about scams aimed at writers. Please don’t dismiss the notion doing some minimal checking to assure the agents reading your work are on the up-and-up as writerly paranoia — who represents your work is too important to your writing career to leave to chance. Remember, not everyone who slaps up an official-looking website is actually an agent, and good writers too nice to want to seem confrontational get burned all the time. In case it might influence the decision-making process of those of you quietly rolling your eyes at the prospect of investing even more of your scant writing time in researching folks whose ostensible purpose in life is to help writers, I should add: all but the last site I listed are also pretty good places to learn about agents’ specialties, on the off chance that you might be looking for someone to query now that <a href="/index_p_8020.html"> the Great New Year’s Resolution Plague of 2010</a> is fast receding into memory. I just mention. Let’s assume for the moment, though, that the agency lucky enough to land you as a client — strange to think of it that way, isn’t it? — is as reputable as reputable can be. Most agencies are. Even under that happy circumstance, it’s very much in your best interest to understand how and to whom an agent might market your book before you read, much less sign, an agency contact. Not only because these distinctions are rather counter-intuitive, but because they’re the criteria used to determine what percentage your agent will take out of your advance and royalty checks. Again: read your representation contract before you sign it. Ask some questions. The only way this relationship is going to work to both your benefit and the agent’s is if both parties understand precisely what each of them is supposed to do. Tell me again how I’m supposed to cover all of this in my first conversation with a prospective agent without sounding like a paranoid jerk? I sense that some of you have gone a bit pale over the course of the last dozen or so paragraphs. “Um, Anne?” a few queasy souls inquire. “You’re kidding about expecting me to have an intelligent discussion of all of this with my agent in the first 30 seconds after he’s offered to represent me, right? Couldn’t I just agree to let him represent me, and sort the details out later?” Well, of course you could — as I said, most aspiring writers just blurt out “Oh, God, YES!” before finding out anything about the terms to which they’re agreeing at all. I can completely understand this impulse: mistrust is the last thing on your mind when you are thrilled to pieces that a real, live agent wants to represent you. Yes, YOU. How thrilling! Trust your Auntie Anne on this one, though: honeymoons do occasionally end, and not generally because anyone concerned has done anything especially nefarious. Remember, agents move from one agency to another all the time, especially in this economy. If this happens, you will need to know with whom you have a contract, the agency or the agent. (Either is possible.) It’s also not unheard-of for an agent to stop representing a particular genre even though she has clients still writing and publishing in it. Writers occasionally develop a sudden urge to compose a book in a category for which their agents do not have current contacts. And so forth. The agency contract is, in short, one contract to read with your glasses ON, and paper by your side to jot down questions. It’s perfectly legitimate to request time to pore over it. Then pick up your notes, hie yourself to a telephone, and start asking follow-up questions. If you do not have an opportunity to see a copy of the agency contract before having your first serious conversation about your future with your new agent — as will probably be the case; many agents are notoriously slow in sending out representation agreements — do make a point of asking the agent in your first conversation for a brief overview of its major points. That’s merely good sense whenever you are going to deal with a business with which you are unfamiliar, and it would never occur to a reputable agent to take your caution at all personally. Because, you see, by being cautious, you’re not calling the agent’s integrity into question, but making sure you know precisely what she is proposing that you do together. After all, the agent almost certainly will not have been the person who wrote the contract; the agency will have an established boilerplate. Naturally, it is in an honest agent’s best interest for a prospective client to understand the contract-to-be well enough to abide by its provisions. Allow me to repeat something I dropped into the middle of that last paragraph, because it comes as news to a lot of newly-agented writers: unless your future agent happens to own the agency, it is the agency — not the agent whom you are prepared to love, honor, and obey for as long as you shall write and she shall sell — who will set the terms of your relationship. The agency, not the agent, produces that contract I keep yammering about, after all; the agent may not even sign it. So a savvy writer should be very, very interested in the policies and procedures of any agency to which she is about to commit herself and her writing. Wait — what do you mean, I’m committing to the agency, not just the agent? That’s right — agency policy will affect you, and that agent who is being so nice to you on the phone will not be the only agency employee who will be dealing with your work. Among other things, the agency, and not merely the agent, is going to be handling every dime you make as a writer — and furthermore, telling the fine folks at the IRS all about it. Remember, your publisher will be sending your advance and royalty checks to your agency, not to you personally. (For a more in-depth examination, please see the ADVANCES and ROYALTIES AND HOW THEY WORK categories on the list at right.) If your work is going to be sold abroad, the agency will turn your book, your baby, over to a foreign rights agent of ITS selection, not yours — and will be taking a higher percentage of your royalties for those sales than for those in the English-speaking parts of North America, typically. And the agency is also going to be responsible not only for keeping the government informed about all of these transactions, but also preparing those messily-carboned royalty forms that you will be submitting with your taxes. That’s a whole lot of trust to invest in people who you may never meet face-to-face, isn’t it? Or, in some cases, people that you may not even know exist? Did I just hear a giant collective gasp out there? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but many authors never meet their agents in person; is it really all that surprising, then, that few are on friendly terms with the rest of the agency’s staff? It’s not as though the agency will fly a prospective client from California to New York just to get acquainted. Since almost everything in the biz is handled by phone, e-mail, or snail mail, face-to-face contact is seldom necessary. The result? Well, it’s not a scientific sample, of course, but I know plenty of writers who couldn’t pick their agents, much less the principal of their agency, out of a police line-up. (Not that you really want to be in the position to hiss, “That’s she, officer. SHE’S THE ONE WHO DIDN’T MAIL MY ROYALTY CHECK,” but still.) Ideally, you want relationships with both your agent and agency so comfortable that you have no qualms — and no need to have any — about simply handing the business side of your writing over to them and letting them get on with making you rich and famous. (Which you already know that no agent cannot legitimately promise up front, right?) So while asking a whole lot of pointed questions at the outset may seem mistrustful, doing so will actually substantially increase the probability that you’re going to trust and respect your agent a year or two down the road. At minimum, find out whether you are signing with the agency as a whole or with the agent specifically: contracts come both ways. Remember, agencies vary quite a bit. Some are set up so the royalty money all goes into a common pool, funding the entire agency, and some are run like hairdressing establishments, where each chair, so to speak, houses an independent contractor, and no funds are mixed. Why should your agent’s employment arrangements concern you? Well, if you are the client of an independent contractor-type agent, if she leaves the agency, you more or less automatically go with her, or will at least be given the option of doing so. If your contract is with the agency, you probably will not. Again, asking about this is not being paranoid; it’s being prudent. Few human relationships are permanent, after all. Let’s face it: some agencies have pretty short lifespans. It’s also not all that uncommon for agents simply to burn out on the biz; selling books is hard work, after all. And since many agents have a track record of agency-hopping every couple of years — as many junior agents do; it’s a smart way to build a professional lifetime’s worth of contact lists — may I suggest that how the agency is set up may affect your life pretty profoundly? Don’t think that nice agent who called you to offer to represent you would drop out of sight? Okay, cover your representation contract — no peeking now — and answer these trenchant questions: <blockquote>(1) If your agent retired, would you still be represented, or would you need to find a new agent? (2) What about if she got laid off and the agency did not replace her, as is happening in agencies all over the country right now? Would you still be represented then? (3) What if she got into a car crash, God forbid, and had to cut her client list in half? (4) Does the agency have any hierarchy in place to mediate any disagreements that may If you had a fundamental disagreement with your agent, could you move to another agent within the agency, or would you need to find a new agent elsewhere? (5) On the brighter side, what if your agent started an agency of her own?</blockquote> Yes, I actually do know authors to whom each of these things has happened; thanks for asking. None of them had even considered any of these possibilities until the realities hit them in the face. And virtually all of them now say that it never occurred to them to question whether the agency would be there to support them if something happened to their again. But perhaps that’s not too surprising: many an author could not pick any member of her agency’s staff but her agent out of a crowd at a writers’ conference. Or out of a police line-up, for that matter. So I take it you’re saying that this isn’t a business that runs on handshakes Sometimes it is, but you should be very wary of an agent who is not willing to offer you a written contract. Contrary to popular belief, verbal contracts may be binding (if some consideration has changed hands as a result of it, as I understand it; if you handed someone a $50 bill and the keys to your car after the two of you had discussed his painting a mural on the passenger-side door, I’m told that could be construed as a contract, even with nothing in writing, but you should definitely talk to a lawyer before you attempt anything so zany), but as I MAY have pointed out, oh, 1800 times in the last 5-plus years, this is an industry where the power differential tends not to fall in the writer’s favor until after she is pretty darned well established. Protect yourself. A good place to start: reading your representation contract and asking some intelligent questions. Assume, too, that at some point, you will want to revisit some of these issues. If you are offered a written contract, make yourself a photocopy so you may refer to it later. Yes, even if the agent or agency’s head has not yet countersigned it. Many agented writers report that they have never seen another copy of the contract again after they signed it. Dare I hope that those great, gusty sighs I hear wafting from my readership mean that this is all sinking in? “Okay, Anne,” sadder-but-hopefully-wiser writers everywhere concede. “I get it: it’s not in my interest to take the details of the agent-client relationship on faith. I need to ask questions when I don’t understand something. But right now, I don’t think I have the energy to do that, because you’ve depressed me into a stupor. The last couple of posts have occasionally read as if half the agents out there are evil trolls, waiting under every bridge into Manhattan in the hope of defrauding innocent authors.” Of course, that’s not the case. The vast majority of agents honestly are good people who love good writing and want to help writers — but as in every profession, not all of them are scrupulous about fulfilling their obligations toward their clients. It behooves us all to be cautious. So read that contract; act those questions; walk into that agency with your eyes wide open and your reading glasses firmly on. And please, when the time comes: don’t be so flattered by an agent’s attention that you just agree to everything you are asked — or contractual provisions you don’t know exist. That’s how good writers get hurt, and I don’t want to see it happen to any of you. Put up your antennae before entrusting your precious manuscript to just anyone’s care. Next time, I’ll talk about what agents do with manuscripts after the representation contract is signed. In the meantime, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-2862" class="post-2862 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-you-land-an-agent category-after-youve-been-rejected category-agents category-annes-favorite-posts category-book-publishing-basics category-changing-nature-of-publishing category-dealing-with-fear-of-rejection category-dealing-with-rejection category-editors category-getting-a-book-published-basics category-how-the-publishing-industry-works-and-doesnt category-industry-etiquette category-keeping-the-faith category-must-reads category-querying-fatigue category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-slush-piles-and-why-they-no-longer-exist category-submission-fatigue category-unsolicited-submissions category-writing-advice-truisms"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/01/19/the-getting-a-book-published-basics-part-viii-why-no-single-rejection-means-the-end-of-the-line-or-even-rocks-ahead/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2010-01-19T00:00:00+00:00">January 19, 2010</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/01/19/the-getting-a-book-published-basics-part-viii-why-no-single-rejection-means-the-end-of-the-line-or-even-rocks-ahead/industry-etiquette/#comments">3 Comments on The getting-a-book-published basics, part VIII: why no single rejection means the end of the line — or even rocks ahead</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2010/01/19/the-getting-a-book-published-basics-part-viii-why-no-single-rejection-means-the-end-of-the-line-or-even-rocks-ahead/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark">The getting-a-book-published basics, part VIII: why no single rejection means the end of the line — or even rocks ahead</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/French-road-sign-768x1024.jpg" alt="French road sign" title="French road sign" width="512" height="683" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-8250"/> One of the ever-changing communications phenomena that most fascinates me is the relatively new practice of people forwarding newspaper articles to one another. Or even blog posts — some of mine have ended up in some awfully odd places. Scads of people who would never dream of clipping a column out of a physical newspaper blithely forward other people’s writing on subjects that interest them all over the place, often with minimal comment. Basically, they’re saying: I saw this and thought it would interest you, but I don’t really have anything to add to the discussion. Okay, so maybe that’s a trifle harsh: unlike, say, aspiring writers, many people prefer to be content consumers, rather than producers. The pervasiveness of the forwarding-without-substantive comment practice is largely a side effect of so much information being available online these days. But I must confess, I don’t think it’s really a substitute for discussion, conversation, or even a friendly I was thinking of you. In particular, I’m constantly bemused at how often I’m forwarded pieces that simply confirm things that the sender is already aware that I have known for years. How do I know that they’re aware of it? Because when I’m interested in something, I like to have discussions about it. Case in point: last week, no fewer than fifteen people — delightful, well-meaning, quite intelligent people, fully capable of holding up their respective ends of conversations — forwarded me the link to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703414504575001271351446274-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwNTExNDUyWj.html">a recent Wall Street Journal article</a> revealing the shocking fact that major publishers in the US no longer read unsolicited submissions from unagented writers. The slush pile, the article breathlessly informed readers, is all but dead. Which will not come as a surprise, I suspect, to any aspiring writer who has tried to get a book published within the last 15 years. The agented-only submissions policy has been in place at the majors for an awfully long time now. As, indeed, I would hope that anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis, or even has been following this month’s posts on how the publishing industry does and doesn’t work, was already aware. In case anyone still is not: under no circumstances should a writer query or submit directly to an editor at a major (or even mid-sized US publishing house, unless the editor has specifically requested it. It’s just a waste of a writer’s time and resources. There, now: none of you fainted, did you? Were any eyebrows even raised? But then, I am perpetually astonished at the already pretty well-established phenomena that are evidently supposed to flabbergast otherwise reasonable adults. That TV characters who have been flirting for seven consecutive seasons suddenly end up romantically entangled during episodes aired during sweeps week, for instance: um, who precisely is not going to have seen that coming? Or that any given major political initiative is greeted by anything but the unanimous approval of any given legislative body: as nearly as I can tell from the news every night, we’re all supposed to be floored by the fact that politicians disagree with one another from time to time, even when those splits run along precisely the party lines that characterized the last 17 major disagreements. Or that anyone’s cockles wouldn’t be warmed by the magic of Christmas. Frankly, I like to think that most people are a trifle less credulous than that — and more inclined to learn from experience. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, I don’t think too much of people who are not wiser today than they were yesterday. Which is one aspect of how the publishing industry treats writers that I really like: it assumes not only that anyone who can write well enough to deserve to be published is an intelligent human being, but also that a good writer can and will learn the ropes of the business side of publishing That’s not an insignificant compliment, in this era where even news shows operate on the assumption that the average adult has the attention span of a three-year-old — and one who has been stuffing candy into his eager mouth for the last two hours at that. Actually, I find agents’ and editors’ presumption of authorial intelligence rather refreshing. If not always completely justified. Aspiring writers often expend a great many tears, trying to capture the attention of an agent or editor when they do not know the rules for flagging ‘em down. Or that there are rules at all. Hey, did you hear that new writers never get discovered from the slush pile? Film at 11. Which may, I suppose, be the point of forwarding some information around. Since the pros expect writers to do their own research before trying to get their books published, those brand-new to the biz are often stunned that nobody in the industry just tells them what to do. From a first-time querier’s perspective, it can seem downright counterproductive that agents just expect her to know what a query letter should look like, what information it should contain, and that it shouldn’t just read like a back jacket blurb for the book. Heck, how is someone who has never met an agented author in person to know not just to pick up the phone and call the agent in question? Magic? Osmosis? Similarly, agents, editors, and contest judges presume that anyone genuinely serious about her writing will have taken the time to learn how professional writers format their manuscripts — an interesting presumption, given that many, if not most, aspiring writers are not aware that professional manuscripts are not supposed to resemble published books. (To those of you who just gasped: don’t worry; I shall be going over the differences again as soon as I wrap up my current series on how books get published.) Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s not information that the average writer is born knowing — which is a real shame, since professionally-formatted manuscripts tend to be taken far more seriously at submission time than those that are not. Why? Well, partially because of that flattering supposition I mentioned above: because people who read manuscripts for a living tend to assume that since good writers are intelligent people, the common conclusion is that the only reason that a manuscript would not be formatted properly is that the submitter did not bother to do his homework. In other words, from their perspective, a query or submission that does not conform to their expectations of what is publishable (in terms of writing) or marketable (in terms of content or authorial authority) is a sign that the writer just isn’t ready yet to play in the big leagues. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they believe that writer will never produce professional-level work; indeed, folks in the industry tend to assume (and even say at conferences) that they’re confident that if a truly talented writer gets rejected, she will take it as a sign that she needs to improve her presentation. Since the information on how to do that is available — although nowhere near as readily or conveniently as most agents who say this sort of thing seem to think, despite the pervasiveness of the forwarding culture — why wouldn’t someone with a genuine gift invest the time and effort in learning to do it right? In my experience as a freelance editor, writing teacher, and conference presenter, there’s a very straightforward answer to that: because the average querier or submitter, gifted or otherwise, doesn’t have a clear idea of what he’s doing wrong. And since most rejection letters these days contain absolutely no clue as to what caused the agent (or, more commonly, the agent’s screener) to shove the submission back into the SASE — or don’t respond at all if the answer is no — I don’t find it all that surprising that the aspiring writer’s learning curve isn’t always particularly steep. You may forward the link to my saying so. Just don’t quote me without giving me credit, okay? All of this is why I am bringing up the expectation of intelligent research toward the end of this series on how writers bring their books to publication. Indeed, it’s a large part of the reason that I write this blog: from an outside perspective, it’s just too easy to interpret the sometimes esoteric and confusing rules of querying, pitching, and submission as essentially hostile to aspiring writers. That’s not really the case. While many of the querying and submission restrictions have indeed been established, as we have discussed, in order to narrow the field of candidates for the very, very few new client slots available at most agencies, the intent behind that weeding-down effort is not to discourage talented-but-inexperienced writers from trying to get their work published. The underlying belief is that an intelligent person’s response to rejection will not be to give up, but to analyze what went wrong, do some research about what can go right, and try, try again. Yes, what you just thought so loudly is quite correct: the fine folks who toil in agencies and publishing houses don’t expect the writers they reject to disappear permanently, at least not the ones with genuine talent; they believe that the gifted ones will return, this time better equipped for life as a professional writer. To cite the old publishing industry truism, good writing will always find a home. What the agents and editors who spout this aphorism seldom think to add is: but not necessarily right away. Like learning any other set of job skills, becoming a professional writer can take some time. Which means, from the business side of the industry’s perspective, writers who give up after just a few rejections — which is the norm, incidentally, not the exception — are those who aren’t seriously interested in making the rather broad leap between a talented person who likes to write and a professional writer in it for the long haul. Trust me, they don’t waste too many tears over the loss of the former. I don’t see it that way, personally: given how many writers I meet in my classes, at conferences, and through this blog, I see the crushed dreams. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t think that most talented aspiring writers take individual rejections from agents far, far too seriously. That’s why, in case you were wondering, I didn’t move on to my promised topic du jour, what happens after an agent agrees to represent a manuscript. There will be time enough for that happy contingency tomorrow. Today, I want to concentrate on the importance of keeping faith with your own work. These days, it seems as though every other aspiring writer I meet has either: <blockquote> (a) had sent out a single query, got rejected, and never tried again, (b) had a few queries rejected two years ago, and has been feverishly revising the manuscript ever since, despite the fact that no agent had yet seen it, (c) had pitched successfully at a conference, but convinced herself that the only reason four agents asked to see her first chapter was because those agents were just saying yes to everybody, (d) had received a positive response to a query or pitch, then talked himself out of sending the requested materials at all, because his work isn’t good enough, (e) had sent out the requested pages, but in order to save herself from disappointment, decided in advance that none of the replies will be positive, (f) had received the first manuscript rejection — and expanded it mentally into a resounding NO! from everyone in the industry, and/or (g) concluded from conference chatter that no one in the industry is interested in any book that isn’t an obvious bestseller. </blockquote> In short, each of these writers had decided that his or her fears about what happened were true, rather than doing the research to find out whether the response that fear and hurt dictated was in fact the most reasonable one. How might one go about figuring out whether a fear is reasonable? Let me address each of above quickly, to save you some late-night agonizing time: <blockquote> (a) A single query is not — and cannot — be indicative of how every agent on earth will respond. A better response: why not try again? (b) Until agents have actually seen the manuscript, there’s no way a writer can know how they will respond to it. A better response: work on improving the query. (c) No, the agents and editors WEREN’T asking everyone to send chapters — pitching doesn’t work that way. A better response: assume that you did something right and send out the requested materials. (d) How do you know for sure until you send it out? A better response: learn how to present your work professionally, then submit it. (e) In my experience, foretelling doom does not soften future misfortune, if it comes — it only serves to stultify present hope. A better response: hedge your bets by continuing to query other agents while waiting to hear back from the first round. (f) ANY individual agent or editor’s opinion of a book is just that, an opinion. It’s not the considered response of everyone affiliated with the publishing industry forever and ever, amen. A better response: see (a) (g) Contrary to popular opinion, the publishing industry makes MOST of its money on books that are neither bestsellers nor small-run books. Most of the time, the mid-list titles are paying the agency’s mortgage. A better response: take the time to learn how the industry works, rather than killing your chances entirely by not continuing to try. </blockquote> I don’t mean to imply that bouncing back from rejection is easy, or that landing an agent is a snap. The road from first idea to publication is long and bumpy, and seems to get bumpier all the time. As Maya Angelou tells us, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” Yes, it’s emotionally hard work to prep your pages to head out the door to agents and editors; yes, it is hard to wait for replies to your submissions. To give you a foretaste of what’s down the road if you’re successful, it’s also psychically difficult to watch the weeks tick by between when you sign with an agent and when that sterling soul decides that, in her professional opinion, the time is ripe for her to submit your book to editors. And then it’s rough to wait until those editors get around to reading it, just as it is agonizing to hang around, feigning patience, between the time a publisher acquires your book and it appears on the shelves. I’m not going to lie to you: it’s all incredibly wearing on the nerves. Again, though: is film at 11 really necessary? But if you are thinking about throwing in the towel on your book before you have given the querying and submission processes a thorough test, I’m just not the right person to look to for validation of that decision. Sorry. I’ll give you practical advice on how to query; I’ll hand you tips on how to improve your submission’s chances; I’ll share pointers on the fine art of revision; I’ll answer your questions along the way. I will cheer from the sidelines until I’m blue in the face for your efforts as a writer — as long as you keep trying. Why? I can only refer you to one of the few industry truisms that is actually true 100% of the time: the only book that has ABSOLUTELY no chance of being published is the one that stays hidden in the bottom drawer of the author’s filing cabinet. Keep pushing forward; keep sending your work out. Because while it’s time-consuming, expensive, and emotionally wearing, it’s also literally the only way that your book — or any book — comes to publication. Long-time readers of this blog will groan with recognition, but once again, I feel compelled to remind you that five of the best-selling books of the 20th century were rejected by more than a dozen publishers before they were picked up. Everybody count down with me now: <blockquote> Dr. Seuss, AND TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET (rejected by 23 publishers) Richard Hooker, M*A*S*H (21) Thor Heyerdahl, KON-TIKI (20) Richard Bach, JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL (18) Patrick Dennis, AUNTIE MAME (17) </blockquote> And all of those books got published back in the days when new writers actually did get discovered in the slush pile. Yet the lesson to derive from these facts, I think, is not that a changing industry should make aspiring writers fling up their hands at how much more difficult it is to get into print now, but that it’s imperative to keep moving forward. Please, please, PLEASE don’t dismiss your book too soon, on the basis of some preconceived notion of what will and will not sell — even if that preconceived notion fell from the ostensibly learned lips of the agent of your dreams. Concentrate on what you CAN control, not what you can’t. In order to do that effectively, you’re going to need to learn about how the process actually works. The good news is that the writer does have practically absolute control over the technical and cosmetic aspects of the submission. Yes, yes, I know — for most of us, getting our thoughts, stories, and worldviews out there is the primary goal of writing a book, so concentrating on the details seems comparatively boring. Most writers want to move directly to unfettered self-expression — and then are surprised and frustrated when the resulting book has difficulty finding an agent, getting published, or winning contests. But this is a bad idea, both professionally and emotionally. Concentrating almost exclusively on the self-expressive capacity of the book, we tend to read rejection as personal, rather than as what it is: an industry insider’s professional assessment of whether she can sell your work within her preexisting sales network. To return to what I was saying last week: ask anyone in the biz, and he will tell you that 99% of rejections are technically-based. The rejection usually isn’t of the submitter’s style or worldview, for the simple reason that those are not considerations unless the basic signs of good writing — in the sense of professional writing — are in the submission. That can be a very empowering realization. As can coming to terms with the fact that while people may be born with writing talent, the ability to present writing professionally is a learned skill. Once a writer grasps the difference between technically good writing and stylistic good writing, as well as the distinction between a well-written manuscript and a professionally-formatted one, rejections become less a personal insult than a signal that there may be technical problems with how she is presenting her writing. The question turns from, “Why do they hate me?” to “What can I do to make this submission/query read better?” Yes, yes, I know: emotionally speaking, it’s not much of an improvement in the short term. But at least when the question is framed in the latter manner, there is something the writer can DO about it. I’m a big fan of tackling the doable first, and getting to the impossible later. And I know I say this quite a bit on this blog, but it bears repeating: without a doubt, absolutely the best thing you can do to increase your chances is to make sure that your submission is crystal-clear and professionally formatted before you send it out. Out comes the broken record again: pass it under other eyes, preferably those of other writers, people who both know basic good writing when they see it AND have some idea how to fix it. Longtime readers of this blog, chant with me now: as marvelous as your kith and kin may be as human beings, they are unlikely to give you unbiased feedback — and only unbiased, knowledgeable feedback is going to help hoist your work up over the professional bar. You can also control how many agents are considering your work, and how often. Since turn-around times tend to be long (a safe bet is to double what the agent tells you; call or e-mail after that, for they may have genuinely lost your manuscript), do not stop sending out queries just because you have an agent looking at your chapters or your book proposal. If an agent turns you down — perish the thought! — you will be much, much happier if you have other options already in motion. What else can you control, even a little? Well, you can avoid sending your query or submission during the traditional industry dead times (between the second week of August and Labor Day; between Thanksgiving and New Year’s day), or predictable periods of heavy submission (immediately after New Year’s, right after school gets out for the summer). You don’t want to have your work end up in the “read when we get around to it” pile. Not to be confused with the slush pile, which no longer exists. The Wall Street Journal said so. Don’t let the hobgoblins of self-doubt carry you off, my friends. Have confidence in your talent — but work hard to learn as much as you can to maximize your book’s chances of success. Next time, I honestly will talk about what happens if an agent decides to take on a manuscript. Keep the faith, everybody — and keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3560" class="post-3560 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-you-land-a-publisher category-after-you-land-an-agent category-agents category-annes-book-picks category-being-an-agents-dream-client category-dealing-with-fear-of-rejection category-e-mailed-submissions category-exclusives-to-agents category-industry-etiquette category-is-it-ok-to-submit-to-several-agents-at-once category-keeping-the-faith category-literary-fiction-craft category-millicent-who-the-heck-is-millicent category-must-reads category-passive-voice-and-why-you-should-eschew-it category-querying-ethics category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-realistic-expectations-for-writers category-requested-material-wrangling category-simultaneous-submissions category-strategizing-a-writing-career category-submission-of-requested-materials category-time-between-sale-publication category-turn-around-times category-what-if-more-than-one-agent-asks-to-see-my-manuscript category-why-havent-i-heard-back-yet category-write-what-you-know category-writing-advice-truisms"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/11/11/the-chapter-of-forgotten-moods-or-a-few-thoughts-on-submission-and-the-passage-of-time-2/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2009-11-11T00:00:00+00:00">November 11, 2009</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/11/11/the-chapter-of-forgotten-moods-or-a-few-thoughts-on-submission-and-the-passage-of-time-2/industry-etiquette/#respond">No Comments on The chapter of forgotten moods, or, a few thoughts on submission and the passage of time</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/11/11/the-chapter-of-forgotten-moods-or-a-few-thoughts-on-submission-and-the-passage-of-time-2/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark">The chapter of forgotten moods, or, a few thoughts on submission and the passage of time</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <a href="/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mr-britling.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mr-britling.jpg" alt="" title="mr-britling" width="326" height="500" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1519"/></a> I read in the paper this morning that only one American veteran of the War to End All Wars — World War I’s armistice is why there’s no mail delivery today, in case any of you stateside had been wondering; it’s also why the banks are closed and all of those mattresses are on big, big sale — was still alive and kicking. He’s 108 years old. And I’ve been steeped in the life literary for so long that my very first thought was, “Gee, I wonder if anyone’s approached him about dictating a memoir. I could practically write the book proposal off the top of my head!” rather than, “How nice that he’s gotten to see so many Veterans’ Days go by; I wonder if he was annoyed when they changed it from Armistice Day,” or even “Gee, sir, thank you for helping show the world that trench warfare was a really, really stupid idea.” Fair warning: this could happen to you, too. Just keep on writing those books. My father was a child during WWI (no, I’m not that old; he was when he had me); he recalled the day when the local doughboys came home. He would tell vivid anecdotes about watching protest marches in the streets, rationing, how his mother’s views on military service varied markedly as her only son approached draft age. It was from him, and not from my school’s history books, that I learned that here in the States, it had been quite an unpopular war; years later, it was his stories of the home front that I would contrast with H.G. Wells’ brilliant 1916 description of the British home front, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Britling-Sees-Through-Best-Sellers/dp/0742612767">MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH</a>. (In case you missed my oh-so-subtle plug for it above, here goes: if you’ve never read it and are even remotely interested in how human beings respond to their countries’ being at war, you might want to have the Furtive Non-Denominational Gift-Giver* add it to his list for you this year. I just mention.) I love this book — and not just because it’s a genuinely thoughtful, well-written work by an author whose non-science fiction writings have since his death fallen into undeserved obscurity. Which is a bit surprising, since Wells’ social novels were so very popular around World War I. How steep has his plummet from notice as a mainstream novelist been? Well, let me ask you: were you aware that he coined the phrase the war to end all wars? MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH is also one of the great examples of why write what you know is often such great advice. What writer living in wartime — and when aren’t we all? — would not resonate with a paragraph like this: <blockquote> The battle of the Marne passed into the battle of the Aisne, and then the long lines of the struggle streamed north-westward until the British were back in Belgium failing to clutch Menin and then defending Ypres. The elation of September followed the bedazzlement and dismay of August into the chapter of forgotten moods; and Mr. Britling’s sense of the magnitude, the weight and duration of this war beyond all wars, increased steadily. The feel of it was less and less a feeling of crisis and more and more a feeling of new conditions. It wasn’t as it had seemed at first, the end of one human phase and the beginning of another; it was in itself a phase. It was a new way of living. And still he could find no real point of contact for himself with it at all except the point of his pen. Only at his writing-desk, and more particularly at night, were the great presences of the conflict his. Yet he was always desiring some more personal and physical participation. </blockquote> Not that why write what you know is as self-explanatory and all-encompassing a piece of advice as many writing teachers seem to think. As those of you who have been hanging around Author! Author! for a good, long while are already aware, I’m no fan of one-size-fits-all writing advice — beyond the basic rules of grammar and formatting restrictions, of course. What works in one genre will not necessarily work in another, after all, nor are the stylistic tactics that made ‘em swoon in 1917 or 1870 particularly likely to wow an agent or editor now. Doubt that, all of you Dickens-huggers out there? Okay, I dare you: try submitting the paragraph above to an agent or editor now. Even if it actually made it onto an agent’s desk — if, that is, Millicent the agency screener didn’t reject it out of hand for the repetitive word use, over-employment of the passive voice (pretty much universally regarded as bad writing in submissions now), and misuse of the semicolon (by definition, a semicolon followed by and is redundant, since a semicolon is implicitly an abbreviation for comma + and) — the sheer number of semicolons within this short paragraph would automatically raise both eyebrows and questions about the intended target audience. If the book in question were, say, a mainstream novel rather than literary fiction or an academic book, all of those semicolons would seem, well, a bit much. But then, in Wells’ day, novelists had the luxury of being able to write about current events in the reasonable expectation that the book would be in readers’ hands before today’s headlines were distant memories. He was able to write about the home front while the war was still going on — and not merely as a journalist. Now, journalists, politicians, and academics who have studied the field for twenty years are generally the only ones who can reliably pitch a book on what’s happening right now socio-politically with success — and even then, only as nonfiction. Partially, this is a matter of platform (if you write any kind of nonfiction whatsoever and don’t know what that is, run, don’t walk to the PLATFORM category on the archive list at the lower right-hand side of this page), but it’s also a symptom of how much longer it takes to get a book into print. Not only after it’s written and found an agent, but thereafter. How much longer, you ask with fear and trembling? Well, let’s assume that the manuscript is already absolutely clean (the professional term for completely free of typos and other errors; few submissions are completely clean, despite my perpetual nagging in this forum) and the agent is completely happy with it (also rare for a submission; agents often request extensive revisions before sending anything out). The agency will almost certainly have a backlog of manuscripts ready to go, so yours will have to wait its turn. When its time does roll around, the agent may send out anywhere from one to a dozen copies to different editors, depending upon the agency’s preferred submission policy. If it’s a single submission, the agent will wait until she hears back from the editor before sending out the next; if she’s chosen to make multiple simultaneous submissions, she may send out a copy to another editor when a rejection arrives. Or she may not; my agency, for instance, does submissions in waves, pausing sometimes six months before sending out the next set of manuscripts to the next set of editors. This is not at all an unusual practice. Take a nice, deep breath. You’ll feel better. So it’s fairly common for an agent to be circulating a manuscript, even a very good one, not to sell it for a year, year and a half, two. That’s an awfully long time, if any portion of the book’s market appeal relies upon relevance to current events; it’s not altogether surprising, then, that agents so often tell aspiring writers of up-to-the-minute stuff that the book will be dated too quickly to render marketing it worthwhile. Why, you ask? Um, are you sitting down? Comfy? Here goes: even if the manuscript in question was absolutely timely when it was written, and remains absolutely timely a year or two later, when the agent manages to sell it to an editor at a publishing house, to remain relevant, the same world conditions will have to prevail a year or more later, when the book actually becomes available for sale to readers. This is one reason, in case any of you submitters have been wondering, that writers who go batty if an agent who requested a manuscript doesn’t respond right away strike the pros as potentially difficult to work with: the agented life is largely one of waiting for something to happen. So if a writer walks into it expecting that everyone who comes in contact with his manuscript will instantly drop everything else in order to read it, he’s going to expend HUGE amounts of energy feeling his work is being ignored. It isn’t; the process just takes a while. And that — phew! — brings me back to my overarching topic du jour, the passage of time in the submission process. I’ve been meaning to get back to it for a while, since I receive so many private questions about it. (Why private? Beats me. For some reason that defies understanding from my side of the agent-landing process, I very frequently receive e-mailed questions from submitters who are absolutely convinced that no other aspiring writer in North America has ever been in their particular situation — or so I surmise from the fact that so many of them are unwilling to post the questions here, lest an agent recognize the situation.) For the next few weeks, however, I’m going to be tackling that backlog of readers’ questions, so let’s launch right into it. A periodic reader who, for reasons best known to himself, has requested anonymity, has brought up the perennial issue of turn-around times on submissions. Since I know that many aspiring writers share his concerns, I have changed the identifiable information to preserve the secret identities of both author and agent: <blockquote> Agent Pablo Picasso (how’s that for an undetectable pseudonym?) requested the full manuscript and I sent it three weeks ago. How long should I wait for him to make contact? Is it all right for me to call? I don’t want to pressure him, but I am desperate to move forward with the project. Oh, the anxiousness. Ah, the sleepless nights. I have never wanted anything more than to be a published author… I know there are no set timelines for responses and such, but roughly how long should I wait before moving on? </blockquote> Here’s the short answer, Mystery Reader (another undetectable cover): don’t even think about following up for 6-8 weeks (or at least a week past the agency’s stated turn-around time, and when you do, DON’T CALL; e-mail or write. In the meantime, Mysterious One, you should most definitely be moving on now: get back to your writing projects. You might even consider sending out a few more queries, just in case. And if any other agent has requested materials, you should already have sent them. Well, that cleared everything up, didn’t it? Moving right along… Just kidding. On to the long answer: three weeks is most definitely not a long time to wait for a response from an agent on a submission. I would be extremely surprised if you heard back in under a month. But if ol’ Pablo didn’t give you a timeframe in the request for materials (as many agents do), 6-8 weeks is average. I can feel heart rates rising all over the English-speaking world. “But Anne,” those of you either on the cusp of sending out manuscripts or waiting breathlessly to hear back from agents protest, “Mystery Reader said that Pablo Picasso asked for the full manuscript — that must mean he was really, really interested, right? Surely not hearing back indicates that he’s lost interest, right?” Actually, not necessarily, and not even probably. What not hearing back generally means is either (a) nobody at the agency has read it yet, (b) it hasn’t made it past Millicent, or (c) it did make it past Millicent, but the agent hasn’t had time to get to it. Don’t pull that long face; it’s nothing personal. Long-time readers, pull out your hymnals and sing along with me: because a request for pages does not equal a promise to drop everything the second those materials turn up at the agency. Like so many other aspects of the biz, an agent requesting materials will expect a serious aspiring writer to be familiar enough with the biz to be aware of that. Consequently, badgering an agent interested in your work will definitely NOT get him or her to read faster — in fact, it sometimes produces the opposite effect — it is not a good course to pursue. Most agents will regard follow-up calls or too-soon e-mails as a sign that the prospective client does not understand how the business works. Which is not an impression you want to give an agent you would like to sign you. Why? Well, it tends to translate, in their minds, into a client who is going to require more attention at every step of the process. While such clients are often rewarding on many levels, they are undoubtedly more expensive for the agency to handle, at least at first. Think about it: Pablo Picasso, like every other reputable agent in the country, makes his living by selling books to publishing houses. This means a whole lot of phone calls, meetings, and general blandishment, all of which takes a lot of time, in order to make sales. So which is the more lucrative way to spend his time, hard-selling a current client’s terrific novel to a wavering editor or taking anxious phone calls from a writer he has not yet signed? Uh-huh. Trust me, Pablo Picasso (too obvious a pseudonym?) already knows that you want to be published more than anything else in the world; unfortunately, telling him so will not impress him more. How does he know Mystery Writer’s innermost feelings? Because he deals with writers all the time — and this is such a tough business to break into that the vast majority of those who make it to the full-manuscript request are writers who want to be published more than anything else in the world. Mystery Reader, you will be a much, much happier human being if you bear this in mind. I can assure you that an agent who receives 800 or 1000 queries per week from glorious dreamers does not have the luxury of forgetting it. You’re certainly not alone in thinking of your query or submission as if it emits a come-hither glow in the agency’s mail room, however. The average aspiring writer, bless his or her heart, tends to forget that the dream of publication is a fairly common one — thus that huge volume of queries through which Millicent sifts five days per week, each of which is presumably from someone who yearns for publication. Let’s face it, querying and submission are FAR too hard on the heart (not to mention the wrists) to keep doing if you don’t want success that much, right? The very intensity of the longing can sometimes blur an aspiring writer’s view of the agent-finding process — or indeed, the period when one’s agent is shopping one’s book around to editors. Even the most successful author’s career is stuffed to the gills with periods when s/he can do nothing but wait. And as anyone who has ever been a teenager with a crush can tell you, every minute devoted to waiting for the phone to ring, for That Special Someone to declare his intentions, is eighteen times longer than a normal minute. Nothing extends a second like not having someone else determine what’s going to happen to you at the end of it. This is precisely Mystery Reader’s dilemma, I’m afraid. All you can do is wait — at least for 6 weeks or so, or (to trot out my favorite rule of thumb) for twice the turn-around time the agency has listed in an agency guide blurb or on its website. Which is yet another reason that a prudent submitter should always double-check the agency’s own guidelines before submitting materials. Why? Long-time readers, chant it with me now: there is no hard-and-fast rule that may be applied to every agent at every agency, every time. This information is usually easily available either on the agency’s website or its listing in one of the standard agency guides. And if either of those sources say anything along the lines of Please do not contact us to make sure we received your materials or We do not respond to submissions that do not interest us, do not even consider waiting around until you hear back from them. Because you may not. Before anyone starts pouting about it: yes, it would be much, much simpler for aspiring writers everywhere if each and every agency on the face of the earth agreed to adhere to a single standard for turn-around times, but the fact is, there is no incentive for them to do so. Quite the opposite, in fact: a TREMENDOUS amount of paper passes through the average agency’s portals, and yours is almost certainly not the only full manuscript requested by Señor Picasso within the last couple of months. Yours goes into the reading pile after the others that are already there — and if that feels a little unfair now, think about it again in a month, when a dozen more have come in after yours. And how long it will take our pal Pablo to make his way through that queue can vary not only from agency to agency, but month to month, or even week to week. One day’s workload for an agent may be quite different from another, and it’s not as though a really successful agent will have inviolable reading times built into his work schedule. In fact, many agents read submissions not at work, but in their off hours. In all probability, yours will not be the only MS sitting next to his couch. Also, in a big agency like Picasso’s (he happens to be an agent I know), it’s entirely possible that before it gets to the couch stage, it will need to be read by one or even two preliminary readers. Again, all that takes time. In the meantime, though, you are under no obligation not to query or follow up with any other agent. (See earlier comment about the advisability of sending out a few queries now.) That, too, is SO easy for an excited writer to forget: until you sign an agency contract, you are free to date other people, literarily speaking. And you should. Really. No matter how many magical sparks there were between the two of you at your pitch meeting, even if Picasso’s venerable eyes were sparkling with book lust, it honestly is in your best interest to keep querying other agents until he antes up a concrete offer. Until that ring is on your finger, keep playing the field. And where does that leave Mystery Reader in the meantime? Waiting by the phone or mooning by the mailbox, of course. It’s hard to act cool when you want so much to make a connection. Yes, he SAID he would call after he’s read my manuscript, but will he? If it’s been a week, should I call him at the agency, or assume that he’s lost interest in my book? Has he met another book he likes better? Will I look like a publication-hungry slut if I send an e-mail after three weeks of terrifying silence? Auntie Anne is here to tell you: honey, don’t just sit by the phone; you are not completely helpless here. Get out there and date other agents, so that when that slow-reading Picasso DOES call, you’ll have to check your dance card. Of course, if another agent asks to see the manuscript, it is perfectly acceptable, even laudable, to drop Mr. Picasso an e-mail or letter, letting him know that there are now other agents checking out your work. For the average agent, this news is only going to make your work seem all the more attractive. See? I told you it was just like dating in high school. Even after 6-8 weeks has elapsed, e-mail, instead of calling. The last thing you want is to give the impression that you would be a client who would be calling three times per week. Calling is considered a bit pushy, and it almost certainly won’t get your work read any faster — unlike, say, an e-mail that mentions politely that there is now another agent reading it. And yes, Agent #1 WILL want you to tell him that immediately. Over and above that, though, all you can do is (sing it out now) WAIT. Another great reason to keep querying and submitting while Agent #1 is taking his own sweet time getting back to you is the increasingly common phenomenon I mentioned above, agents not responding to queries or even submissions at all. Within the last few years, literally dozens of very talented writers of my acquaintance have had manuscripts out to agents for four, five, or even six months without any response. Requested materials. This places the writer in a quandary, of course, because from the other side of the country (or the world), how on earth is it possible to tell the difference between a delay caused by a submission’s sitting on an agent’s coffee table, holding up take-out cartons until she has time to read it, one that springs from an unannounced rejection, and one triggered by the manuscript’s having gotten lost in the mail? For this reason, I used to advise my clients and students to include a self-addressed, stamped postcard with every submission, along with a request in the cover letter (you HAVE been including cover letters with your submissions, haven’t you?) that Millicent would write the date it arrived upon it and pop it in the mail upon opening the packet of requested materials. I historically, this works far, far better than asking for e-mail confirmation, since complying requires far less effort on the part of agency personnel. Hey, they’re busy. Have you seen that stack of manuscripts Pablo has to read through? The USPS now offers a much less obtrusive option for making sure your manuscript arrived where it should, and when: Track & Confirm. For a negligible fee, you can receive an e-mail confirming delivery of your package, without anyone at the agency’s having to lift a finger to inform you of it. Unfortunately, there’s no similar service for e-mailed submissions — and since many agencies that accept e-mailed queries and submissions specifically request in their guidelines that writers not follow up to ask if materials were received. Yet another reason that given the choice, I would always opt for a hard copy submission over an electronic one. What you SHOULDN’T do whilst waiting for a reply is waste your energy constructing a vivid justification for why the agent of your dreams has not yet gotten back to you — an exercise in creative fantasy in which I’ve seen aspiring writers starting mere hours after dropping the submission into the mail. Trust me, it won’t help your chances; it will only enervate you. Let me preemptively take the wind out of the sails of the most common of these middle-of-the-night musings: if you haven’t heard back, it’s not because the agent thinking about it or wants to talk with every other employee in the agency before talking it on; it’s because he hasn’t read it yet. See why most agents get a bit defensive if a writer calls, demanding to know why it’s taking so long? Much like, if memory serves, teenage boys. Oh, how I wish we had all outgrown that awkward stage. Try to think of a slow response in positive terms. At many agencies, a submission has to make it past more than one level of Millicent before making it onto the agent’s desk at all — and yes, Mystery Reader, that’s usually still true even if one has met the agent at a conference. If Millie #1, Millie #2, or the agent had taken a dislike to your manuscript, it would have been stuffed into the SASE right away. (See why it’s fairly safe to assume that if you haven’t yet heard back, it hasn’t been read?) Rejections tend to be quicker than acceptances. I know that this isn’t exactly the answer you wanted, Mystery Reader, but please, try to chill out for the next month or so. Get working on your next book, because if this goes through, you will want to have it well in motion. Keep approaching other agents, because it can only be good for you if several are clamoring to represent you. And be very, very proud of yourself for getting to the point in your writing that an agent as prestigious as Pablo Picasso WANTS to read the whole manuscript. He doesn’t ask just anybody on a date, you know. Believe it or not, if you’re successful in submission, the anxiety of waiting will become almost routine, just one of the many swiftly-alternating moods of the working writer’s career. Try to be patient, and keep up the good work! * For the benefit of those of you who weren’t reading this blog regularly throughout holiday seasons past, the Furtive Non-Denominational Gift-Giver (FNDGG) is a jolly elf who regularly graces this page in the winter months, ho, ho, hoing his way toward the end of the year. Better not pout, better not cry — and better get used to hearing about him, because he’s bound to keep cropping up in the months to come. </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3561" class="post-3561 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-after-you-submit category-e-mailed-submissions category-e-mailing-queries category-exclusives-to-agents category-getting-that-submission-out-the-door category-industry-etiquette category-is-it-ok-to-query-several-agents-at-once category-keeping-the-faith category-querying category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-requested-material-wrangling category-simultaneous-submissions category-submission-of-requested-materials category-submission-packets category-submission-troubleshooting category-turn-around-times category-unsolicited-submissions category-why-havent-i-heard-back-yet"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/10/29/so-many-manuscripts-so-little-time-millicent/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2009-10-29T00:00:00+00:00">October 29, 2009</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/10/29/so-many-manuscripts-so-little-time-millicent/industry-etiquette/#comments">7 Comments on “So many manuscripts, so little time.” — Millicent</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/10/29/so-many-manuscripts-so-little-time-millicent/industry-etiquette/" rel="bookmark">“So many manuscripts, so little time.” — Millicent</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/voici-les-temps--768x1024.jpg" alt="voici les temps" title="voici les temps" width="500" height="667" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-7237"/> I’m feeling a bit cryptic today, my friends. I’m writing something in a teenage voice, and I can’t say that I particularly like what it’s done to my emotions. Blame my Method acting training; I’ve even broken out. Here’s hoping that the result is worth my rolling my eyes at the slightest provocation. But enough about me: back to our ongoing concerns. Isn’t it amazing just how much there is to know about the ostensibly straightforward task of printing out requested materials, placing them in an appropriate mailing container, and sending them off to an agent or editor? Underscore presents itself: you all know NEVER to submit unrequested pages, right? I mean (roll eyes), who DOES that? Again, I’m not talking about queries sent to agencies whose guidelines specify that you should tuck the first 50 pages into the packet — I mean the unwise practice of just sending along a manuscript before an agent or editor is even aware that it exists. Almost universally, unsolicited manuscripts are rejected unread. Even at the rare agency or publishing house that accepts unrequested manuscripts, it’s going to end up in what’s known as the slush pile, the stack of submissions that stretches, Dr. Seuss-style, skyward, awaiting the day when someone will have the time to review them. Normally, I would have dug up a marvelous picture to illustrate that. Unfortunately, I can’t see well enough through my clouds of angst to do that. Or my bangs. (Sigh.) It can take a LONG time just to go through the manuscripts they asked to see. Care to guess how tempting that fact renders tossing aside those they didn’t request? Long-time readers, pull out your hymnals and sing along: because agencies and publishing houses get so many submissions that their PRIMARY goal is to weed out the one they are reading at the moment. The faster they can do that, the better for them. Yet despite the ubiquity of the reject-the-unsolicited-on-sight policy, amazingly few of the writers rejected for doing so are even aware that jumping the gun might even have played a role in their rejection. Like aspiring writers who submit without a SASE, with too much material, or without following the strictures of standard format, gun-jumpers usually receive exactly the same form-letter rejection as writers whose work was rejected for writing-related reasons. So they keep submitting incorrectly time after time, never understanding that a few relatively simple changes could get the pros to take their manuscripts more seriously. It saddens me. “Um, Anne?” I hear a few quick-reasoning readers pipe up. “Since submitting via e-mail would obviate the lack-of-SASE problem entirely, and since if I send my materials as an attachment to an e-mail, Millicent the screener won’t know how many pages I’ve submitted unless she reads through them all, wouldn’t I pretty much always be better off submitting my work electronically?” Well, you could make a good argument for that, computer-huggers. While an unsolicited e-submission will, admittedly, tend to meet the same fate as an unsolicited paper submission — a quick and quiet rejection, almost invariably with a form letter — e-submission does undoubtedly have many perqs. It’s substantially cheaper than printing up and mailing a submission, for one thing, especially so for writers submitting to US agents from outside the country, not to mention less wasteful of paper. Agencies often respond to e-queries more rapidly than paper queries, and an electronic submission may easily be e-mailed around the office. Even taking all of that into consideration, given the choice, I would always opt for submitting in hard copy, rather than electronically. Fortunately, with many agencies, a submitter does in fact have that choice to make. Why are paper submissions are worth all the additional effort and expense? Well, for starters, it’s more likely to get there — even if your mail system is reliable, not everybody’s is — and less likely to be deleted accidentally. (Also true of e-queries, incidentally: many agencies that accept pages with initial queries specifically ask in their guidelines that queriers not follow up to find out if the e-mail actually arrived.) Then, too, hard copy manuscripts are typically read more closely then e-mailed submissions, for the extremely simple reason that people read faster on a screen. Electronic rejection is as easy as Millicent the agency screener’s hitting a button a nanosecond after a sentence displeases her — far, far less energy- and time-consuming than having to dig out the SASE, reach for the form rejection letter to stuff inside it, insert the rejected manuscript, and eventually carry the whole shebang to the mail room. Yes, you read that correctly: Millicent’s begrudging, mercurial attention to your first printed page is the BETTER option. The world is a strange place. Also, a writer can control more factors in hard copy. As much as a pain as pulling a physical submission packet together may be, at least you know that the formatting will show up on the other end as you want it. “Wha–?” I hear the more computer-reliant of you out there exclaiming. I hate to be the one to break it to you (although that’s never stopped me yet, I notice), but if you e-mail a submission, you have absolutely no way of knowing that all of your precious formatting arrived intact. Copying and pasting a writing sample into the body of an e-mail (or one of those little comment boxes on agencies’ websites) will, naturally, eliminate most of the formatting, but even if you have included the pages as a Word attachment, different operating systems and versions of Word can play havoc with the cosmetic attributes of a page. I can feel some of you getting restive under the onslaught of so much cynicism (bleak is my outlook, people. Bleak!), so instead of throwing any more at you today, I’m going to give you the opportunity to put some of what we’ve learned over the past few weeks into practice. That’s right; it’s example time again. Hold your applause, please, until we’re done. Submission scenario 1: After months on end querying her short story collection, WHAT I DID FOR LOVE AND OTHER DRY-CLEANING ANECDOTES, Antoinette receives an e-mail from Clara, the agent of her dreams, asking to see the entire manuscript. Alternately overjoyed and petrified (a very common twin mental state at this juncture, incidentally, although even amongst ourselves, we writers tend to talk only about the joy), she prints up her manuscript that very day and rushes it into the nearest cardboard container. Specifically, the slightly dented box her mail carrier dumped on her doorstep on a recent rainy afternoon. (Our Antoinette is pinching pennies, you see.) I already feel some of you blushing. We’ve all received (or sent) that box that began life as an mail-order shipping container, but now is covered with thick black ink, crossing out the original emporium’s name. My mother takes this process even farther, turning the obfuscating lines into little drawings of small creatures cavorting on a cardboard landscape. As dandy as this recycling is for birthday presents and the like, it’s considered a bit tacky in shipping a submission. Which is unfortunate, as the ones from Amazon tend to be a perfect footprint for manuscripts. Don’t yield to the temptation, though. Back to our fair Antoinette. She makes it to the post office five minutes before it closes. When she plunks down the hefty box and asks to overnight it, she turns pale at the price, but pays it anyway. Exhausted but happy, she rushes home to plan what she’s going to wear for her appearance on Oprah to discuss the book. Afraid to miss Clara’s response — which, naturally, she begins to expect within a day of learning that Clara has received it through the magic of delivery confirmation — Antoinette cancels her gym membership, turns down Eugene’s seven requests to have dinner with him, and — sacre bleu! — gives up reading my blog in order to pursue the more rewarding activities of staring at her e-mail inbox and repeatedly checking to see that her phone is working. Clearly, madness has taken hold of her. A very, very common type of madness, unfortunately: it never occurred to her that Clara would not simply drop everything else she’s doing to pay attention to her submission the instant it arrived in the office. A couple of weeks later, another agent, Bertrand, asks to see the first 50 pages. Before Clara’s request, this prospect would have thrilled Antoinette beyond words, but now, she does not even respond. “I’ve already committed to Clara,” she tells kith, kin, and the neighbor who comes over to complain about Antoinette’s having turned her phone’s ringer up to glass-shattering levels, so she won’t miss calls when she’s in the shower. Or a coma. An anxious three months pass before Clara returns the manuscript to her, its rejection explained only by a boilerplate: we regret that your manuscript does not meet our needs at this time. Okay, what did Antoinette do wrong here, other than use a recycled box? (Hint: what she did wrong here probably didn’t have any impact whatsoever on whether the manuscript got rejected or not. But it was still a faux pas.) Antoinette’s first error was to overnight the manuscript. It was hugely expensive — and completely unnecessary. It would have gotten exactly the same read had she sent it via the much cheaper Priority Mail, or even regular mail. (Book rate is very, very slow, so I wouldn’t recommend it.) Also, one suspects, in her rush to get it out the door and into an agent’s hands, she neglected to sit down and give it a final once-over, reading it IN ITS ENTIRETY, IN HARD COPY, and OUT LOUD. It’s also not a bad idea to flip through the manuscript as it prints out to make sure that no pages are smudged or missing; I don’t know about your printer, but mine occasionally blithely decides to slip a blank piece of paper into a manuscript when I’m not looking. Since we are talking about Antoinette here, I’ll spare you the story about the time I forgot to check, and page 47 of my master’s thesis was nowhere to be found. My defense turned a mite ugly as a result. The more interesting question here is why would Antoinette, or any other aspiring writer, spend money unnecessarily on postage? One of two reasons, typically. First, many writers assume — wrongly — that an overnighted package is taken more seriously in an agency’s mailroom. In their minds, the mail sorter says takes one look at that FedEx package and cries, “My God! This must be urgent!” and runs it directly into the agent’s office, where it is ripped open immediately and perused that very day. Just doesn’t happen anymore, although it may have 20 years ago, at the dawn of overnight cross-country shipping. At this point in human history, though, writers have done this too often for an overnighted package to generate any enthusiasm at all at the average agency. Now, overnight packaging is just another box. Save yourself some dosh. Antoinette’s other mistake was to put the rest of her submissions on hold, effectively granting the agent of her dreams an unrequested and totally unnecessary exclusive look at the manuscript. Oh, you can see her reasoning easily enough: if her top pick offered representation, she wouldn’t need to query or submit anymore. But since Clara didn’t — and took her own sweet time saying so — Antoinette just took 8 weeks of potential submission (and querying) time and threw it out the window. Sometime later in her writing career, she may wish she had that time back. The most probable first expression of that wish: about 35 seconds after she reads Clara’s form-letter rejection. Shouted at the top of her lungs. I can think of couple of reasons — and good ones — to keep submitting and querying right up to the moment an agent makes you an offer. First, finding and landing the right agent for your work can take some serious time — if your book is genuinely ready to send out, why wait a month (or more) to hear back from each? Second, few agents assume that a good writer will be submitting to only one agency at a time. If there isn’t competition over you, they sometimes conclude that no one else is interested. Long-time readers, chant it with me now: unless an agency SPECIFICALLY says that it will accept only exclusive submissions, it does not expect them. The writers’ conference rumors that say otherwise are just not true. But do double-check each agency’s website and/or agency guide listing, just to be sure; policies do vary. Third — and I’m sorry to have to say this, Antoinette, but it’s true — for the sake of your long-term happiness, it’s never a good idea to hang all of your hopes on a single submission. This is a tough business; being realistic about that can help take some of the sting out of rejection. Keep plowing forward. I’m off to cultivate my attitude problem by engaging in a few hours of brooding about why my hair isn’t curly and other burning existential issues, but rest assured, I have more submission exemplars up my capacious sleeve. Keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-3979" class="post-3979 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-e-mailed-submissions category-e-mailing-queries category-getting-that-submission-out-the-door category-how-to-put-together-a-query-packet category-how-to-put-together-a-submission-packet category-mailing-requested-materials category-query-packets-and-things-that-go-in-them category-querying category-querying-faux-pas category-querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us category-sase-guidelines category-submission-of-requested-materials category-submission-packets"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-meta">Posted on <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/10/26/beautifully-stamping-your-sase-and-other-agent-pleasing-habits-of-the-mythical-sanitary-author-2/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2009-10-26T00:00:00+00:00">October 26, 2009</time></a> - <a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/10/26/beautifully-stamping-your-sase-and-other-agent-pleasing-habits-of-the-mythical-sanitary-author-2/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/#respond">No Comments on Beautifully stamping your SASE, and other agent-pleasing habits of the mythical sanitary author</a></div><h2 class="entry-title"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/2009/10/26/beautifully-stamping-your-sase-and-other-agent-pleasing-habits-of-the-mythical-sanitary-author-2/query-letters-and-how-to-write-them-well/querying/" rel="bookmark">Beautifully stamping your SASE, and other agent-pleasing habits of the mythical sanitary author</a></h2> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div class="entry"> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/sanitary-author-225x300.jpg" alt="sanitary-author" title="sanitary-author" width="450" height="600" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3949"/> I’m not much given to re-running photographs, if I can help it, but today, I couldn’t resist. Especially as it ties in so well with our ongoing topic, <a href="/index_p_6634.html">pulling together a query or submission packet</a>. In this post, I’m going to be addressing that most burning of writerly issues, how to affix stamps to one’s self-addressed, stamped envelope. What’s that I hear the disgruntled masses muttering under its collective breath? Stamping doesn’t seem like a potential problem? And what the heck does any of this have to do with the photograph above? Reasonable questions, both. Yet as is my wont, I’m going to take my own sweet time addressing them. First: the photo, which those of sharp memory may recall I originally ran last April. I’m not much given to double-takes, but I must admit, I did a lulu when I spotted this sign standing by the side of a two-lane highway in unincorporated Neskowin, Oregon. To the casual observer, Neskowin is a blink-and-you-miss-it collection of buildings, but to the observant tourist, it is fraught with enigma: its population is 170, according to its ostensibly unofficially municipal website — a human density which renders the two golf courses located there, well, surprising. Who is playing golf in such high numbers that a lone course wasn’t deemed sufficient for local needs? Bears? Sea lions? Migratory Scots with a yen for Pacific Rim cuisine? All of these legitimate wonders pale, obviously, next to the undying enigma of the Sanitary Author. What makes him or her so darned clean, the passing motorist is left pondering, and why is the population of Neskowin so proud of that particular resident’s hygiene habits that the non-city fathers saw fit to erect a sign to commemorate the SA’s immaculate practices? Did s/he win some sort of international award for cleanliness akin to the Nobel prize? Does the SA reside in remote forest because such cleanly writing practices would not have been feasible within the confines of a large city like New York, Los Angeles, or even charming and nearby Portland? More importantly from the point of view of fellow authors, how does being so sanitary affect the quality of the SA’s writing — and if it has a net positive effect, should we all be beating a path to Oregon, demanding to follow in the SA’s spotless footsteps? And should we be worried about all of the unsanitary authors running around out there? Oh, I know what prosaic types out there are likely to tell me: since the period after AUTHOR would tend to indicate an abbreviation, this sign probably only refers to the local sanitary authority, the fine municipal employees who look after water quality and maintaining the local sewer system. So much for impenetrable ambiguity, the literal would doubtless conclude. Just ignore that sasquatch strolling by; there’s nothing to see here. But look closely at that sign: there’s a period after SANITARY, too. Complete words are seldom abbreviations, I find. So the mystery continues. On to the business of the day. Time to stop thinking about the great unwashed mass of unsanitary authors currently roaming the face of the earth. No good could come of pondering their filthy ways. Hey, remember how I was saying just last month that quite a number of my ideas for blog posts have resulted from readers’ good questions? Or rather from my inability to answer them briefly enough to prevent the fact that the comments section of this blog is not searchable (from your side, anyway) from annoying the heck out of me? Case in point: busily submitting <a href="/index_p_3705.html">reader Rachel asked a question</a> about stamps on the required self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE). Now, I’ve written on this topic quite a bit over the years — so much so that there’s an entire SASE GUIDELINES category on the archive list at the lower right-hand side of this page — so my first instinct was to send her there, or to advise her to do a site search under stamp, and continue on my merry way, confident that yet another writerly problem had been successfully solved. Then I did a site search under stamp. Suffice it to say that quite a few posts came up — more, I suspect, than any writer in the first throes of excitement about receiving a request to send materials to an agent would be likely to scan for an answer to this specific question. Also, the absolutely dead-on-target explanation I had in mind turned out to be located in the comments of a post from a couple of years ago…and thus not searchable from a reader’s perspective. Not precisely user-friendly, in other words. So while my second instinct was to mutter, “Yes, but all of the basics a submitter would absolutely need to know could be found under the aptly-named HOW TO PUT TOGETHER A SUBMISSION PACKET category” (which is in fact true), I realized that this wasn’t the world’s most satisfactory answer. Part of my goal in setting up the category list is to render it as easy as possible for my readers to find precisely the information they are seeking. (Another part, admittedly, is so I can say, “Look, I’ve already written about that — there’s a category on the list at right that addresses your concerns precisely,” and proceed on my aforementioned merry way.) My solution was — and is — threefold. First, I’ve created a MAILING REQUESTED MATERIALS category on the list at right, so the next time a question like this comes up, I can smugly point the question-asker there. (Hey, I’ve got to make up for lost time on the merry way, don’t I?) Second, I’m going to address Rachel’s (quite good) question right now as its own post, rather than merely in the comments, so anybody else who happens to wonder about it in the months and years to come will have an easier time tracking down the answer. It just goes to show you: asking thoughtful questions not only helps the individual who brings them up, but the entire Author! Author! community. And third, I’m NOT going to waste any brain space wondering if the Sanitary Author used to refuse to lick his own stamps. Or envelopes. (But how did s/he survive before self-adhesion became the norm?) Let’s take a gander at what Rachel wanted to know: <blockquote> I have a question about the SASE that you put in with your materials. I understand it was always better to use stamps so that the agent can just toss it in the outgoing mail bin at the agency. But I was talking to the postal clerks yesterday and they said that post-911 rules are now in effect: any stamped package over 13 ounces has to be brought to the post. I asked to get metered mail instead, and they said it wouldn’t work because it would have that date (yesterday) on it. A dilemma! I explained my situation to them and the clerks suggested just using a priority stamp, because if a SASE were expected, then stamps are really the only way to go. Is that how they’re doing it now? </blockquote> Rachel asks excellent questions, as you may see. Before I launch into lengthy explanation, however, let’s define our terms. As those of you who successfully made it through my last couple of posts are already aware, all queries and requested materials sent to US-based agents via mail should be accompanied by a SASE. No exceptions, I’m afraid. Forgetting to include a SASE is an instant-rejection offense at most agencies, and with good reason: if the agent decides to pick up the manuscript, the writer’s having included the expected SASE demonstrates a pleasing ability to follow directions, and if the agent decides to pass, s/he may return rejected pages at the writer’s expense. Yes, I know: it’s annoying to be underwriting one’s own rejection, but there actually are some benefits for the writer in this arrangement. To name but one: finding out that your submission has in fact been rejected, rather than gnawing your fingernails in perpetual worry for a year or two. Contrary to popular opinion, a SASE shouldn’t always take the form of a business-size envelope; it varies according to what was sent in the first place. Because the point of the SASE is to ensure the safe return of whatever a writer sends to an agency, you should always include enough postage on your SASE that everything you submitted may be popped into it and mailed. What might that look like in practice, you ask? Well, when sending a query, including a SASE is pretty straightforward: the writer takes a second envelope, writes his own address on it, adds appropriate postage, folds it, and stuffs it — neatly, please, as becomes a Sanitary Author — into the query envelope. With a submission packet, the process is similar, but the packaging is different. If the agent only asks to see 50 pages or a chapter or two, few enough that they could be comfortably placed in a Manila envelope without wrinkling them (the Sanitary Author deplores crumpled pages; so do many agents), all you need to do is take a second Manila envelope, self-address it, affix the same amount of postage you’re going to use to send the whole packet to the agency, fold it, and place it neatly within the submission envelope. SASE-wrangling becomes a bit trickier if you’ve been asked to send the entire manuscript, because that generally entails using a box. (For a detailed explanation of what types of box should and shouldn’t be used, complete with glamorous photographs of cardboard in its various manifestations, please see <a href="/index_p_1838.html">my earlier post on the subject</a>.) Obviously, it’s going to be unwieldy to stuff a second box inside the first, so it’s completely acceptable just to include a self-addressed mailing label and postage. (Be sure to mention both in your cover letter, so they won’t get lost on the agency end; I’ll be talking about how to pull off including such necessary-but-prosaic details gracefully later this week.) Equally obviously (but I’m going to mention it anyway, just in case), the stamps on the SASE need to be US stamps, if the agency is US-based. That requirement means that SASEing is invariably a great deal more challenging — and expensive — for writers in foreign climes querying or submitting to US agencies; the far-flung are not exempt from the SASE expectation, I’m afraid, which can make e-mailed querying a more attractive option. The good news is that the <a href="http://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductCategoryDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10152&categoryId=11834">US Postal Service’s website</a> sells stamps at face value, rather than at the exorbitant mark-up one frequently finds for them abroad . The USPS more than happy to ship ‘em to your doorstep in exotic climes so you may stick ‘em onto your SASE before popping your submission into the mail. Is everyone clear on the care and feeding of the SASE? Good. Okay, now that we’re all on the same page, so to speak, let’s get back to the crux of Rachel’s question: has the post-9/11 alteration in post office policy altered what agencies expect to see on a SASE? The last few years have indeed seen some changes in how agencies handle packages, but actually, most of them date from before 9/11, back to the anthrax scare. Before that, virtually no agency accepted electronic submissions, for instance; they may not pay their Millicents much, but the average agency certainly didn’t want theirs to get sick from opening a poisoned query envelope. E-mailed queries and submissions don’t carry the risk of that sort of infection (and I think we can all guess how the Sanitary Author would feel about that). They do, however, occasionally contain computer viruses, so few agents will open an attachment unless they have already specifically requested an electronic submission from a writer. Rachel’s clerk was quite right about heavier packages having to be physically carried into the post office by human being, rather than blithely dropped into a mailbox or dumped in a mailroom — a policy shift that would affect virtually any submitted full manuscript, since they tend to be heavy little critters. However, that most emphatically does not mean is that the agent is going to be taking a rejected manuscript to the post office herself. Some luckless agency intern will be toting a whole mess of them there every few days. Or not; since the USPS changed its regulations in this respect, many agencies have side-stepped the return mail problem by just ceasing to return submitted manuscripts to their writers at all. Interestingly, agencies that operate this way usually still expect submitters to include SASEs. The moral: unless you are querying or submitting electronically OR an agency specifically says it doesn’t use SASEs, you should always include one. And always use actually stamps on it, rather than metered postage. Despite the changes I mentioned above, the imperative to use stamps on a SASE has never wavered: the goal here is not convenience in mailing, but the submitter’s paying for the manuscript’s return. Regardless of whether that means tossing it into the nearest mailbox (which would still be possible for most partial manuscripts) or assigning Millicent to do it, stamps have always served the purpose best. That being said, I must confess that I don’t quite understand the clerk’s recommendation to Rachel to affix Priority Mail postage to the SASE, unless he was either lobbying her to use a Priority Mail envelope as a SASE (not a bad idea, especially if the submission is just a few chapters; they fold nicely into a submission envelope) or simply trying to hawk a more expensive stamp. The distinction between Priority Mail and regular mail is the speed with which it arrives; the ease of mailing is identical. Which means that buying a more expensive stamp or a cheaper one to affix to the SASE is entirely up to the writer. Like overnighting requested materials vs. sending them regular mail, whether a submitter elects to pay a shipper extra money to convey a manuscript from point A to point B is generally a matter of complete indifference to the agent receiving it, as long as it gets there in one piece. (“And looking pretty,” adds the Sanitary Author. “None of those pesky wrinkles. And print your manuscript on nice paper while you’re at it.”) To be blunt about it, the agent has absolutely no reason to care how quickly a rejected manuscript reaches its submitter. All she’s going to care about is whether you’ve included the means to mail it back to you at your expense, not hers. And that, my friends, is the information that most agencies’ listings in the standard agency guides and websites compress into the terse advice Include SASE. Apparently, somewhere on earth, there lurks a tribe of natural-born queriers who realize from infancy precisely what that means, so it requires no further explanation. I’ll bet the Sanitary Author is one of that happy breed. For the rest of us, learning how agencies work requires a bit of homework — and the asking of good questions. So thank you, Rachel, for flagging the issue — and everybody, keep up the good work! </div> </div> </article> <nav class="navigation pagination" aria-label="Posts pagination"> <h2 class="screen-reader-text">Posts pagination</h2> <div class="nav-links">Page 1 <a class="page-numbers" href="https://www.annemini.com/category/querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us/page/2/">Page 2</a> <a class="page-numbers" href="https://www.annemini.com/category/querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us/page/3/">Page 3</a> <a class="next page-numbers" href="https://www.annemini.com/category/querying-or-submitting-to-us-agencies-from-outside-the-us/page/2/">Next page<svg class="icon icon-arrow-right" aria-hidden="true" role="img"> <use href="#icon-arrow-right" xlink:href="#icon-arrow-right"></use> </svg></a></div> </nav> </main> </div> <aside id="secondary" class="widget-area" role="complementary" aria-label="Blog Sidebar"> <section id="search-2" class="widget 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Author! Interview videos</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1780"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pnwa-resident-writer-columns/">*PNWA Resident Writer columns</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-985"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/">*Start here if you are a beginner at trying to get published</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-873"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/the-rules-for-posting-comments-at-author-author/">— The rules for posting comments at Author! Author!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1364"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/so-why-arent-you-published/">"So why aren't you published?"</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1362"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-january-isnt-necessarily-the-best-time-to-act-upon-your-new-years-resolution-to-query-or-submit/">*Why January isn't necessarily the best time to act upon your New Year's resolution to query or submit</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1251"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/a-one-post-guide-to-what-a-book-manuscript-should-look-like/">A one-post guide to what a book manuscript should look like</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-956"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/help-im-scared-to-send-out-the-pages-that-agent-requested/">Help! I'm scared to send out the pages that agent requested!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-928"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/how-are-book-manuscripts-different-from-published-books/">How are book manuscripts different from published books?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1229"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/if-you-read-only-one-post-on-author-author-this-should-be-it/">If you read only one post on Author! Author — this should be it</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-484"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/if-you-read-only-one-post-on-querying-this-should-be-it/">If you read only one post on querying — this should be it</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-194"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/new-years-resolutions-on-writing/">New Year's resolutions on writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-151"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/query-letters-for-beginners/">Query letters for beginners</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1113"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/the-manuscript-formatting-rules/">The manuscript formatting rules</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-879"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/what-is-conference-pitching-and-why-would-i-want-to-do-it/">What is conference pitching and why would I want to do it?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-979"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/what-should-my-submission-look-like/">What should my submission look like?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-562"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-are-author-author-posts-so-long/">Why are Author! Author! posts so long?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1381"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-are-the-explanations-here-at-author-author-so-extensive/">Why are the explanations here at Author! Author! so extensive?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-372"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-are-there-so-many-different-sets-of-writing-rules-online/">Why are there so many different sets of writing rules online?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-488"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-is-there-so-much-conflicting-advice-about-queries/">Why is there so much conflicting advice about queries?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-201"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-shouldnt-i-just-query-every-agent-i-can-find/">Why shouldn't I just query every agent I can find?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1348"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-you-might-not-want-to-send-out-requested-pages-immediately-after-a-successful-pitch/">Why you might not want to send out requested pages immediately after a successful pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1387"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-you-should-be-making-regular-backups-of-your-writing/">Why you should be making regular backups of your writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1292"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/start-here-if-you-are-a-beginner-at-trying-to-get-published/why-you-should-not-submit-your-manuscript-the-second-after-you-finish-drafting-it/">Why you should not submit your manuscript the second after you finish drafting it</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-940"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/academic-writing/">Academic writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-594"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/adding-complexity-to-a-plot/">Adding complexity to a plot</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1724"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/">Advances and how they do (and don't) work</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-773"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/advances/">Advances</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1389"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/is-it-okay-to-ask-agents-at-conferences-how-much-of-an-advance-a-book-like-mine-might-garner/">Is it okay to ask agents at conferences how much of an advance a book like mine might garner?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1061"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/may-i-reasonably-expect-my-advance-to-permit-me-to-take-time-off-work-to-promote-my-book/">May I reasonably expect my advance to permit me to take time off work to promote my book?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-543"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/advances-and-how-they-do-and-dont-work/may-i-reasonably-expect-the-advance-on-my-first-book-to-be-large-enough-to-enable-me-to-quit-my-day-job-and-write-full-time/">May I reasonably expect the advance on my first book to be large enough to enable me to quit my day job and write full time?</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1375"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after-youve-received-a-request-for-pages-as-an-exclusive/">After you've received a request for pages as an exclusive</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1721"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/">After…</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-532"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-a-publisher-has-decided-to-publish-your-book/">After a publisher has decided to publish your book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-261"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-agent-has-said-no/">After an agent has said no</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-770"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-agent-makes-an-offer/">After an agent makes an offer</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-959"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-agent-or-editor-has-asked-for-an-exclusive-look-at-your-work/">After an agent or editor has asked for an exclusive look at your work</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-358"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-an-editor-decides-to-acquire-a-book/">After an editor decides to acquire a book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1052"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-have-published-the-first-book-in-a-series/">After you have published the first book in a series</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-848"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-have-published-your-first-book-what-then/">After you have published your first book — what then?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-204"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-have-queried-or-pitched/">After you have queried or pitched</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-688"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-land-a-publisher/">After you land a publisher</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-359"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-land-an-agent/">After you land an agent</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-205"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-receive-a-request-for-pages/">After you receive a request for pages</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-790"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-you-submit/">After you submit</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-206"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-been-rejected/">After you've been rejected</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1152"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-finishing-writing-your-first-draft/">After you've finishing writing your first draft</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-554"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-made-a-successful-pitch/">After you've made a successful pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1220"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/after-youve-made-an-unsuccessful-pitch/">After you've made an unsuccessful pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-556"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/getting-that-submission-out-the-door/">Getting that submission out the door</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-961"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/help-ive-granted-an-agent-an-exclusive-and-another-agent-just-asked-to-see-pages/">Help! 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href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/what-not-to-say-to-an-agent-interested-in-your-work/">What NOT to say to an agent interested in your work</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1095"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/what-to-ask-an-agent-who-offers-to-represent-you/">What to ask an agent who offers to represent you</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-685"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/after/why-its-usually-prudent-to-wait-a-few-days-before-responding-to-revision-suggestions/">Why it's usually prudent to wait a few days before responding to revision suggestions</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1729"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/">Agencies and how to work with them</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1098"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/agencies-and-how-to-work-with-them/agency-contracts/">Agency contracts</a> </li> <li class="cat-item 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cat-item-470"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-bio/">Author bio</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-502"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-photo/">Author photo</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1068"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-readings-and-why-you-should-attend-them/">Author readings and why you should attend them</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-388"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/author-author-awards-for-expressive-excellence/">Author! 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cat-item-1331"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/how-specific-should-i-be-about-my-books-category-in-my-query/">How specific should I be about my book's category in my query?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-404"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/how-to-figure-out-your-books-category/">How to figure out your book's category</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-931"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/should-i-indent-the-first-paragraph-of-a-chapter-if-published-books-in-my-chosen-genre-sometimes-do-not/">Should I indent the first paragraph of a chapter if published books in my chosen genre sometimes do not?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1120"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/book-categories/should-i-mention-the-book-category-on-my-title-page/">Should I mention the book category on my title page?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-422"><a 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Why shouldn't I use it as often as possible in the text?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1311"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/but-i-want-to-get-the-story-on-the-page-as-fast-as-humanly-possible/">But I want to get the story on the page as fast as humanly possible!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-517"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/but-it-really-happened-that-way/">But it really happened that way!</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1009"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/but-why-shouldnt-i-use-my-favorite-word-as-often-as-i-can/">But why shouldn't I use my favorite word as often as I can?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-699"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/calls-for-submissions/">Calls for submissions</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-897"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/censorship-subtle-and-otherwise/">Censorship subtle and otherwise</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-360"><a 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cat-item-390"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/character-development-tips/">Character development tips</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-596"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/character-revealing-dialogue/">Character-revealing dialogue</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1126"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/creating-a-protagonist-the-reader-will-want-to-follow-through-a-whole-book-or-a-series/">Creating a protagonist the reader will want to follow through a whole book — or a series</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-616"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/creating-sufficiently-odious-antagonists/">Creating sufficiently odious antagonists</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-173"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/introducing-physical-descriptions/">Introducing physical descriptions</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-606"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/relationship-development/">Relationship development</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-628"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/secondary-characters/">Secondary characters</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1283"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/selecting-distinctive-character-names/">Selecting distinctive character names</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-599"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/showing-not-telling-character/">Showing (not telling) character</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1021"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/character-development/subtle-ways-to-make-characters-seem-more-or-less-intelligent/">Subtle ways to make characters seem more or less intelligent</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-282"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/collaboration/">Collaboration</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-461"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-etiquette/">Conference etiquette</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-462"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-faux-pas/">Conference faux pas</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-276"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-lore/">Conference lore</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-361"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-pitching/">Conference pitching</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-898"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conference-selection/">Conference selection</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-875"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/conferences-that-cater-to-writers/">Conferences that cater to writers</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1728"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/">Contests and how to enter them successfully</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-300"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-entry-bugbears/">Contest entry bugbears</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-761"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-entry-prep/">Contest entry prep</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-393"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-judging-criteria/">Contest judging criteria</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-301"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-rules-and-how-to-follow-them/">Contest rules and how to follow them</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-302"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/contest-synopsis-writing/">Contest synopsis-writing</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-303"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/entering-us-literary-contests-from-outside-the-us/">Entering US literary contests from outside the US</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-716"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/entering-writing-contests-with-aplomb-and-a-chance-of-winning/">Entering writing contests with aplomb — and a chance of winning</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-896"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/finding-the-right-contest-to-enter/">Finding the right contest to enter</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1147"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-can-i-tell-if-entering-a-contest-is-worth-the-entry-fee/">How can I tell if entering a contest is worth the entry fee?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1070"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-can-i-tell-if-im-entering-the-right-category/">How can I tell if I'm entering the right category?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-490"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-serious-are-contest-judges-about-length-restrictions/">How serious are contest judges about length restrictions?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1075"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-should-i-format-my-contest-entry/">How should I format my contest entry?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1141"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-to-construct-a-title-page-for-a-contest-entry/">How to construct a title page for a contest entry</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1144"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-to-read-a-writing-contest-entry-form/">How to read a writing contest entry form</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-722"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/how-to-write-a-1-page-synopsis-for-a-contest/">How to write a 1-page synopsis for a contest</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-764"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/im-a-finalist-what-now/">I'm a finalist — what now?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1148"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/is-it-okay-to-enter-writing-in-a-contest-and-submit-it-to-agents-simultaneously/">Is it okay to enter writing in a contest and submit it to agents simultaneously?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1176"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/is-the-humor-in-my-entry-likely-to-amuse-mehitabel/">Is the humor in my entry likely to amuse Mehitabel?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1074"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/must-i-submit-the-opening-pages-of-my-manuscript-to-a-contest-with-categories-for-book-length-works/">Must I submit the opening pages of my manuscript to a contest with categories for book-length works?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1142"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/poetry-contest-entries/">Poetry contest entries</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-813"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/realistic-expectations-for-contest-entrants/">Realistic expectations for contest entrants</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1072"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/should-i-ever-consider-writing-something-new-for-a-contest/">Should I ever consider writing something new for a contest?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1315"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/should-i-ever-pay-a-fee-to-enter-a-writing-contest/">Should I ever pay a fee to enter a writing contest?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1678"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/should-my-entrys-title-page-be-included-in-the-page-count/">Should my entry's title page be included in the page count?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1136"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-make-us-want-to-eat-it-literary-competition-a-step-by-step-guide-to-preparing-an-entry/">The Make Us Want to Eat It Literary Competition — a step-by-step guide to preparing an entry</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1016"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-make-us-want-to-eat-it-literary-competition-of-2012/">The Make Us Want to Eat It Literary Competition of 2012</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1139"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-sensual-surfeit-literary-competition-a-step-by-step-guide-to-formatting-your-entry/">The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition — a step-by-step guide to formatting your entry</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1258"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/the-sensual-surfeit-literary-competition-of-2012/">The Sensual Surfeit Literary Competition of 2012</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1145"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-and-how-to-enter-them-successfully/wait-read-this-post-before-you-mail-off-that-entry/">Wait! Read this post before you mail off that entry!</a> </li> </ul> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1711"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/contests-that-are-worth-your-time-to-enter/">Contests that are worth your time to enter</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-564"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/copyright-issues/">Copyright issues</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1658"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/">Craft and plenty of it</a> <ul class='children'> <li class="cat-item cat-item-425"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/action-scenes/">Action scenes</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-533"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/at-the-risk-of-repeating-myself/">At the risk of repeating myself…</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-808"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/avoiding-killing-your-darlings/">Avoiding killing your darlings</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-426"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/backstory-and-how-to-work-it-into-a-plot/">Backstory and how to work it into a plot</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-389"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/beginning-and-ending-a-book/">Beginning and ending a book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-615"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/building-suspense/">Building suspense</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-534"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/but-i-like-that-phrase-why-shouldnt-i-use-it-twice/">But I like that phrase! 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Why should I worry about a reader's reaction?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-428"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/character-blurring/">Character blurring</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-809"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/character-naming/">Character naming</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1401"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/cliche-avoidance/">Cliché avoidance</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1045"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/comic-voice-and-how-to-develop-it/">Comic voice and how to develop it</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-639"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/conflict-building/">Conflict-building</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-163"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/consistency-and-why-it-is-important-to-develop/">Consistency and why it is important to develop</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-392"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/constructing-a-narrative/">Constructing a narrative</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1064"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/continuity-and-why-it-is-important-to-maintain/">Continuity and why it is important to maintain</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-394"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/craft-in-depth-analysis/">Craft! 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class="cat-item cat-item-605"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/narrative-consistency/">Narrative consistency</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-434"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/pacing-a-scene/">Pacing a scene</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-626"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/passive-protagonists/">Passive protagonists</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-728"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/passive-voice-and-why-you-should-eschew-it/">Passive voice and why you should eschew it</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-520"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/plausibility/">Plausibility</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-627"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/craft-and-plenty-of-it/plot-development/">Plot development</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-407"><a 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href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-a-multiple-protagonist-novel/">Pitching a multiple protagonist novel</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1102"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-a-nonfiction-book/">Pitching a nonfiction book</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-456"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-faux-pas/">Pitching faux pas</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-878"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-memoir/">Pitching memoir</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-457"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-or-querying-nonfiction/">Pitching or querying nonfiction</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-458"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-tips/">Pitching tips</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1571"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-basic-how-to/">Pitching: basic how-to</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1440"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/pitching-the-master-class/">Pitching: the master class</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-806"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/post-pitch-etiquette/">Post-pitch etiquette</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-999"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/scheduling-pitch-meetings/">Scheduling pitch meetings</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-886"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/should-i-bring-my-manuscript-to-a-pitch-meeting/">Should I bring my manuscript to a pitch meeting?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1226"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/the-magic-first-hundred-words/">The magic first hundred words</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1213"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/the-mythical-right-words-to-use-in-a-pitch/">The mythical right words to use in a pitch</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1347"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/the-one-thing-a-pitcher-should-never-do-after-receiving-a-request-for-pages/">The one thing a pitcher should NEVER do after receiving a request for pages</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1214"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/what-actually-happens-in-a-pitch-meeting/">What actually happens in a pitch meeting?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-561"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/what-do-i-do-if-my-pitch-works/">What do I do if my pitch works?</a> </li> <li class="cat-item cat-item-1219"><a href="https://www.annemini.com/category/pitching-to-an-agent/what-should-i-do-if-i-cant-make-my-scheduled-pitching-appointment/">What should I do if I 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