Is No News Good News?

First Queries Are Like First Love

As you send out your first query letters, all is right with the world. Optimism reigns supreme. You know the agent to whom you sent your query will love you forever.

Then reality sets in as the response to those queries begin to arrive. They don’t love you as much as you wanted them to. In fact, they don’t even like you. So don’t even mourn them. Let them go.

When I sent out my first batch of queries for the futuristic mystery I’d written. I did my homework and chose my agents carefully. I just knew some agent would fall in love with it. I was careful to enter each query onto the spreadsheet I’d created for the task of tracking who I’d sent the queries to. I certainly didn’t want to anger even a single agent by mistakenly sending my query to them twice. I’ve read their rants against authors who do that.

Every day for two weeks I added to the spreadsheet. I’d list the agency, the agent’s name, when I sent the query, and when I could expect a reply. Then I watched the spreadsheet like a hawk so I’d know when an answer should drop into my email box.

Some agents answered rather quickly, too quickly in my book. I dutifully filled in the word “Rejected” (in red) and the date I’d received the rejection notification. In a few cases, the agent didn’t bother sending even a form letter of rejection. The date I was expecting to hear from them came and went. I’d wait an extra day or two, and then typed in “Rejected.”

No News is Good News?

I began to wonder if no news is good news in the business of querying agents. It was hard to tell. Maybe the agents who weren’t responding were using silence as their means of rejecting my manuscript. But what if they weren’t, I asked myself over and over. What if they were letting my query and first few pages of the book marinate? Or sending it to someone else in their office?

Optimism and Pessimism at War

My optimistic side warred with my pessimistic side.

Optimistic me wanted it to be no news is good news and when I did hear from the agent in question, I’d be asked for the entire manuscript - always a good sign, right?

Pessimistic me, on the other hand, said that the silence only meant rejection by the agent who doesn’t care to send out a form rejection letter so I could put Rejected in the appropriate column of my spreadsheet with a date beside the awful word.

Good Old Optimistic Me

As I write this, I’m waiting for six more agents to respond to my query letter. This morning Optimistic Me is firmly in control and no news is good news is the order for the day.

Query Advice that Makes Sense

Like so many other writers, I have been reading advice from agents about what they’re really looking for not only in the manuscripts they would be willing to represent, but what they want to see in a query letter. I have read literally hundreds, if not thousands, of words of advice about how to write a selling query letter. And still I was unsure. There were times when one agent would contradict another. What was a writer to do?

Then I came across the advice by an agent being quoted on another agent’s blog. In three words, Barbara Poelle of Goodman Literary Agency, gave the best advice I’ve seen on writing a query. Her advice consisted of three words. Those three words so resonated with me, I immediately rewrote my query letter for the manuscript that I’m currently sending to agents. I’ve seen query advice from literally hundreds of agents, but nothing so succinct, so logical, and so on point.

Hook, Book, and Cook were the three words Ms. Poelle wrote.

What do they mean?

Hook - a one-sentence description of what your book is about. Yes, she said one sentence. It may sound impossible, but try it. It really isn’t all that difficult. Hard, yes, but not impossible.

Book - write four or five sentences that give the agent more detail about your story.

Cook - this is where you tell the agent about you as a writer, i.e., the cook of the book.

How much more simple is that? Best of all, it’s easy to remember. It will be there in your head every time you sit down to write a query letter. Oh, you think that your first query letter will be your last? I hope that’s true. In case, its not though, I bet you’ll remember hook, book, and cook when you sit down to write that second letter. By the way, what will happen if your agent drops you because the agency decides to close its doors and/or your agent decides to retire from the business? I read about an author with a similar story not too long ago. She was back to seeking a new agent after having published several books. Something like that could happen to anyone.

I wish I could tell you that immediately upon sending out my first query using the hook, book, and cook formula I got an immediate reply asking to see the full manuscript. It didn’t happen. What did happen is that for the first time since I started sending out queries, I feel as comfortable with my query letter as I did with my manuscript.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

In learning about the publishing business, I’ve spent way too much time on Twitter. That being said, Twitter has a wealth of information about the business from writing query letters to expanding your list of subject matter experts on writing and getting published. With an expanding list of SMEs, however, comes a conundrum - who to listen to? For instance, one SME says that putting the title, genre, and word count at the beginning of your query letter is required. Then, you go to another SME, and this one tells you no, having that information at the top of your query letter only distracts from what is really important - your book. So who does a poor querier believe? Especially when you’re being told by so many SMEs that if an agent doesn’t like your query letter, you’re going to get a form-letter rejection.

All the SMEs seem to believe that you need to increase your online presence by twittering and blogging. The reasons given make sense. If you twitter and only have two followers, you’re essentially twittering to yourself. Back to the SMEs to learn how to increase your followers so you’re no longer twittering to yourself. Lots of advice there - play nice, respond to others’ tweets, and followers will begin arriving in droves. But wait. You’re following the SMEs. How do you respond to topics that you’re trying to learn about? A polite thanks for posting that? Or wow that was really informative. Sounds good? Agents aren’t likely to follow you because you’re not an industry insider and they’re busy doing their job. No one has heard of you. No one is following you. Do you see where this is going? The proverbial Catch-22.

The SMEs also tell you to not get discouraged, that a rejection isn’t personal, and your book just isn’t right for that particular agency. Some encourage you to send out multiple query letters at the same time for a particular book. Someone, they seem to be saying, is going to like your book some day.

Fifteen years ago, The Writer magazine was writing that authors shouldn’t get discouraged “too easily.” Their point was that the publishing world is a “cold and hard one for the aspiring author.” They tell us that not every author can be a Stephen King. They encourage authors to continue submitting because there are “countless authors who get accepted after thirty or forty rejections.” Some things never seem to change no matter how much things seem to change.