Posted on December 11, 2019 by Christopher Tallon
Yo, yo, yo,
As some of you may know, I’m a writer. I wrote a book called Switchers. It’s a YA speculative fiction novel, blending sci-fi and a wee little bit of horror. I have a section on my website that gives a better description.
For those of you who aren’t up to date on my journey of trying to get an agent, I’ve written two other Behind “The Process” posts–Rejection and Querying Agents.
Since the last post, I heard back from two agents. Both said no.
(Dang it!)
That’s OK. As much as I want an agent, I want to find the right agent. To do that, a few things need to happen. But first I should say:
This website, and specifically the posts about anything to do with publishing, is based on my experiences. I’ve not yet landed an agent, nor have I had a novel published. I’m just a really cool, super talented, humble guy trying to follow his dream.
Failed to follow the rules. Bad query letter. Didn’t research very well. Basically sent letters to anyone who had science fiction in their wish list. And I’m pretty sure I screwed up with the submission guidelines on at least one or two of them. I didn’t query too many people though, so I had that going for me.
Long story short, no interest. Only 2 agents responded at all.
Heard back from all but 1 of the agents! All I heard was no, but I went from not getting responses to at least getting rejected. I’ll take rejection over being ignored. I followed all the rules this time. I rewrote my query a few times, then, when it was up to my standards, had a few people look it over for me. I had one agent ask for a synopsis, but, as I mentioned earlier, I wrote a terrible one. After two rounds, I was still without an agent, but motivated by the responses.
I’m on my third round. There are still a few more query letters to send out. My query letter is better. I worked on my synopsis, too, for this go around. The thing I improved most though: research. I was serious this time about making sure that I’m not just sending randomly. It has become increasingly apparent that research is the most important part of this. What does that mean? It means knowing who you’re sending your stuff to, and what published writers and/or books your book would hypothetically be grouped with.
The overall goal is getting an agent and getting published. But getting an offer for representation seems to come after getting a request for a full manuscript. This hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m getting excited just thinking about it. If an agent is interested in someone’s query, they could ask for some or all of the manuscript. Granted, the person asking for the manuscript could still say no, but the request itself is one of the last steps before they say yes. So my goal, for now, is to get a request for the manuscript.
And that’s where I’m at, folks. If anyone has any experience with this kind of stuff, please go to the CONTACT section, or sound off in the comments. I’ll take all the help I can get!
Also, a quick thanks to all the visitors. This month is on track to be the busiest yet (in terms of traffic) for this little ol website since I started it in June, and I really appreciate the support.
Thanks!
-CT
Christopher Tallon writes, podcasts, and…wait a second. Are you actually reading this? High five!
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Category: behind the processTags: behind the process, querying literary agents, writing, writing process, writing tips