How to bug an agent
By Kathleen Bolton | September 8, 2008 |
I’ve finally had some free time on my hands and I was able to visit a few blogs that I haven’t read for some time. One of my favorites is literary agent Rachel Vater’s. She’s become kind of a big deal (to steal a Project Runway catchphrase) since the early days of her blog Lit Agent X, and she doesn’t update as regularly as she used to, but she still shares her impressions on the query letters she gets. If you’re ready for the querying process, she offers good advice in a liberal dose of snark, reminding us that there’s room for more agent snarkitude now that Miss Snark is gone.
THINGS I DON’T NEED TO SEE IN YOUR QUERY:
1. How long it took you to write it. Honestly, please don’t tell me how you’ve been slaving over it for years or laboring over it for 6 months. I also don’t care if you’ve wanted to be a writer ever since you were little; how you pursued writing for a little while, then stopped when you got a job/got married/had kids and have recently picked it up again; why you love writing. (If we work together I’ll ask you these questions, but until then, it doesn’t matter.) I think writers who include this in their query are trying hard to show me how passionate they are about writing, but I assume everyone who’s finished a novel and is querying agents seriously wants to be published pretty badly or they wouldn’t be sending me a query letter. What will distinguish one query from the next is the book: the pitch, the synopsis, and the opening pages. That’s what will impress me. And that’s all you need.
2. What you hate about novels today and how yours is so much better because of all the right ingredients you’ve put into it, how much smarter your book is compared to everyone else’s. Please don’t put down other books, especially not in your query letter. Bragging about how your novel is “so much better than all the other dreck out there” makes you seem difficult to work with. (For some nonfiction proposals, it’s necessary to compare your work to other books that are selling well and to say what distinguishes yours from those in a favorable way, but it’s still not the time to bash the other books out there in your genre or the ones sharing shelf space with your book… after all, they might give you a blurb some day or you might find yourself speaking at the same conference they are.)
3. Who helped you edit it and the glowing things your (paid by you) editor said about your work. Yes, there are ghost writers out there available for hire. And copyeditors and editors and co-writers. But their endorsement doesn’t mean anything. Because you’ve paid them. Plus, now I wonder how much of this book you wrote on your own and what part your editor/collaborator did, and if it’s fiction… well, what about the next book? Will it be a scary mess?
4. Tell me how you are sure I am very busy but beg me to please read your manuscript because I won’t be sorry. Seriously, I am not kidding about the 250 query letters a week. I wish I could request more than I can already. If you want me to pick your book out of all the other possibilities, give me a pitch I can’t refuse. Dazzle me with a great concept, show me how well plotted it is with a smart synopsis, and pull me in with those first two pages so I can’t HELP but request more.
In other words, don’t be a dope. Be as professional as possible.
More on queries from the horse’s mouth.
My own agent has told me her No. 1 pet peeve after typos in a query is being incessantly hounded after she’s asked for a partial or a proposal. She says she’s pretty clear about turnaround, but if she gets behind a couple of days, writers freak out and start calling or e-mailing with anxious messages. The manuscript might be your entire world at the moment, but to a busy agent, it’s one of a dozen irons they might have in the fire. It’s a callous industry, but there it is.
I have a writer friend who told me she overheard a couple of agents at a Romance Writers of America conference griping in the bar about being acosted in the bathroom by eager writers wanting to pitch. That’s pretty bad. And amusing.
Do you have any agent/author horror stories you can share? Cautionary tales are always welcome. As are funny stories.
Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.
She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.
This is a great blog piece and brings up points not only useful in a query, but in any letter where you’re trying to sell yourself. I think people get a little too anxious and over-sell themselves to the point where they’re just plain obnoxious. Thanks for sharing this, and now I’ll share my one agent story.
An agent I queried telephoned me a year or so ago. What a sweet person – easy to talk with, made me feel very comfortable. She called to compliment my voice, but rejected my piece anyway. What was so wonderful about the rejection is that she took time out of her day to track me down and compliment me, oh, and she said she wondered if I were a guy. (Her compliment was that I captured the male perspective beautifully – she just wasn’t crazy about the character.)
Her call made me realize that agents are human, too. Sometimes writers forget that.
agents and editors have so much power and i think it can be overwhelming to try and figure out how to approach one, especially when you can’t really know what will simply catch their attention or interest or if it’s a good or bad day. it’s a tough business. but on a lighter note, i was at an rwa conference and started talking to a gal in the restroom. and she admitted she was a editor for harlequin and she had that fear of being glommed on look. and i laughingly told her that no, i wasn’t going to pitch to her on her break, she relaxed and then she ended up pitching hq to me and asking ME about what i was working on. she was incredibly gracious. another conference, i met a publisher and her husband at a author talk (catherine coulter, who was very lovely to talk to as well) and later we rode down in an elevator. the publisher started choking so i gave her a piece of gum and a tissue. as she left the elevator, she pressed her card into my hand and said she’d love to see anything i had.
I have recently been querying agents, and while I appreciate how busy they are, it would be nice if they could follow up rather than simply saying, “If you don’t hear from me, that’s a no”…..
Wonderful post. Thanks for sharing.
That’s a wonderful story, Kath. Usually agents don’t bother calling someone they have to reject. That agent is a class-act.
Thea, you and your conference stories, I swear you have them following you around begging you to query them by the end of the day because you’re so amusing. Miss ya, sweetie!
Suzanne, I totally agree. An email would suffice.