To self publish or not, that is the question...

I was going to blog about how rude people are, but this came up on Facebook, so I changed my mind.

You all have seen me talk about my friend Gae for like the last 7 years, right? Well, she has a friend that just received her 1st rejection from an agent. I guess people immediately offered the suggestion of self publishing.

As you know, I'm all on board for indie publishing, but truly, I don't see it as a first option. Especially after ONE REJECTION?!?!? Really? Is that what the industry is coming to?  Do we really need gratification that quickly that we don't want to put the hard work in to at least TRY to get a publishing contract with a traditional house any more?

My first book was a middle grade superhero series. I received over 100 rejection letters on it. It is now a file in my computer. It will not be published in its current form. I am however rewriting it and turning it into something very different.

My second book happened to be Never Eighteen. I went through many rigorous rounds of editing and rewrites before sending it out. I received about 25 rejections before it got picked up.

Before I decided to indie publish Dissected I sent it to my former agent, who didn't want ti. I sent it to my editor at HMH. I then sent it out to 5 agents, all who rejected it. Without an agent, without a house, I knew I'd be looking at least two years down the road at a release date. With a traditionally published book under my belt, and fans asking me for the next one, I didn't want to wait that long.

I researched, talked to friends that had self published, and thought about it long and hard before deciding to go that way.

Was it worth it? I'm not sure. Probably? Maybe? Am I glad I did it? Yes. However, I've

not had much time to market the book as I've had many family and personal things come up. But, it does no damage to have the book sit there and wait until I do. And though the sales haven't been great as of yet because of that, there have still been sales pretty steadily.  I don't have to answer to anyone, I write what I want to write, I don't have to wait and I don't have to share royalties with everyone under the sun, making my chunk much bigger.

On the other hand, there's no advance, no books sent to reviewers and media, the editing process is way harder and if I do want reviews from legit sources for instance, Kirkus, etc, I have to pay out the nose for them.

I'd like to be traditionally published again. I'd like to self publish again. I like both ways. But I don't think it's wise to just jump on the self pub bandwagon without trying the traditional route first. It's very rewarding having someone choose you, your work to make their list and put on bookshelves. It's still hard work, don't get me wrong, but to be selected from all the candidates out there from a pool of so many is gratifying.

The Query

Yes, the query, normally it's a one page letter that decides your fate with the agents. Includes a summary, what's unique about it, where it fits in the market, credentials (if you have any,which unfortunately, I don't).

First you have to write it, and it has to be perfection. It has to be better than your novel, more intriguing, better written, error free. If it's not, you can forget about them looking at even one page of your novel.

Then you have to do your research. My favorite place for this is agentquery.com You can look agents up by keywords, genre, name, agency. It's all there at your fingertips. And they have submission guidelines right there on site. They also have the agency website links which is helpful. I always check their sites to see if their guidelines have changed since their last agentquery update.

Like I said, most agents just take the query letter, but some want pages, some want a synopsis, some want it by e-mail, some by snail mail. Make sure you follow these guidelines else you're sure to be run through the shredder.

Here's how I work it. I send out those who take e-mail first, without synopsis. If I've gone through all those to no avail, I then go for e-mail with synopsis, after that, it's snail mail submissions.

Do's:

Do spell-check your query letter before mailing it out. Um, I would hope this would be a given.

Do make your query letter one page. Agents have little time on their hands. Make is quick.

Do follow submission guidelines.

Do mention in your query letter whether or not the submission will be simultaneous or exclusive. Instant turn off, an agent interested in your work and you come back and tell them you're already agented. Can you say black balled?

Do date and sign your query letter. Unless it's e-mail of course.

Do send the query letter to the proper person. No, "Dear Agent" letters. They don't like that. And try to spell their name correctly, and know if they are male or female.

Do send queries on clean, not wrinkled, plain white 8 ½ by 11inch computer paper. Duh.

Do specifically mention the genre and word count of your book.

Do include your name, address, telephone number, and email address, but not your social security number on the letter. Yeah, you'd like them to be able to get a hold of you, right?

Don'ts:

Do not type query letter on colored paper, decorated paper, or scented paper. The sign of an amateur.

Do not place confetti inside of the Query Letter's Envelope. Have you ever opened a letter with confetti? Instant social death.

Do not send gifts, treats, or food with your query letter. They don't like this. Who knew?

Do not send photos with your query letter. Especially naked ones.

I like to keep an excel spreadsheet on the agent's I've queried. I note their name, agency, the date I queried, date they requested a full or partial, and the date rejected.

If you've never queried before, know this, you will not get a helpful rejection. Rejections can be anything from a hand written note on your own query saying, "not for me" to a personalized letter stating why they don't want your novel. Some will be postcard size, some a full sheet of paper. All will be devastating.

That's all for today. Happy Querying!!

Kisses

:*

Megan

PS, my friend Ian wanted to comment, but couldn't from his cell phone, this is what he said (the colored comments behind his comments are from me :):

Point of correction: don't waste query space mentioning multiple submissions or exclusives. Agents assume you are subbing to more than one at a time. The ONLY time this should ever come up is if an agent requests a full. Proper etiquette then is to notify any agents who have partials (either requested or via the normal query process). That way they can move your stuff to the top of their stack and make a quick determination whether they want to see a full as well. You want multiple agents considering you at all times. You don't need to notify those you've queried with only queries unless they request pages. (Good point. I suppose they assume it's going to be a multiple these days)

Never grant an exclusive longer than a month or two, because that's time your manuscript is sitting on a desk in a stack and not finding you a potential agent. Never offer an exclusive without being asked.

I used to use an excel spreadsheet, but then I found QueryTracker.net, and they have a better tracking/research engine already in place. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't have to.(I used querytracker and found it helpful, but then they changed their format and I got all lost. Maybe I'll try again.)

If you consider rejections to be devastating, you'll never survive in this industry. Thick skin is a must. My own Mustang Sally earned a whopping 140+ rejections. You have to get used to them, because the numbers don't lie. Look at some agent blogs comparing the number of queries they get compared to the number of clients they sign. (I don't really find rejections devastating, that was supposed to be funny, they're more of an irritation than anything)

Thanks for the comments Ian. Good advice.

Writers vs. Agents: Weighing In

There has been a lot of talk lately about how agents are killing the publishing industry. The point being, that they reject us before even taking the time to read our work, therefore, keeping some great literature off the book shelves.

This is true, no doubt about it. But, there are two sides to this coin that need to be addressed. Ours, the writer's, certainly, but we need to take a step back and take a look at what these literary agents go through also.

My job as a writer:

1. Write the best book possible, than edit said book until it's the best I think it can be.
2. Write a query letter that will wow agents.
3. Write a synopsis for those agents that require them (personally my least favorite part of the process)
4. Tirelessly research agents to find the ones that will be interested in your novel. Luckily there are websites out there like agentquery.com to help with such tasks.
5. Begin sending out queries. And when we do this, we have to change our beautiful query letter a bit every time to personalize it for whichever agent you are querying. Where they can send us form rejections, we cannot send form queries. Bad form.
6. Track queries sent with excel, or another great source, querytracker.com (thanks Ian for that)
7. Wait
8. Wait
9. Wait

Okay, those last three may be an exaggeration, in some cases. Many of those agents that take e-mail queries will get back to you within a couple of days. Some of course do not. Frankly, I don't know why every agent hasn't moved into the technology age. It's much quicker (maybe this is the problem) and it is better for the environment. I always begin with e-mail queries, and if those don't pan out, move on to those agents that still only take snail mail.

Okay, now that we've sent our queries, we start receiving rejections or requests. If you receive requests, you now have to customize your ms for each agent, as some want ten pages, some fifty pages, some three chapters.

If you are only receiving rejections, it's time to go back and revise your query letter to make it stand out from the crowd.

All the while we are doing the querying, most of us are either still editing the ms in question, or have begun a new project. So there you have it, the life of a writer. Forgive me if I've forgotten anything.

Okay, this is my take on the agent's job:

1. Receive query letter
2. Send rejection

That's it. Okay I'm just kidding.

1. Receive queries, which I'm sure they receive thousands a week or at least a month. I don't know for sure, someone can chime in here and tell me.
2. Read through queries and seperate the good from the bad. When I say good from bad, I'm saying, those that aren't well written, or those that don't peak their interest, or those whose subject matter, genre, etc, don't interest them.
3. Send rejections to those you don't want. At this point, form rejection is fine, you probably haven't even looked at the work, which is sad, because someone may have a brilliant novel, but be crap when it comes to writing a query. I also understand that because they receive so many, they don't have time to look at every single ms they get queries on.
4. Go through queries again and filter out more.
5. Send more rejections
6. Request partials or fulls on those that peak your interest.
7. Put those requested in a slush pile, get to them while you can because you are still looking through queries, attending conferences, reading your current clients new work, contacting publishers trying to get current clients a book deal, and reading through contracts of said deals.
8. Read through slush pile that never ends.
9. Find ones you like
10. Request edits
11. Sign to contract
12. Get to work on getting your new client published, all while still doing all of the above.

Okay, I'm sure that's generalized, but I can see where agents are busy, and can't read every piece of literature that every writer wants to send them. Plus, not every writer that sends queries are good writers, even though they think they are (I'm really hoping I'm not one of them).

What bothers me is the ones that do not respond at all. I know they are busy, but you have an assistant or intern that more than likely can send out rejections, don't you? Or, and even though I hate these, have time to press a button to send out a form rejection.

Also, if you request a partial or a full and end up rejecting it, this is where I think you could give a little more thought to your rejection. I don't mind hearing you didn't like the voice, or weren't drawn in, though I would like a little more insight as to where I went wrong. But please, at least, include my name and the name of my novel in the rejection. At least then I know you took the time to insert a little personalization into it.

Personally, I think agents are needed, especially if you want to be published by one of the big houses. Without them, your work will never cross the desks of Scholastic, Harper Collins, Randoms House, Penguin, etc.

Even many small presses require work to be agented.

So, can we really cast blame to the agents, when the publishers won't even look at your work without one? Can we blame them because they have to be selective in what they choose to represent? No. I don't think we can. Of course this means that some really great literature won't get published. This much is true.

I do think we should be able to expect a little more understanding and respect for the work we've done to query them. I think we deserve at least the 3x5 card saying, "sorry for the impersonal nature of this note but..." I mean, when they query a publisher for a client, I'm sure they at least get a nice letter saying, "sorry, but..." Shouldn't we be able to expect that much in turn?