I sent out query letters about a week ago. I’d describe querying as jumping off a cliff in the dark. You don’t know what’s out in the gloom, where the bottom is, how long it takes to get there, or how much the landing is going to hurt.

If you’re an author, you already know what querying means, and you know it’s stressful. Sending out query letters is how authors find agents. Agents sell books to publishers. Trying to write a query is the perfect way to ruin an introvert’s day.

The good news is, my book is finished (I think). The bad news is, I don’t know if it’s really good enough or not. Only an agent can decide that.

Rejection

I’ve already heard back from three of the eleven agents I sent queries to. All rejections (of course, or else this post would be written in all caps and probably would have no grammar or punctuation whatsoever, way more exuberant than this was). If you’ve spent anytime reading about famous authors, you already know rejection is part of the job.

J.K. Rowling was rejected many times before Harry Potter ended up on bookshelves.

Even knowing that, it still stings.

The agents who rejected me were extremely polite, and I appreciate that. I hope that at least one of the remaining eight (I’m not counting…of course I am) will give me a shot.

Trust me, you’ll hear about it if it happens.

Getting to a Query

Writing is mostly a solitary endeavor. Mostly. I’ve been working on the book I hope to get published since fourth grade. But I’ve only REALLY been working on it (diligently) since 2017. I posted a little about it back then. In January of 2019 I thought I was done.

I was not.

I sent the book to two very reliable and honest people who kindly read it and gave me some feedback. Very good and helpful feedback. Some of it, I didn’t want to hear. But I’m glad they said what they did.

Since this book might never get published, I might never get to write that little acknowledgement paragraph at the end of it where I thank all the wonderful people who helped me out. So I’m going to do it here, just in case.

Jeremy and Kaatje read the rawest and worst version of my story. Fortunately for all of us, it will never be that bad again. They both gave me essential feedback, for which I honestly will be forever grateful.

Jeremy convinced me to “speed up” the beginning, which I really struggled to do, probably didn’t do enough, but I tried my best. Kaatje really helped me improve on some character development and to lose some boring middle stuff. She also helped (prodded) me to put in a little romance (way out of my comfort zone), which I think has added an incredibly important and wonderful dimension to the story.

More Help

Writing is solitary, but editing and revision needs teamwork. I had a wonderful group of beta readers. In all the writing speak blogs I’ve read, as well as words from many authors, Jeremy and Kaatje would be called “first readers.” The next group is called “beta” readers, not second readers. I don’t make the rules.

My beta readers don’t know it, but they should be so grateful to my first readers who saved them from some very horrible reading material.

For four month after my first readers gave me feedback, I went back and edited and revised and edited. I got to the point where reading any of my own chapters really made me angry. I hated everything I had written. But by June of 2019, I was sure I was done.

I was wrong again.

Beta readers take whatever it is the author thinks is ready to publish, and then they say why it isn’t. I appreciated their catching typos, which were many, and plot holes, and out-of-character dialogue, and many more things. I had all of that.

Even more useful were the ideas they had to improve, to refine, and to modify. My beta readers were Caleb, Colleen, Emily, Jeannine, Julie, Ralph, and Scott. I can’t list all the things they helped with, but it was a lot.

I had to write about five new chapters, changed the title three times (not as big a deal as you think), rearranged or cut a lot of things, and revised almost everything (literally). It was all important and to be honest, crucial. I understand my own story much better because of them and the product is better.

It’s impossible to describe how much I owe them for spending their time reading my book.

Agents

I suppose you could call agents “third readers”, but I’m not sure what the code word is. First readers, beta readers, so maybe tertiary readers? I don’t know. I guess an editor might be in there somewhere too. It’s too much trouble to figure that out. I heard from my last beta reader in August or September and spent the next two months working on new edits to prepare to query.

I thought I was ready.

Agents decide if a book gets considered for publishing, the first ones to decide anyway. They reject things quickly, like if there’s a typo in your query letter. They have to be merciless because of the number of submissions they receive daily. That’s only one reason why it’s stressful for me: what if I make a mistake?

But more than that, much more, is that the agent also decides if my writing’s any good. I think it is. And a few other people said they did too. But the agents hold the keys to the door to the publisher. I’ve had nine great people review and give me feedback. But that won’t matter if the agent says no.

Makes it hard to sleep at night.

In the end, if they reject it, hopefully they’ll also include some feedback as to what I can do better, and then I can try again.

 

 

 

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