Jacquelyn Dohoney

December 1, 2021

Querying, am I right? If you’re a fellow writer, you’ve been there. It’s a four letter word for most of us. If you’re not a writer, then you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. So let’s sum it up. What exactly is a query? The short answer is that it’s hell. The real answer is that it’s not actually one thing. Think of a query as a package of sorts. How you submit the package is dependent upon the agent you’re sending to. Generally speaking, a query package consists of three things:

Query letter 

Sample pages

Synopsis

A query letter is just that. It’s a letter that you write to every agent that you want to submit to. It's like an application for a job that you have maybe a 1% chance of getting. This letter is personalized to the agent and introduces your book to them, and why in the hell they would actually want to read it. You can even tell them a little bit about yourself. But here’s the thing: a lot of people don’t even make it past the query letter stage. So this has to be a top notch letter in order for you to “pass” beyond the first stage of querying.

The sample pages are the next step in the process. Think of this like level two of the querying process. Your dream agent has read your query letter, and you have them intrigued. Now they want to dive into your sample pages. The number of sample pages vary from agent to agent. But usually, they ask you to send anywhere from your first five pages to your first fifty pages. WHY?! Because they want to get a taste of your writing. This, my friends, is the toughest part of the process: writing something so incredible that you have the agent wanting more.

Last is the synopsis. This is optional for a lot of agents. I would say I’ve only submitted a synopsis at a rate of 50% of all of my submissions. So what exactly is a synopsis (besides an instant panic attack for every writer I know)? It’s a one to five page document (usually one) that breaks down the entire novel you took months to write, with spoilers and all. And let me tell you, this is not easy! 

Ok, so our query package is done. We’re glowing with excitement. Now what? Now we go through our list of agents that represent the genre that our novel is in, and we send it to them. Easy, right? Wrong! The hardest part of all is sending it. Remember that 1% chance I told you about? Well, here’s where that comes in. Every agent is different as far as how long it takes to respond. Some are lightning fast and respond within fifteen minutes. Some take six months or longer. If you're an impatient person (like me), this part is like walking on broken glass, but doing it voluntarily day after day and hoping you come out of it intact. There is a lot of tears, and a lot of really low days, because this is a tough field to break into. And sometimes it feels like it's impossible.

So now, I’ll tell you a little bit about my querying experience. When I queried my first novel last year, I had no idea what I was doing. And trust me when I tell you that no amount of googling was going to help me. I just wasn’t looking in the right places. I queried way too soon after only doing two edits and having two very biased beta readers, and the rejections started rapidly pouring in. Over the summer, I hired an editor and started slashing and adding. I loved these characters, and there was no way I was giving up on them. I queried again, and still more rejections. That told me it was my query letter that was part of the problem. So I had an experienced Twitter writer friend go over my query with me, and what was once a hot dumpster fire was now gorgeous. So I queried again and started getting requests. Three fulls and six partials, to be exact. But still, the rejections were coming. At the moment, I have a grand total of 249 rejections, counting hard rejections and CNR’s (closed no response). I still have one partial out, but I’m not expecting to hear back from that agent. Why? Don’t I have confidence in my work? Of course I do! I made the incredibly hard decision to “shelve” my first novel. Despite 250 queries and two Twitter pitch parties, I thought my writing was flawed. And yes, it does still need some work. But really, it was my process that was flawed.

What I mean by that, is that I did everything wrong. And I mean everything. That list you see out there of things not to do when you’re querying? Well, I did a lot of them. I queried too soon before edits were finalized, I only had two beta readers who didn’t have the heart to tell me where I needed improvement, I refused to use any critique partners because I was embarrassed for any other writers to see my work, I submitted to the wrong agents, I classified my novel as the wrong genre, my query letter was a joke, and the biggest thing is that I had ZERO confidence at the time. 

That all sounds so depressing, why in the world would I continue writing? Because I love writing. And honestly, nothing good ever comes free. It takes a lot of hard work to get anything worth having. So yes, I keep writing. A lot. Sometimes I jot a note down that seems cool. Or an idea will come to me on the back of a motorcycle. Or sometimes when you think all hope is lost, and that contest you entered seems impossible, you come up with an idea that is pure gold and the words flow like water. I like to think that’s where I’m at now. So here I am, just a girl, sitting in front of her laptop, ready to do edits on her fourth novel of the year. And yes, I will be querying. Just not so soon, and hopefully with a very different plan of action. 

Thanks for reading guys, I hope you enjoyed my story!

Jackie