The Query That Got Me My Agent

Happy Pay-It-Forward Friday!! I hope everyone's had a lovely week. If you're looking for my IWSG post, click here.

I've recently started Pay-It-Forward Friday, and what I do is post something of help to the writing community. So far, the focus has been on queries. Weirdly, I love query letters, though most people seem to hate them. If you have one you need help with, let me know! Or, if you have one you want to brag on, I'd be happy to feature that as well. Today I suppose I have more of the latter - since I had no sacrificial lambs on the query critique alter, I'm posting the query that snagged my agent's attention, and got me a full request. Here it is, and my notes are interspersed in purple:

Ms. Lu,

Always address the agent formally. Check, doubly and triply, you have spelled the name right!!! 

Evryn’s got mad skills at playing hide and seek. She can find lost children, hack the most secure databases, pretty much anything. Except for the one thing she desires most: the knowledge of who her parents are, why they abandoned her, and what her special talent means about who and what she really is.

There is differing advice from agents on this, but I like to jump right into the story on the first line. I put the more drab details like word count at the end. Agents are super busy and may only read a line or two, so I want them to be great ones! Note: many agents hate a query opening with a question, so use caution with that.

It took me a while to get this paragraph right:

•  I needed to lay a tiny bit of back story just so it made sense, without getting bogged down. 
• It needed to be interesting to hook the agent. 
• I've written it with the same voice/tone of my story - I am a big fan of this in queries. Don't go overboard, but this is a way to show your writing style.
• I've also revealed a bit about Evryn's character - what she desires most (the truth about her parents and herself)

So, when a guy named Seeker appears quite literally out of nowhere, claiming to know about her past and offering her a job, Evryn can’t say yes fast enough. Even if it does mean following him to another realm. As in, mind-blowingly, not Earth. Apparently she’s part of an elite clan of Hunters descending from Artemis who can find just about anything in all of time and space. As the last of Artemis’ direct lineage, Evryn is her clan’s best shot at finding a lost city before rival clans do.

Here I start to lay out the main plot point. I had to do some world-building too, because this is fantasy. Again, a balance to not get bogged down.

Not just any city, but the flying, realm-hopping city of Skye. Aboard Skye is the Artifex, a magical device with the power to create or destroy worlds. Everyone wants the device, and with Evryn’s super-powered lineage, it means everyone wants her, too. It’s hard to decide who she can trust, even within her own clan. After she discovers a strange, alluring connection to the Artifex, she’s not even sure she can trust herself. Worse yet, the only person who may be able to help her is the Timekeeper, the sadistic ancient being who created the Artifex. An interdimensional war is brewing, and Evryn is right at the epicenter of it all.

• More details on the plot
• The stakes!! This is important in any query. Without stakes there's no tension. Amp up that tension!

Let the hunt begin.

I like to end queries with some kind of clever, teaser-ish phrase, but it's not necessary.

My new adult contemporary fantasy HUNTRESS FOUND is complete at 85,000 words. Per your submission guidelines, I’ve included the first ten pages and a brief synopsis below. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Now you can (and should) add the drab details:

• Genre
• Title in ALL CAPS (it looks weird, but it's proper etiquette)
• Word count (this is important - don't forget!)
• Then I like to confirm to them that I have read and complied with their submission guidelines - it personalizes the query, and lets them know you're prepared and organized.
• If you have any legit publishing credentials, add that in. Note: LEGIT. I was published in a local newspaper and some zines years ago, but I'm not listing that because it sounds amateurish. The rule is, you can list it if you got paid. I'd say you could fudge on this a little, if you didn't get paid, but it was a well-known publication. Use good judgment. 
• Same with awards - list any writing awards that are well known, but not super minor stuff. I won some writing contests on different blogs, some of them even well known contests in the writing community, but I aired on the side of caution and didn't include it. You don't want to sound unprofessional.
• And in that same vein, NEVER mention "I'm an unpublished author", or "This is my first novel". It's not necessary to mention that and many agents report they feel it sounds unprofessional.
• Overall: hook 'em good, keep it short and sweet!

Sincerely,

Alexia Chamberlynn

www.alexiachamberlynn.com
http://alexiachamberlynn.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/aachamberlynn
(850) 443-6075

This was an e-query (hardly anyone takes paper anymore), so I everything is left justified. I also included my main social media sites in my signature block so they can see I am market savvy. 


Hope that was helpful! If you have a query you want me to feature, please let me know - whether it's a critique or a brag you're looking for. 

Have a fabulous weekend, writer friends!

The Thrills and Chills of Being on Sub!!

Hi, writer friends! I'm posting today for the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop. My topic for the post, appropriately since it pervades my thoughts each day: being on submission with publishers! 

I signed with my lovely agent Sandy Lu in August, and after a couple rounds of minor edits on my contemporary fantasy, Huntress Found, we went on sub in mid September! It's true what they say - in the life of a writer, you rarely achieve such heights that you never have to worry about rejection again. When you're querying agents, you just want to get that agent. Then when you get an agent, it's on to possible rejection by publishers. And once you get published, there are always people that don't like your book. It really never ends, which is why I try to stay as relaxed as possible about the whole thing. If we let ourselves get sucked down in that maelstrom, jumping from one insecurity to the next, it sucks a lot of the joy out of writing. So, for now I wait patiently for news. Sandy says it usually takes editors eight to twelve weeks to read a manuscript, so we might start hearing back this month. If you'll bear with me for an Oprah moment, I like to use positive visualization and imagine hearing the news that editor(s) love my book. And that's how I stay sane with it all! That, and gratitude for the things I do have and the lessons I've learned.

In the vein of agents, I've started doing query brags and critiques as my way of paying it forward to the writing community. On Friday I'm posting the query that got my agent's attention. If you have a query you want help on (MG, YA, NA or adult), or a query that brought you success, let me know! Otherwise, I hope everyone's having an awesome week. 

Click here to visit the other IWSG posts or to sign up! TTFN! 

Pay It Forward Friday!

Hello, writer friends! Today I'm doing my FIRST Pay It Forward Friday post, which will take place on the first Friday of each month. It's my way of giving back to the writing community. I've certainly received my fair share of help over the years, and it feels good to reciprocate.

Clearly I'm not an agent or publisher, but I've been in literary circles for the past five years or so, and have gathered quite a bit of knowledge about query letters and such. There are many different opinions out there on how to write a good query letter and proper etiquette and whatnot, so these posts will represent my opinions on the matter. Always do your own research (see my blog sidebar for some of my favorite query resources).

SO! Disclaimers out of the way, let's proceed to today's topic. I didn't have any sacrificial query letter lambs placed on my editing alter (promise I'll be nice if you want me to help with one!), but I did get a good query letter question on Twitter:

What is the proper way to submit requested materials, and when/how should you follow up if you've submitted them?

Part one first: how to submit requested materials.

1) SQUEE! You got a request!!! Be super proud. That means your query letter is great, or at a minimum, your concept rocks. Maybe both!!

2) Settle down BEFORE sending. Don't send when you're still high as a kite on agent request pixie dust. You might miss something and then you're not off to a good start.

3) Once you've returned to a reasonably calm and logical state, read the agent's instructions very carefully. Then read them again several times. You want to send EXACTLY what they've asked for, how they've asked for it. No more, no less. They want a two page synopsis and yours is five? Trim it. They want a .DOC file? That's what you're gonna need to send them. A bio written in purple ink from the blood of a unicorn? Grab a lasso and a virgin and get huntin'.**

4) After any tweaks to your query arsenal are made, hit reply. Unless the agent has provided specific instructions for what to put in the subject line of the email, change the subject line by adding 'REQUESTED MATERIAL' to whatever the original subject line was. Yes, in all caps. I usually would title the subject line of my initial query 'Query: Title', so it will end up looking something like this:

Re: Query: Huntress Found - REQUESTED MATERIAL

5) In the body of the email, say something simple like:

Mr./Ms. _____,

Thank you for your interest in Title of Book. As requested, I've attached [list whatever it is they asked for]. Please let me know if you need anything else.

Sincerely,

Your Full Name

6) Attach everything they've asked for VERY carefully. Check this several times in an OCD manner. Check your subject line. Check the spelling of the agent's name. Check for typos in the body of your email.

7) Hit send!

8) Go celebrate. You are a badass!! You not only wrote something that caught an agent's eye, but you were brave enough to put yourself out there and follow through.

Now for part two of the question - following up with an agent if needed. Agents are BUSY, dudes. It often takes them three to six MONTHS to read a full manuscript. Don't follow up with them before the length of time they say it usually takes them to respond. And don't follow up with them the day that timeline expires. Some people may disagree with me on that, but hey. No one likes to be reminded they're behind on stuff. I say pad on a couple weeks and then follow up. If the agent hasn't stated a timeline for response, three months is safe. And remember, this is only for requested material. If they never requested anything, you probably shouldn't follow up. A lot of agents these days have a 'no response means no' policy. Now, if they said they respond to all queries and didn't, just resubmit after the window of times elapses. One of my good writing friends got her agent this way. Who knows what happened to the first query!

Proper etiquette on a follow up is pretty simple:

1) Reply back to your email sending the requested materials, so they can easily scroll down and remember what book they're dealing with and how polite and professional you were when you sent them exactly the materials they wanted. Keep it short, sweet and professional, as such:

Ms./Mr. _____,

I wanted to follow up on Title of Book and see if you are still interested. I appreciate your time, and thank you again for your interest in my manuscript.

Sincerely,

Alexia Chamberlynn

2) Obsessively check for typos as you did originally.

3) Hit send!

Now, if they don't respond, don't follow up again. If they do, awesome! I followed up with my agent a couple times, and she responded very promptly, giving me an update on where I was in her TBR pile. This was not only encouraging, but assured me of her communication skills and professionalism. And it all worked out in the end!

So, that's my two cents on sending requested materials and follow ups. Hope it was helpful! If you have other questions or ideas for future Pay It Forward posts, let me know in the comments below.

Good luck with your queries!

**No unicorns were harmed in the writing of this blog post. Or virgins.

Three Exciting and Exhausting Days

I tried to come up with a really clever post title for my weekend at the Tallahassee Writer's Association conference, but you'll note the reference to exhaustion and hopefully forgive me. But, before I spill my tale, let me announce one of the winners of the SPD blogfest! The other winner is announced over at Colene's blog.

First let me say that I loved reading everyone's post. You guys wrote some awesome stuff! And there were awesome video clips and songs and poems and pics (including some delicious Irish boys). So, it really sucks to have to choose one favorite, and it was a hard decision for me and Colene both. But, that's how contests work. Without further carrying on, the winner is Sarah McCabe! Sarah, please email your mailing address and new release choice to alexiachamberlynn@gmail.com. If you haven't already, go check out Sarah's awesome flash fiction and video clips.

Okay, so I realized that at the conference I got enough fodder for quite a few blog posts. I attended a lot of great workshops with awesome speakers, and I want to pass on what I learned to you. But, I know you guys want to hear about the agents first.

I had my manuscrupt critique session with Katharine Sands of the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency at 2:50 in the afternoon on Saturday, and then my pitch with Melissa Flashman of Trident Media Group at 3:10. So, I had almost the whole day to get good and nauseated. I was able to stay distracted in the morning workshops and push off my panic for the most part. But right after lunch, about 1 PM, butterflies pretty much attacked my stomach in a violent manner. I was tripping out! For about an hour. Which seemed. To. Drag. On. For. Eternity.

Then, at around two I started to calm back down. Somehow the nearness of it (the sound of inevitability, right?) (kudos if you get my reference) chilled me out. So, my palms were only sweating a little when I finally stepped into the boardroom with Katharine. Katharine was really nice, and said my writing was strong and she is interested in my story. She pointed out a few things I needed to work on, and said she wants me to submit pages to her after I have. These are the things she noted:

1) My setting was too generic. My novel takes place in NYC, but I didn't make it specific enough. She mentioned that there are lots of different New Yorks: old money New York, drag queen New York, etc. I need to pick the subculture that my characters engage in and flesh it out.
2) She said my opening was really tense and scary (which is the point), but she kept getting distracted wondering what my character is. You know he's something paranormal, but I don't say what. To me, that made it more mysterious, but she said I needed to at least hint at it.
3) Something that surprised me was that she said I actually needed more backstory at the beginning - readers need to know a little about why my villain is stalking my MC.

We talked about some other plot points that she liked and wanted me to develop more. So, it was really great feedback, and I have an invite to submit. Yay!

Directly after my manuscript critique, Melissa called me in, so they were literally back to back. I gave her my pitch, and while I'm sure it wasn't stellar, I remembered all my lines, and delivered them in a natural conversation and didn't strangle on any of my words. Hooray me! I knew from my research ahead of time that Melissa didn't rep any urban fantasy, and she admitted that it wasn't her area of expertise. But, she said her assistant likes urban fantasy and that her assistant vets all the fiction submissions first, and to submit in a couple months when she's back from a medical absence. She also gave me the names of a couple agents that rep my kind of work. She was really cool and laid back.

So, all good stuff! It was a great weekend and I got lots of good feedback and tools for revising my book. Here's a sneak peek of the posts I'll be doing on the workshops I attended:

- Chuck Sambuchino's advice on everything agenty
- Katharine Sands tips on pitching (she actually wrote a whole book about it)
- James Scott Bell on a whole lot of stuff (he's a bestselling thriller author)
- Adrian Fogelin on writing for kids and teens (she's won about a dozen children's writing awards)
- Ron Cooper's exercises for voice and POV

So, I realize that was like a bible-length post. If you're reading this, you rock. Happy Monday, writer friends!