Dear Agent, Part II

Here's Part II of Dear Agent, in which I describe my querying process. Everyone's experience will be different but I hope by sharing mine I will answer a few questions for those about to begin their own querying.

I went about looking for agents who were interested in my sort of novel (YA fantasy) in several ways. First, there's the acknowledgments page at the back/front of novels. If their agent isn't mentioned there, it's probably on their blog. Lots of writing/writer blogs list agents' blogs too, and these usually have great resources, like Nathan Bransford and Kristen Nelson's.

Then there's the agent search engines. The ones I used were LitMatch (now Author Advance), AgentQuery and Publisher's Marketplace. Publisher's Marketplace is the best site for checking recent deals, but AgentQuery was my favourite search engine as it seemed to be the most thorough. Once I'd found a potential agent I'd crosscheck them on Publisher's Marketplace, Writer Beware (the best database of dodgy agents) and the Absolute Write Water Cooler forums to see what people were saying about them, ie. if they tended to be slow responding to queries so don't pull your hair out, what sort of books they seemed to be favouring and so on. There's also QueryTracker which I never used but seems to have won awards. I didn't pay for access to any special agenty info and with all these different free resources available I don't think you need to.

I always checked the agent's website, too, for specific querying instructions, and I always followed these to a T. Agent's profiles are the best place to find out about their personal tastes ("no vampires", "I want some MG mysteries", "published authors only"). With some of the more obscure agents I often didn't send a query if they (or their agency) didn't have a website, because it just didn't feel right.

Initially I sent letters to nine agents, all by email, on June 22. The next morning I woke up at some ungodly early hour that I knew was the end of the American working day, and found two form rejections and one full manuscript request. I was over the freaking moon, naturally. The agent who requested it was from a huge New York agency that I'd heard only the most fantastic things about. Who said cracking into the writing biz was hard? It's day two and I'm practically there!

Three weeks went by, and even though I hadn't heard anything from the agent who'd requested the full, I went ahead and queried another eleven agents. There's nothing wrong with this: agents expect you to contact other agents, but they will often ask you when they request a full or partial manuscript how many other agents are reading it. I took my time querying, and reworking my letter, recording which letter went to whom, and the response it seemed to be getting. I queried 60 over 6 weeks and got a "hit rate" (manuscript request rate) of just over 10%. Cindy Pon, author of Silver Phoenix, said in an interview that she queried over 100 agents before she found a home for her first novel. Steph Bowe queried just three. I've seen agents say many times in interviews that they've passed on novels that they're sure will sell just because it didn't suit their personal tastes--which makes sense as they're going to be reading your novels several times over, and they need to be excited to talk about them for months on end.

My letters looked like this:

Dear Mr/Ms X,

[Always use this format. I did end up calling Ashley Grayson Ms instead of Mr, but he requested a partial so mustn't have minded too much!]

[Straight into blurb. I had three different blurbs with different tones and content that I won't post here (but will describe below) as they're spoilery. I never started with a rhetorical question ("Have you ever wondered about ...") as many agents profess to hating these.]

Told with vivacity and humor, Lharmell is the first book in a YA fantasy trilogy called The Cold Times Trilogy, and is reminiscent of works by Tamora Pierce and Tanith Lee. It is complete at 58,000 words. Full synopses of all three books are available, as well as a full manuscript of book one and a partial manuscript of book two.

[I've seen some discussion about whether it's okay to compare yourself to other writers in your query letter. It's perhaps a little audacious to compare yourself to Stephenie Meyer or JK Rowling, but if you were honestly inspired by particular authors I think it's perfectly reasonable, and helpful, to do so. Always say that the manuscript is complete (and it should be before you approach anyone) and the supporting documents (if any) that are available.]

Ms V, author of YYY (200Y) and ZZZ (200Z), had this to say about Lharmell: ‘Rhiannon Hart had me hooked from the first line and I found myself being drawn further and further into Zeraphina’s journey. The writing is crisp, sharp and utterly compelling.’

[It isn't necessary to get a blurb from an author but if you can find one lovely enough to read your work and write something for you, it does help you stand out from the other slush. I did ask before I queried this author's agent, but I didn't ask for a personal introduction.]

I have been passionate about YA fantasy literature since I was twelve; now I have set out to write a series that I would have loved as a teenager for its adventure, sense of fun, and romance. Lharmell is my first novel. I review YA literature for The Australian Book Review, Viewpoint, and Magpies. I work as a professional book editor and can offer a clean and well-structured manuscript. My work as a book publicist means I can have an active role in promotion and public speaking.

[Include a bit about yourself and your writing credits. I have few and my blog was in its infancy so I didn't include that either, so I padded it out with how much I love the genre, how clean and spiffy the manuscript is--and gosh was it clean. I had a team of monkeys (*ahem* friends) scouring that thing with magnifying glasses.]

Thank you for taking the time to read my query and I look forward to your response.

With all good wishes,

Rhiannon Hart

The body of the letter stayed more or less the same over all queries, but I did have three different blurbs: the original blurb that mentioned four characters, a humorous blurb, and a second "serious" one that mentioned just the two main characters. I sent the initial queries out with the original blurb and got two manuscript requests with it. But I wondered if it wasn't a little dry, so I wrote one that captured the humour of the novel. The problem is, while there's humour in it, it's not a comedy. I worried that I was misrepresenting the book, and no one requested the MS when I queried with this blurb, so I ditched it and wrote another. The third one was unrushed and thoroughly described the plot tension, the two main characters and their motivations. None of these blurbs were over 220 words, and the third was just 160.

Make sure you list by date when and who you query and the date an agent requests/rejects your MS. You'll want to refer to (obsess over) these dates at some point (almost immediately), and it helps if they're written down somewhere rather than relying on the sent folder of your email account.

Researching agents and query letters took me hours and hours to do, but it was one of the funnest parts of the process. The un-fun part is the dreaded waiting, and waking up in the morning to find a load of form rejections. I even got a form rejection from an agent's assistant after the agent requested a partial, which is horrible, horrible manners on their part. The loveliest rejections were from agents who read some/all of the manuscript and offered a (very brief) critique. These are so rare. In fact I think I got just one. Even though it was a rejection it felt so good to be taken seriously, the agent was right and I did another rewrite based on what he'd said.

Tomorrow, the final, frivolous Part III of Dear Agent: how I kept my sanity while querying. There will be Lolcats.

Dear Agent, Part I

I was talking to Jade about query letters and she said she'd be very interested to hear about my querying process. So here it is, over two parts. Part I gives you a overview of the writing and revising and initial researching process. Part II, tomorrow, will be a closer look at research, the queries I sent and to whom. I hope my experience will be of help to those of you about to jump on the querying merry-go-round.

When I told my YA teacher I was going to start querying, she hesitated. "That's rather soon," she said. It was June. I'd started Lharmell in March. She was right. But I didn't listen, of course. The process I'm about to relate will be very familiar to those of you who just did NaNoWriMo. The last thing you want is for someone to tell you to slow down, to take it easy, to ease up a little. You're living the dream! I didn't query as soon as I'd finished with the first draft, but it was rather soon after--too soon, really, but I was lucky and I seem to have landed on my feet. This is how it went.

In the last days of February I scribbled half a sentence on some scrap paper at work. When servant's mistress's betroth. dies suddenly, [scribble] they [scribble] to far off place where servant discovers [scribble]. I kept it, though I can hardly read it. On March 1, I began to write--serendipitously so on the first of the month. Only very recently had I begun to keep a writing journal, and in it I wrote the date, word count, and any snippets of dialogue or plot I was terrified of forgetting.

On March 8 the word count was 6,000 and the title was Bitter Wormwood. On the page after some scribbled notes about the Lharmellins, I listed four YA literary agents and the authors they represented: Jill Grinberg, Nathan Bransford, Barry Goldblatt and Kristen Nelson. I found them on authors blogs and their own blogs. I didn't do anything but write the names down and get back to the novel.

On March 9 the word count was 8,500. Sometime around the eleventh I brainstormed variations of the main male character's name:

Simian Finian Tergan Fergan Rudden Rodden Roddan Roddon Raddon Radden

I went with Rodden. Somewhere around this time the title changed to The Tors of Lharmell, and then simply to Lharmell.

March 15 I had 20,300 words. On March 16 I stumbled onto the Booktrust website where Patrick Ness was the writer in residence that month. I didn't know him and the Chaos Walking books from Adam at the time, and I only rediscovered his writing tips months later when I was researching him for an interview. This was one of the things he said:

Knowing the last line. I may not know the climax of my story or how I’ll get there, but I always know the last line, the last sentence or feeling that I’ll leave the reader with. I knew in The Crash of Hennington that it would be an image of a herd of rhinos leaving a burning city. No idea how I’d get there, but I knew that’s where I wanted to go. It gives me something to aim for over the long haul.

In my diary I excitedly wrote, THE LAST LINE!!! And then I scribbled out a few images and snatches of words and thought, that's it. That's how it ends. I don't think I would have gotten to the end so quickly or smoothly if I hadn't known the last line.

March 21, 24,800 words. March 27, 32,500 words. March 29, 35,000 words. April 2, 46,700 words; a list of things to be covered in a long conversation between Zeraphina and Rodden, one of my very favourite scenes to write that occurred right before the climax.

I didn't sleep much in the following days.

April 3, 48, 900.

April 8, 64,000 words; DONE!!! (First draft, completed in 39 days. I'm an edit-as-I-go writer. Every time I sit down to write I reread the previous day's passages. I'm not a "shitty first draft" sort of writer. If things aren't working, I can't leave it and go on because I don't know the mood my characters will be in. They may have just had a fight, which is likely because they're always fighting. The sequence of scenes and portrayal of characters in the final version are pretty much the same as they were in the first draft. Most of the revising happened at the line level.)

April 9. Things to check. What follows is a rather long To Do list, including edits, chapter summaries and drafting a letter to agents.

Because Lharmell is the first book in a planned trilogy I wanted to have thorough synopses of books two and three written, and at least some of book two, The Harmings, written before anything went out to anyone. So I spent a mint on printing copies of Lharmell to give to lots of lovely friends who volunteered to critique it and launched myself into book two. The going was far slower. On April 20 I had just 1,500 words. I was not only writing book two, but editing book one in stages, writing synopses and planning the rest of the trilogy. On April 28 I had a synopsis of book one. I freely admit that I loathe writing synopses. Everything comes out wooden and I want to stab myself every time I write "and then". Which is often.

At the start of May I had 14,400 words for The Harmings, and I started blogging. Writing one, I mean. I'd been lurking on several for a few months. Blogging didn't seem to have an immediate effect on my word count as I see the next day, May 4, I had 20,000 words.

Then the word count ground to a halt. I went on holiday to Vanuatu. I started reviewing for magazines. There are notes for The Harmings all through May, but no increase in word count. Then, at the end of the month, I got Lharmell back from my teacher and feedback from several friends, and rewrites began in earnest. Which meant, of course, that I began planning several other novels. None of them stuck, thank goodness, and on June 22 I sent out my first batch of letters to agents. It was a Monday night, if I remember correctly, and I'd had three glasses of red wine and had been rather distractedly watching something on television when I'd suddenly thought TO HELL WITH IT. I'll do it now!

The next morning there were three emails in my inbox.

Tomorrow, Part II: The letters I wrote, how I researched agents, and how I kept my sanity throughout the querying process.

One last thing: It's good to approach agents of authors who write similar books to you, but it's not always obvious who represents them. I sent a few emails to authors, asking about their representation. Most didn't reply, but one lovely lady did, and we started emailing back and forth. It was great to talk to someone on my side of the equator who'd cracked it overseas. Eventually I asked her if she'd like to take a look at Lharmell and perhaps write a short recommendation that I could put in a query letter. It's not critical, but if you can get a recommendation from a published author, it may help you get a leg up out of the slush. It's also thrilling when someone in the biz gets behind your work. Makes those cold, dark writing mornings that little less lonely!

To do list. And a Lolcat so things don't get too serious.

I just wrote a few thousand words of The Harmings so I thought I'd reward myself with a Lolcat, hehe. Here he is!


Bad, impatient kitty. Now, down to business...

The following is a list of things that have to be done before I send Lharmell off to agents.

The current draft needs some tweaking. After plenty of voddies at Sentido funf, or whatever the silly place is called (the bar is fun, but what a name! Worse than Cas Retops around the corner. And how much are Smith and Gertrude streets the new Brunswick Street? You can't walk on the pavement for all the drunk people!) I extracted some good criticisms from Mike. I also have Stephen and Tam's marked up manuscripts to look over. Fingers crossed that Clare, my YA teacher, will hand me back my MS tomorrow too.

Tam also said she had some ideas for my synopsis of Lharmell, too, to stop it being so "and then and then and then". I can't decide which is harder to write, the opening of the book or the damned synopsis!! It's certainly a close one.

I have scrappy outlines of The Harmings and Queen of Lharmell (books two and three) but they certainly wouldn't be fit to grace an agents desktop. They'll need to be fleshed out and polished before any letters are sent, in case of request.

As much of The Harmings should be completed and polished too. It's going to be difficult to prove to agents and editors that an unpublished author has the skill and motivation to finish a trilogy, so having as much done as possible will work in my favour.

Then there's the letters to the agents themselves. Nathan Bransford's blog has lots of great tips, and Kristen Nelson's. I have a rough draft of a query letter down somewhere but this will have to be polished too. I tells ya, sometimes I feel like a maid, not a writer with all this polishing going on!

That's it for now. Coffee time. Wordcount: 17,508. When I hit 20,000 I'm going to print it off and deluge it with red pen.