Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Why You Should Query That Horrible Manuscript

Yep. Time for more of Beth's unconventional wisdom. (If you don't like it, don't listen, but hear me out).

So you wrote a book. If this is the first time you've done that, chances are it sucks. It's okay. It's tens of thousands of words of experience you wouldn't have under your belt had you not taken the plunge. If you're like me, your instincts are strong enough to tell you it sucks, but maybe not strong enough to know how to make it not suck. You've heard all the horror stories of the dreaded first manuscript. How other writers are so embarrassed by their first ms they wish they hand't shown it to anyone, so you put that horrible first manuscript in a drawer, preferably one with a lock.

The next manuscript you write will be better. While I'm not willing to guarantee it because there is always the exception, it's almost a certainty. However, when you're ready to query that next stronger, better manuscript, you've never written a query letter. Your first query letter will most likely suck too. Why? First of all, they're hard to write. Knowing what to include and what not to is almost an art in and of itself. But also because like writing, and like most things in life, you get better at writing queries with experience. And there are things you can learn--valuable lessons--from a query it's hard to learn otherwise, like taking lots of rejection, what works/what doesn't, how to construct that intro research paragraph about how well you know a perfect stranger.

Your first manuscript has about the same odds of becoming the next bestseller as you do of winning the lottery, but writing a query doesn't cost a dollar. Keep this in mind while querying it (so you don't buckle into a spiraling depression). But you can learn, and what you learn from attempting to market your work is as important as what you learn about your work. Sometimes you get feedback, "I see potential, but ___." No one likes the "but," however that "but" tells you what to improve on next time.

For the record, I did not query my first manuscript, because it sucked. I had a friend who did query her first manuscript, though she later decided it was not so great. However, we started querying our second manuscripts at about the same time, and I was way behind the learning curve on the process. Do I regret not querying that first horrible manuscript that absolutely would not have gotten published? Sometimes. Because I think the experience for my second manuscript might have gone differently if I had. My second full length manuscript, received about 100 rejections. But by the time I queried the last 15 people, I'd gotten so good at queries I had started getting requests. Imagine what the outcome would have been if I'd started querying with that experience under my belt. 85 chances I wouldn't have wasted. I've only queried once since then. The second time I queried three small presses with a short story. I got two full requests. Not bad results.
Did you query your first manuscript?

11 comments:

  1. I agree with you on one condition. At the time the ms is finished and ready to polish, you don't think it sucks. It's okay if you come to this realization later, but at the time you need to believe it's good.

    I queried my first ms, but only went through one round (@8 queries). The feedback I got was invaluable and I realized the ms still needed work. I stopped querying so that if I decided to go back and rewrite this, I could still query the rest of my list.

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  2. We learn from experience! Lots of times rejection letters come with some great advice to help improve our writing:).

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  3. My first is sitting in the drawer. The second is on its third round of critical readers. Will I query it? I hope so. I've drafted a first query letter...but I'm pretty sure that needs work. I know one thing. I'll keep moving forward.

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  4. Yes, I did, and I did learn a lot from the experience. You really can learn from rejection. Great post, Beth.

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  5. I'm actually preparing to query my first manuscript now, I've sent it to Beta Readers and I'm happy with it...so here it goes :)

    Also I love the purple stars, or whatever they are, that follow the pointer...they are making me so happy right now :)

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  6. My concern isn't the queries--I can handle rejection, and I'd actually like to get some of that feedback. But I have only two rejections in the last year (three if you count the one publisher I sent to directly). No one else has even bothered to respond.

    And I don't know why.

    Lauren
    lauren-ritz.blogspot.com
    laurentritz.com

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    1. A lot of agents have a no response means no policy. They feel not responding is a response. Most writers hate it, but it is what it is. I recommend looking at websites for some of the agents you queried to see if they use this policy. If so treat it like a form rejection, if not consider sending an email to make sure the query was received.

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    2. I followed the instructions in writers market and on their websites (which didn't always match)--if it said no response, I marked it as an automatic rejection. I have no way of knowing whether their information is wrong. A few I could see, but only two responses?

      Oh, well. Maybe I'm just sending queries to the wrong group.

      Lauren

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    3. Did you get some auto-responses? Like "We have recieved your submission and will get back to you sometime before the world ends." (I exagerate, but the time frames really are ridiculous). If you did not get auto responses, it might be worth politely following up on. "Hi, I just wanted to touch base to confirm you received my query sent on ___."
      I think a lot of agents use no response means no, and sometimes the agency doesn't but the agent does, which is really hard, because when you're the writer how can you know? I only queried agents once, and if I hadn't heard from them in 6-8 weeks, I assumed the rejection. Sometimes months later they would send me a rejection and that really sucked because then it was double rejection. Last year, SCBWI wrote a letter to agents telling them they would no longer support agents who did not respond to queries--that's how ad it is.

      Hope this helps. I know querying is hell.

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  7. I did query my first ms. To 15 agents. I landed a partial request then a full. But I made the mistake of querying two agents at a time, and waiting to hear back from the agents before sending out the next two queries. That worked fine at first, until I hit the two agents that took six months to get back to me. By then, I was busy on a new project and decided to shelve the first one. That was mostly because it was YA fantasy and I had moved on to YA urban fantasy (which I no longer write). The first one was supposed to be part of an eventual series.

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  8. Great advice! I can't wait to receive my first slew of Rejections from my first novel Queries, because it will mean I have reached my goal of completing a novel. Getting published would merely be the icing on my "I wrote a whole book!" cupcake!

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