Earlier this year I began working on a book I’d like some famous publishing house to fawn over. Maybe even pay big bucks for it. Or get me on some best seller list. Of course, the odds of this are not great, but they’ve motivated me to keep working on my magnum opus, and I learned a couple things in the process.
First, it’s a book I wrote a long time ago; so the first question on rereading it was, “Does the writing hold up?” I believe it does.
However, times and protocols have changed since I left the freelance world. Snail mail is not the communication of choice; you don’t send a SASE (Do people even know what that is anymore?) with your manuscript. You don’t even send the manuscript. Instead you electronically send a query letter asking if the agent or publisher is interested in seeing more.
And what I’ve learn most of all is that I’m terrible at writing query letters. The last one I wrote was tongue in cheek about the work; the one before that tried to build a personal relationship with the agent; the one before that was just drivel.
Recently, I found examples of query letters that got responses – real offers to proceed to the next step – on the internet. All 12 had the same type of writing and mentioned the same standard things as word count, genre, and story line. They were direct and brief. And they were nothing like my attempts.
Which just goes to show where I really need to spend my time.
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