Have you ever said to yourself, “Self, where am I going and
why am I in this handbasket?” Well, I have. In fact, I had that very moment
today. You see, of late, life has been insane. I’m crazy-swamped at work all
day, busy querying agents each night, and–in between–I’m trying to schedule a
ski-trip out West. In other words, at the risk of putting my balls in your
face, it’s a lot to juggle. Seriously.
But, before I can tell you why Yahoo so justifiably deserves
my wrath, I have to tell you this part of the story first . . . Since the holidays, I’ve spent easily a
hundred hours researching literary agents who handle humorous memoirs/narrative
nonfiction work (specifically geared towards women) and are willing to take on
new writers. I even found a select handful who specialize in female bloggers
looking for book deals. If you don’t believe how long all of that took me, just
ask the NSA. They can totally verify my digital whereabouts. Note: Dear
National Security Agency, thank you for backing me up. Also, while you may have
read thousands upon thousands of texts between my sister and me, I’m not whiny
or needy. She likes hearing every minute detail of my life. It makes her feel
important (she’s welcome). And though her replies say things like, “Did you
HAVE to send me a disgusting pic of your toe? It’s a spider bite. You’re not
going to die, so stop freaking out.” When I saw her face-to-face, she hugged me
and said, “I’m glad you reached out for help. As a woman with a degree in
Biology and a mother of all boys, I was the most logical person to contact. Besides, I wanted to be there for you. Even mom was
worried it would spread and you could lose your whole leg.”
Anyway, I digress. The point is that, using the criteria
above, I created a list of ten agents and worked with an editor to craft the
query letter and mini-proposal. Then I began submitting my work, and it was a
mistake. Today I found out that Yahoo decided to “tag” every email with a
similar Subject line (e.g. Query for your review), assume it was one
conversation (regardless of the recipient), and combine them into one threaded
discussion, so every agent can see exactly who I’ve contacted and what I said.
Yes, really. It’s like Gossip Girl, the Mid-Life Crisis episode, with a splash
of American Horror Story thrown in to mix things up a bit.
In any case, on the off-chance that a snowball landed in
hell and one of those agents is visiting my blog (despite her better judgment), I
sincerely apologize for the chaos and deeply appreciate your interest. I
realize you may feel like you weren’t special, but I assure you that’s not the
case. Hours upon hours went into finding you; and, like Herman Cain once said,
“It’s true there were a lot of other women, but think of how many I didn’t bother.”
Given that I just quoted him to help my case, perhaps hell really did just
freeze over. That’s OK, I’ll ski that, too. Speaking of, I’m off to plan our
trip out West. I mean really, how bad could it be?
Talk to you later.
Be patient and persistent. It can can take months and months and months to get an agent. Be sure to track the response rate to your query -- and don't blow your whole list of agents if you're not getting a decent response rate. If you're not getting requests for pages, the query needs work. If you're getting requests for partials but they don't turn into requests for fulls, then the partial (or manuscript as a whole) needs work.
ReplyDeleteThanks Mel! What if they all reply at the same time to one another and black-list me like McCarthy did? It could happen. You don't know. After all, you're only paranoid if you're wrong.
DeleteI'm pretty sure they don't have time to discuss queries unless you do something really egregious. And then it's to laugh, rather than to blacklist. Found this article today and thought of you: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/dont-give-up-until-youve-queried-80-agents-or-more
ReplyDeleteThank you! Thank you! Thank you! You always know what to say. I'm off to read your article.
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