What exactly is querying?
Well, for me, it is when you are really proud of work that you've done but you would like to have strangers tell you that it is not good enough to even consider reading! At least that is my definition. Querying is actually a process that you go through to try to secure an agent for your work, and it is by far the most gut-wrenching thing in the process of writing thus far. Why? Because, like I said above, I am reaching out to a stranger with a brief bit of history about myself and the synopsis to my novel and hoping for the best.
So far, my hopes have been shot out of the sky!
From what I've been told, the basic query letter should go as follows:
Paragraph One: Grab the agent's attention and entice them with your story in the first paragraph. In my query, I used this,
"... if you desire for books to have characters that are diverse and complicated, set against a supernatural world then my novel will be a good fit for your list."
Paragraph Two: A brief description about your novel. For example:
The Son of Eden is an Urban fantasy novel about
"blah, blah, blah,blah, blah!". And then end it it with,
"my novel will appeal to fans of (an already published and, hopefully, successful author)" so you can show the agent that your story is marketable!
Paragraph Three/Last Paragraph: Wrap it all up in a package that tells a little bit about yourself, like: "
This is my first novel, etc."
And so far, I've followed that formula and it has currently landed me six solid rejections!
That's the disheartening part of all of this. There is a stranger telling you "No" and it feels like your world is crumbling apart. Briefly... then you write another query and send it on!
Why? Because this is my dream, and I'll be damned if I'm going to stop because six people didn't want to read my work!
Keep Writing!
