The last one!

Here are the rest of your questions from my querying/getting an agent Q&A:

Susan Fields said...
My question: I've heard that queries should be extremely short and to the point, yet often when I read a magazine article on queries that worked, they're pretty lengthy. What's a good word count for a query?
Different agents will tell you different things on word count. Some agents I queried had exact word count requirements of 200 words or something like that (yikes!). I think the best way to make sure your query isn't too long is to keep your "pitch" to two paragraphs, and if the whole letter can all fit on one printed page (formatted correctly -- no 8 point font and 1/4 inch borders), then you are good to go.

Can I ask another question? If not, just disregard. :) Say you get that call from an agent offering representation. Do you then email the other agents who are considering partials and fulls and tell them you have an offer and give them a deadline?

YES! You do exactly that. And usually you give them one week.

Kristine said... Great contest Sara--I'm getting in under the wire here. Here's my questions--I've done some work-for-hire and had a few things published. Is that impressing an agent? Or should I downplay it in my query?Thanks again for the opportunity.

Hmmm... I think it depends on what it was and how widely circulated your work was. I think it's good to show them you have some experience, but I wouldn't make it sound like a big deal (unless it was!). If it was a small local magazine or something, I'd mention it in your bio section, but just briefly. If it was a national magazine or publication, and particularly if it relates to the subject/genre you are querying, then you should make a bigger deal out of it. Does that make sense? I'm not the expert on this, so definitely do some more research on it before taking my word for it.

Rachel Searles said... Thanks for offering this contest! My question: how many people did you have critique your query before you sent it out?

The first time? Um... none? Yeah, I was a total greenie. I had no clue what I was doing other than having read Stephenie Meyer's website about how she bought Guide to Literary Agents, picked her top 15 or something like that, and sent off her queries. Bam! Instant millionaire. So I figured, I could do the same thing. As I've detailed in my "path to getting an agent" series last year, though I did get interest that first round, it didn't work out. Then I got smart and started getting help. I had about 5-6 people critique my queries after that every time. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Definitely don't make the mistakes I did!


I hope this series has been helpful and interesting! Thank you again for your questions. Happy Monday everyone!

Friday Five full of gushing about something I just can't keep secret (not writing related)

Hey all! Was that the longest title to a blog post ever? Yeah, I try to be unique and cool that way.

Guess what? It's Friday! (Betchya didn't already know that. Ha ha. Ha.)

Okay, usually I do a Friday Five, but here's all I can think about:


1. I have a beautiful new niece who I love.
2. I am going to be a mommy to a GIRL!!!!! I can hardly stand how excited I am!
3. I really need to get going on my most recent WIP. I've been letting it languish in the back of my mind, pulling it out to play with it every once in a while. Time to get down to the grind and get that thing DONE.
4. Did I mention I'm having a GIRL!?!?!?
5. Did I also mention that I have 2 sons and thought that would never happen? I hoped, but figured (since all evidence pointed that way) that Larson men could only create future generations of other Larson men. Thanks for proving my theory wrong SHH!!

I never know when or if I should announce things like that on my blog, but I am just too excited. And too many local authors/friends/followers already know I'm pregnant (apparently the more kids you have, the earlier you show. Who knew? *grumble, grumble* *but not too loud because it's a GIRL!*).

Also, if you'd like to read a "real" post, please head over to the Challenging the Gnome blog where I did a guest post today. I'd be really embarrassed if no one commented, so please read, comment, follow. They have a really fun, unique blog where they all try to tackle their "gnomes"--aka the hard things that are stumbling blocks to them in writing, life, and more. They are awesome, funny, wonderful women with some truly crazy stories from their lives. Enjoy!

Happy Friday!

We're almost there...

I have just one set of questions left (after today's). Thank you so much everyone who participated, and I hope you've found this series of Q&A helpful.

Danyelle said... Thanks for your generosity. :)Question: If you have more than one offer of representation, how do you handle telling the other agents that you didn't pick?

After you have carefully made an informed decision on which agent is best for you, the best way to let the other agents know is to send them a professional and kind email letting them know of your decision. Unless you feel like you had a closer relationship throughout the process that would necessitate a phone call. But usually, an email is sufficient.

Theresa Milstein said... Since we often send queries with pages, how do we know when it's the query or the pages or other?

I'm assuming you're asking when should you send pages and when should you just send the query? This is where your research becomes very important. Find the most up to date information on the agent you are querying (through agentquery.com, their websites, etc.). They will tell you what they want. However, if an agent says "query only," I'd usually send the first page with it (pasted in the email) so they could see a small sample of my writing and include a sentence that said, "I am also including a one-page excerpt from ____." (Or something like that.) I had a couple of author friends recommend I do that, and I found it was generally a good thing.

Brooke said... Great contest and thank you for your generosity!My question is what happens if you have more than one project ready to query?

In my opinion and from what I know, I say you pick the one that you think is the best, and you only query that one. (As long as they are the same genre or "age group"--aka, both YA, or both non-ficton, etc. so the same agent could represent both of them.) Once you have an agent interested, then you can tell them about your other project. However, I've had someone else tell me recently that she disagrees and thinks you should let them know in the query that you have another one ready. Everything I ever read or have heard is NOT to do that, but she is a knowledgeable person and says she's had success with it. So you may want to research that one a little bit more.

We're half way through the week, and so far mine has been awesome. I can only hope the trend continues! How about you? Is January 2011 treating you well?

More answers, and a darling new niece!

Time for more answers to your questions!

Kathryn said...
Wondering how your husband reacted when you signed with an agent! What was your family's reaction? :) My husband was SO excited. He knew how badly I wanted this and how hard I had worked to get to that point. He'd seen me at the breaking point, when I was so beaten down with rejection that I didn't know if I could handle even one more. He also saw me when I was so excited about the most recent requests or feedback or revision. When it finally happened, I was almost in shock with disbelief that I'd finally achieved my goal. He on the other hand was jumping up and down, yelling in excitement, lifting me off of my feet and swinging me in circles. My family was also very excited, but not so much that they lifted me off of my feet. ;)


Emy Shin said...
These are great advice! A question, hmm... Did you have a process for querying? Did you query all agents at once, or send five queries, wait a week, then send five more, etc.?
Definitely don't query all the agents on your list at once. But I do believe in doing it in chunks. I'd say five - ten at a time. I usually sent out a chunk every monday morning, and see what kind of responses I got. One thing I did do though, was whenever I got a particularly heartbreaking rejection, I'd send out a new query right away (or maybe a couple) to give myself new hope. It was one way I coped with disappointment--focus on the possibility of the future instead of the failings of the past.

Nicole Zoltack said...
Queries always need to be tweaked so I would love to win!My question: How do you know when your query is ready? Oh boy, this is a tricky one. Especially since I was often tweaking my query between every round of queries I sent out! But what I would usually do is have a few new people read it whenever I thought it was ready (on top of my CPs), and based on how they reacted I would decide. Another thing I did sometimes (when I was feeling really brave), was to call up a friend and read them my query as if it was the back of a book at a store to ask them if they thought it sounded good. I'm sorry I'm not much help on this one. Basically, get it to where you think it accomplishes your goal (concisely and intriguingly surmises your book), and then have the courage to send it out.

And now for your viewing pleasure, I'd like to introduce my beautiful new niece Zoey!!

Isn't she darling? I'm so in love.

And thank you for all of your wishes on SonB's birthday party. It went awesome! He loved all of it (including his cake), so hurray for success!

Did you all have a good weekend?

2 years...

A lot can happen in two years. It took me that long to get an agent... but I do have to confess, there was a slight, um, distraction in the middle of that process.

That is a pretty cute distraction, don't you think?? It's hard to believe that two years ago today, I was staring down into this heavenly little face, falling in love with my second little boy.

And now here he is -- such a big boy! (This is Christmas morning) I can't believe SonB is turning 2! He is so excited for his birthday party, and even more excited for his birthday cake. It's all he talks about. When I went in his room to get him out of bed this morning and said, "Guess what? It's your birthday today!" He said, "Birthday cake?!" I sure hope the cake lives up to all his hopes and dreams. ;)

Well, I'm off to go pick up the long dreamed of cake, and finish preparing for his "wellow uck" party (which translates to yellow truck in SonB-speak). What fun plans do you have today?

The Return... of the answers to your questions!

Okay, well let's get back to it, shall we? Since I took a two week break, I didn't finish answering all of your great questions regarding querying and finding an agent. Here are a couple more:

Jennie Bailey asked:

How do you whittle your book down to one small paragraph without leaving anything important out? Do you give away your ending? Or keep it secret? I'll be querying by Spring, but I have so much trouble with narrowing it down and getting to the good stuff (yes, I've tried a few times just for practice)!

Technically, you can whittle it down to two paragraphs, maybe even three if they're on the short side. But I understand what you mean. It is really hard to take a huge, 70,000 word novel (give or take ten or twenty thousand words) into a query. That is one reason I say start your query before you write the book if possible. That is when you have your core idea but not all of the details swimming around in your head yet. You will most likely edit and change it once you write the book, but at least you will have a good starting place. If you've already written the book you have to ask yourself two questions: who is my main character (the query should only focus on their story, no supporting cast allowed if at all possible), and what is my hook? The hook is what is going to grab an agent's attention. This is not the place to try and show them how intricate your plot is, or the number of twists you've thrown in. You don't want to confuse them by naming too many characters in those two short paragraphs. It is also not the place to reveal your ending. Save that for a synopsis. Take some of your favorite books and read the jacket copy or back of the book blurb. Which ones sound the best to you? That's basically what you are trying to accomplish with your query. Keep it simple, intriguing--stick to your basic plot and hook, and you've got a query.

Alexia asked:

Question: When you get THE CALL, if your brain goes completely blank from mega freaking out excitement, what is the one question you should not forget to ask? Sorry, that's probably totally unfair. No pressure :)

Ha ha, well, I'm going to cheat on this answer so I don't feel any pressure at all. This is why you PRINT OFF YOUR LIST. Your brain will freak out, and you will go blank, and you will have that lovely sheet of paper right there, with all of your questions printed on it, and a pen or pencil in your other hand to write down their answers (or at least jot down notes). Problem solved. But if for some truly horrible, awful, (really, really bad) reason you can't find your paper, I'd say the most important question is to ask them what their thoughts and goals are for your book. That's kind of squishing the "tell me what edits you envision for my book, or is it ready to submit right now?" question together with the, "do you already have an idea of who you are going to submit my book to, and how soon do you hope we'll be ready to go on submission?" questions into one. Honestly, just make sure and be prepared and have your paper ready. They will set up an appointment with you, so it won't take you by surprise or anything.

Well, that's it for now. More to come soon!

Welcome 2011!

I'm baaaack! Did you miss me? I missed all of you. But I do have to admit, it was very nice to just unplug and enjoy Christmas and the New Year with my family. How was your break?

I'm always a little bit sad when the holidays are over, but then the New Year hits. SHH and I always sit down and write out all of our goals for the year, and it really helps me get excited for what's to come. We break it down into daily, weekly, monthly, and finally yearly (or "end of the year") goals. We often tape the list to our bathroom mirror so that we can see it multiple times a day to remind ourselves of what we need and hope to accomplish. Our goals encompass all aspects of our lives. It's always fun to look back at our previous list and see how far we've come or what we still need to work on.

So tell me, what are your goals for this year? Do you make an actual list, and if so, what do you do with it? I have a feeling 2011 is going to be an amazing year, and I can't wait to see what's in store!