A lot of discussion has been raised recently by agent Stephen Barbara’s article in Publishers Weekly about how increasingly polished query letters have changed the shape of agent-prospective client interactions. He laments, tongue-in-cheek, the passage of those halcyon days of query letters that hadn’t been workshopped to within an inch of their lives. Of course, in some ways he’s right. I belong to several writing groups and to a very large online writing community, where an entire enclave is devoted to brutalizing other writers’ query letters. The goal is to end up with a query letter that will make an agent snap to attention and say, “Tell me more.”
It works. It works too well sometimes. I have seen query letters that went from woop-de-doo to wow! I have also seen writers utterly crushed by the inevitable disappointment. A fabulous query letter that produces multiple requests for full and partial manuscripts, followed by curt rejections. No matter how much writers joke about it, it’s not easier to write a novel than it is to write a query letter. Or at any rate, it’s not easier to write a good novel than to write a good query letter. The letter is a paltry two or three paragraphs, and it’s no trick to get a dozen people to work those paragraphs over until they glisten in the sun like the tanned flesh of some nubile co-ed basking on the French Riviera. If the novel hasn’t been given the same treatment, the agent is likely in for a disappointment, and the writer is in for the same.
Some people take Barbara’s lament seriously, but of course, this phenomena doesn’t ultimately harm the publishing industry–and certainly it isn’t as harmful as bad business decisions. It just delays a rejection.
Still, writing query letters is a troubling thing. In essence, it is the act of writing a letter to a complete stranger, asking for a favor.
Dear Agent:
I’ve written this book which I think is quite good and I hope you’ll be kind enough to read it.
Sincerely,
Writer You Never Heard Of.
Firebrand Literary has decided on an interesting and old-fashioned approach: a query holiday. Beginning today and running until January 15, they are not accepting query letters. They’re simply asking writers to e-mail the first 20 pages of their novels. The idea being that the agency will do what most readers do: open a book and start reading until it loses their interest.
I had a little frisson of delight when I sent off my sample chapters. Without regard for how it turns out for me, I do wonder what the impact will be on the agency. Will this be a one-shot that goes down as a failed idea? Or will it usher in a new age?
Hey, I didn’t know you were blogging over here!
I’ll try and say something intelligible later, but that’s all I got for the moment.
Yes, I finally have it all up and running!
Having ranted at length on our lil’ hangout recently about novel openings in lieu of query letters, I am giving two thumbs up to the Query Holiday. Irrespective of the outcome for my opening. I hope others will follow their lead.
P.S. Your bio is a treat.
Hmm. Makes me wonder if my query is better than my book? Love the query holiday! Levels the playing field!
I love the query holiday idea: when I was querying I always hoped the query would be skimmed, while standard sample 5 pages would be *read*. Not that I think my query was bad – it worked well enough – but writing business correspondence, no matter how it forces you to distill your MS’s voice and plot, doesn’t really have much of anything to do with writing a novel. And while I can understand the need for a good letter of introduction, I’d really rather the MS be what catches an agent’s eye. 🙂
Nice website. I am subscribing so I can have it sent to me. Man that makes me look at mine. Better go check it out and Kansas looks beautiful.
Love the new site!
Nice website, Red! There’s a long thread and discussion on AW about this letter. Lots of interesting perspectives!
Nice website! Love your query holiday blog entry!
This brings to mind the line from The Matrix, when Neo and Morpheus are fighting. Neo is getting his butt handed to him and Morpheus looks at him and says, “Stop trying to hit me and hit me!”. Wow. Just like that, it popped into my head about the Query Letters. Stop trying to impress me and impress me! Stop telling me you have the next New York Times Bestseller and let me read it! Bravo for taking the game to the next level.
Love the new blog and really liked this post! I wish I had something to send Firebrand by way of first 20 pages…but I don’t have anything actually finished!
I think it’s a great idea, and it will be very interesting to see how Firebrand does with this. of course some agents already take a query and the first three chapters all at once, so it’s not entirely unheard of. But it’s interesting to see how this works without the setup of the premise in the query.
Hey Red! Great new site! Enjoyed the read. I sent my pages as well, and I agree — we’re cursing ourselves in the end when it comes to working so hard on our query letters. Makes me wonder if novels weren’t so long if we’d work just as hard or harder on them. Because you have to wonder if we really do? If there was a way to do an experiment/research on how much work a writer now puts into querying (a serious writer who’s done the research and is obsessive about getting their book read=having perfect query letter) versus how much revision/time/obsession put into their novel. We all think we put so much blood and sweat into our stories, but it does make you wonder, doesn’t it, if the effort we put forth into querying is equal?