Querying was not what I expected. According to Booktube, BookTok, etc., being in the “querying trenches” was like going to war. The publishing industry was shifting, and editors were leaving high profile publishers. I read horror story after horror story of people being scammed by fake agents or publishers. Of writers querying their fifth novel in as many years without any luck. I watched people question themselves, their abilities, even their own existence because of the constant grind of rejection. As I prepared to step into the trenches, I did everything I could think of to avoid those experiences. And I want to share some of that process with you so that it can hopefully save you some pain.
I had a master plan.
For my list of agents, I went through Query Tracker for fantasy fiction authors, then through Manuscript Wishlist/Twitter. I started with www.querytracker.net, which for those who are unfamiliar, is the most efficient way to find and track literary agents who are open to queries.
I won’t lie to you beautiful souls, this process was not glamorous. I spent days combing through profiles, literary houses, feeds and more. But I knew I wanted to have a curated list of agents with their stats, their authors sales etc. And that information I tracked in a spreadsheet of my own making.
While rather involved in hindsight, it was invaluable to staying organized. And organization is key. I highly recommend creating some variation of a spreadsheet like this. That way you have all the information you will need to fill out query forms, emails, or letters. Whether you go the query tracker route or fill out querying forms from individual literary houses there is certain information you’ll need to keep handy. For that I had a Google doc with my author bio, my pitch, synopsis, my socials, target audience etc. I also used another Google doc as a fillable template for my query letter. That way information from my spreadsheet and template could easily be customized to the individual agent.
This might seem like overkill to some, I stand by everything I did in preparation for them. After all the horror stories I wanted to be as prepared as possible. I’d edited my book for months, gotten beta readers, and did more edits. I also heavily workshopped my pitch and my query letter. You don’t do all that and then just leave the rest to chance.
And while my querying preparation, let alone experience, may not be the norm by any means, I wanted to share it to hopefully make it easier for others navigate these waters. The trenches can and will try to break you, but I want to show other writers that you don’t have to be a casualty in this war. So from one literary unicorn to the next, thank you for letting me show you how I did it.
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