When to reevaluate query letter

I got a bunch of rejections before signing. It's normal. You should always be reevaluating your query letter. Keep asking yourself how you can make it better, and you should always tailer and personalize it to the agent.

But, all my thoughts on querying, timely enough, are in a guest post on Literary Rambles that came out today. http://caseylmccormick.blogspot.com/

Too early to say. Five is a pretty small sample. Have you queried before, to know what to expect? Have you workshopped your query at all?

You may have already, but if not, check out Query Shark. The blog is run by agent Janet Reid, and she pulls no punches. If you've read through a number of posts and feel you're hitting the right marks, you might think about strapping on your helmet and then cowering in a corner over at Query Letter Hell, here on AW's Share Your Work (SYW) board for a little while. Password is "Vista." Folks will be happy to give you very direct, lovingly cut-throat input on your query.

But, five? If you've already done all this--or are confident you know what you're doing--I'd probably let it go to ten, but don't query any more of your dream agents for now, maybe? Hit some of your "solid" choices? It's so hard when you've hit the agents you want to work with most, and then find out you sent them a sub-awesome query. If you start getting requests, start sending to your top pics.

How do I know if I'm being rejected because my query letter isn't strong enough or if this story just isn't right for that agent's list?

Click to expand...

I think these are the same thing. Not being right for a list is the polite way of saying "I'm not interested".

6 is is tiny sample and I echo the advice to chuck your QL in QLH before you send any more out. You'd be amazed how much improvement that lot can force you into. It is very, very easy to undersell yourself or just not make yourself clear, so QLH can help a lot.

With just six it's hard to say. I sent out eight on the book that got me rep'd and later sold and I got four rejections.

General rule of thumb:

If the query gets no bites at all (no requests for pages) then it's either the query or the idea.

If the query gets bites, then the query is working. If it's only a few bites, then odds are there's something interesting in there catching an agent's eye, but you could probably make the query better and get better results.

Giant Baby suggested great links and I second checking those out.