Questioning the cost/benefit of querying

It sounds like you're feeling a bit like I did when I queried my debut novel, after my first book failed to sell and my second book lost me my first agent. Now I'd written a third book, and I was so DONE with all the rejection. I tried a Twitter pitch thing and got no bites. Was the concept worthless after all?

I can't say I have an answer. Basically, I did my best to pretend to be "robotic and ego-less" even though I was not (is any writer those things, ever?). I kept myself on a strict schedule of sending out five queries every week or two, I think, and revenge-querying for each rejection (most were NRs).

I kept fiddling with the query and pages, which in retrospect I think was pretty pointless. Still, I'm not sure it's a good idea to query everyone simultaneously, tempting as it may be to get it over with. You could try 10 queries per week and simply force yourself to churn them out. It will not be fun. It will not be exciting (probably). It might pay off.

Just remember that a slew of form rejections doesn't necessarily mean another agent won't find your concept fresh and timely and fall in love with it. Yes, we all want to be that writer who instantly has multiple offers because her concept is just so amazingly saleable. But in a crowded market, that may not happen. Think of yourself as trying to find the one agent who is the perfect audience for the book, who will then find the one editor who is the perfect audience for the book, who will then do her best to target the booksellers, bloggers, and buyers who are the perfect audience for the book.

That probably won't be everyone. I had some meh responses from agents to my full. I have some meh (and worse) reviews on Goodreads. But a panel of booksellers liked my book enough to choose it for Indies Introduce. They were the right readers for that book. Sometimes it takes a ton of perseverance to find the right readers. It almost always takes more than 10 queries.

Just shield your gut and remind yourself this one book is this one book. Everything doesn't rest on selling it. But you wrote it, so you want to give it a chance to find the readers who will love it.

I think doing a cost/benefit analysis of being an author in general is a bad idea. Might make us all cry.

freelancemomma said:

Hi Fuchsia,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. All good points. I've been thinking of Twitter-pitching but don't know how to go about it. Do I just "follow" the agent/contest in question and then submit my 140-character pitch on the appointed day?

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All the Twitter pitch contests I know of aren't done by specific agents, and you aren't supposed to @ your tweets at agents. Here's a link to the #pitmad rules to give you an idea of how that one works.

Niiicola said:

I think doing a cost/benefit analysis of being an author in general is a bad idea. Might make us all cry.

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So true. And yet we persist. (I could not find an emoji adequate to this sentiment, so here's a mysterious eggplant. :eggplant)

Twitter pitching is done by using a particular hashtag on a particular day, in my experience. (All contests have their own rules, as JJ Litke pointed out.) It can be fun, but I think it tends to be focused on certain genres and categories (YA more than adult, for instance, in many contests). It doesn't allow you to laser-target agents seeking your genre the way querying does.

As someone who went through part of the process already, I definitely feel your reluctance. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, landing a great agent was definitely worth it. Also, finding out the results and not wondering about them, is also part of the process. I say I went through part of the process, because with each book there is the challenge of wondering if it will sell. I don't think the 'process' is ever really over. This is all part of the writing life, for better or for worse. Not sure that helps except to say that we all probably feel a bit of what you're feeling, at some point.

You don't have to find the PitMad feed, you just add the hashtags to your own tweets. Then anyone who clicks on a #pitmad hashtag will see all tweets using that hashtag.

Tweets don't disappear from Twitter unless they're purposely deleted by whoever posted it.

You can see who retweeted or favorited any of your tweets by checking your notifications.