Picking up again after a year of inactivity

New here and saw this section of the forum. Figured I might as well share my tale.

I finished writing my book a few years ago, 2014 I think. I spent at least the next 1-2 years editing it, getting beta readers, feedback, and applying more edits. The overall concensus was that the story was enjoyable and fun to read.

Then came the tricky part, learning how to write a query letter. I read through the entire Queryshark archives, not missing a single one. I took 27 pages of notes, wrote several iterations of my own query letter, got feedback, made edits, until I had something that I was decently happy with. Then, I started querying agents. Agent, after agent, after agent. And not one single request came for a full or even a partial. I got used to either form rejection letters or not hearing anything back at all. It was extremely disheartening. I don't remember how many I queried but what a blow to the ego.

Then, almost exactly one year ago, I took a different approach. Tired of emailing nameless faces, I attended Toronto Writing Workshop and paid to attend a session where I would meet one-on-one with literary agents and pitch them my story in person. This was far better. One of the agents I met with loved my pitch and asked me to email her my full story. I was extremely excited, I waited patiently, dying to hear something back. And then it happened... about a month later I got an email from her, a Standard. Form. Rejection. Letter. No elaboration, no different than the many standard form rejection letters I had received from the blank faces online.

It killed my motivation. I felt useless. Hopeless. Absolutely dead inside. I shelved my entire story, query letter, and put it all aside.

Now for the first time since then, I'm resurfacing. I've written a brand new query letter and am hoping to make enough of a contribution here that I can earn a critique.

I have a good story to tell. I know I do. And I'm determined to see it published one way or another.

I've found one hybrid-publisher who wants to publish my story. However, as I said they are a "hybrid" publisher where the author pays for everything, and it doesn't get distributed into actual bookstores. I don't feel too great about this and in a thread I made on reddit asking for opinions on the matter, everyone advised against it. Oddly enough, I checked and they're on the AW index, not listed as a 'scam' or stay-away from or anything like that.

Dang, that sucks as well!

I actually started looking down that route recently and it's what led to me finding the hybrid publisher I mentioned at the end of my post, as the recommendation for them came from a freelance editor.

After receiving their terrifying quote for editing, design, etc., I thought maybe I can give traditional publishing another shot as it's honestly where I'd prefer to be anyway. I've completely overhauled my query letter so eventually I will be hoping to get it critiqued here before I go for another round of querying agents.

@spikeman4444 - Exactly what I intend to do once I've sufficiently contributed. I'm actually curious what people will think about my new query letter as it's quite different than any of my previous versions. Right now, sadly, having an agent take interest in your work feels like the kind of thing that's only possible of happening to somebody else. I've been keeping my eyes open for more writing workshops in my area though.

@Harlequin - yeah that's my thoughts too. I already emailed them back and told them I'm going to keep looking into traditional publication. I don't want to pay thousands of dollars to get my book published, unless I go the self-publishing route and paying that much money is entirely my choice.