I just need to vent, and what better place than R&D?
I've been querying my first novel since October 2011, and have had the frustrating experience of making revisions to both the project and query that *reduced* my response rate. The trouble is, I really like the revised manuscript/query! I look back now on what I was working with late last year and think, if anything, I queried too soon, when the manuscript was not polished enough.
I got a few partial requests and a full back in October/November, but they all ended up as polite Rs, with no real feedback. So I revised, re-did my query, had the new query run the gauntlet in SYW. My new query has had 2 form Rs and, over the course of 3 months, 24 no replies.
I don't get it. The query is not full of holes or errors, I am targeting agents that rep my genre (historical fiction/LGBT), I really did read 95% of the QueryShark archives, I follow submission guidelines ...
From a lot of the agent blogs/Twitter handles I follow, the general logic seems to be that most queries are rejected because they are poorly written, don't follow guidelines, are in a non-represented genre, or just plain boring. I don't think my query is any of those -- and my opening pages have been revised and revised into pretty good shape.
I've got the querying blues. I have been working on my next project, but it's been a disappointing start to the year. Blah. OK, thanks for listening, moping over.
I've been querying my first novel since October 2011, and have had the frustrating experience of making revisions to both the project and query that *reduced* my response rate. The trouble is, I really like the revised manuscript/query! I look back now on what I was working with late last year and think, if anything, I queried too soon, when the manuscript was not polished enough.
I got a few partial requests and a full back in October/November, but they all ended up as polite Rs, with no real feedback. So I revised, re-did my query, had the new query run the gauntlet in SYW. My new query has had 2 form Rs and, over the course of 3 months, 24 no replies.
I don't get it. The query is not full of holes or errors, I am targeting agents that rep my genre (historical fiction/LGBT), I really did read 95% of the QueryShark archives, I follow submission guidelines ...
From a lot of the agent blogs/Twitter handles I follow, the general logic seems to be that most queries are rejected because they are poorly written, don't follow guidelines, are in a non-represented genre, or just plain boring. I don't think my query is any of those -- and my opening pages have been revised and revised into pretty good shape.
I've got the querying blues. I have been working on my next project, but it's been a disappointing start to the year. Blah. OK, thanks for listening, moping over.