The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make when Querying Agents - updated with link to follow up

Stew21 · Dec 10, 2010

There's a blog post up JM Tohline has compiled a list for writers. He asked over 100 agents the question, "what's the biggest mistake". Fifty agents responded.

Here's the compiled list. It's a good read! Honestly, if you're just starting out querying, it's a MUST read!

http://www.jmtohline.com/2010/12/biggest-mistakes-writers-make-when.html

JM TOhline did a follow up with "the best query letters do...what?"

ChaosTitan · Dec 10, 2010

That was awesome.

bip · Dec 10, 2010

7. If you are incarcerated, tell me what you are in for.

Stew21 · Dec 10, 2010

There really is awesome advice there, and from a big group of big name agents.

I thought it was interesting to see the most common answers:

Mentioned 11x
Queries with more than one agent listed in the "To" field

Mentioned 14x
Queries that have no clue what the agent represents, or…
…that have no clue what the agent's submission guidelines are

Ineti · Dec 10, 2010

Hopefully lots of writers will read that, all the way to the end.

ChaosTitan · Dec 10, 2010

It's currently making the rounds on Twitter.

Maryn · Dec 10, 2010

I notice Stew's incarcerated in her avatar...

Maryn, just sayin'

Stew21 · Dec 10, 2010

I took AuntyBug to The Broadway Oyster Bar when she visited St. Louis last month because I had written the old place into a novel. This photo is the result.

Stew- incarcerated with a mailbox no less

Tifferbugz · Dec 10, 2010

Thanks for posting this.

richcapo · Dec 10, 2010

Every agent who has invited me to submit partials, fulls, or full synopses, I cold called -- twelve so far; I just got off the phone with one. And they've all been enthusiastic about receiving my materials, so breaking the rules can work, apparently. Ten agents I called told me that they don't represent my sort of fiction, and only one of them disliked that I called, but once she heard me out, she still connected me to her boss (this was ICM), who requested a partial. The others were all very pleasant and appreciated, as far as I could tell, that I called ahead to make sure I wouldn't be wasting anyone's time by sending a query for fiction they do not represent.

I guess I've gotten lucky so far. Or maybe it's because I was an editor for a financial services lobby -- we did a lot of publishing and dealt with many writers -- and I picked up a lot of useful skills during those years. Either way, I've done pretty well so far, I think.

_Richard

Noah Body · Dec 10, 2010

Wow, at long last, someone got a response from Russell Galen.

Stew21 · Dec 10, 2010

Rich, not only is that very "lucky", it goes against nearly every bit of advice and guideline I've ever seen regarding contact with agents.

Esmeralda · Dec 10, 2010

Thanks Stew.
The more we know, the better.

tarak · Dec 10, 2010

I was absolutely guilty of the first one listed - querying when I thought I was ready but wasn't.

That last one is pretty horrifying. I think if someone sent me a letter in which my sister was mentioned as a victim, I'd forward it to the police.

Stew21 · Dec 10, 2010

I queried before I should have also. Burned through a good number of high quality agents that way, too.

Big mistake.

Susan Coffin · Dec 10, 2010

Excellent! Thank you!

bip · Dec 10, 2010

Stew21 said:
Rich, not only is that very "lucky", it goes against nearly every bit of advice and guideline I've ever seen regarding contact with agents.

You obviously lack the right useful skills, hanging around with us riffraff and all.

PS I spent all morning sending your latest query to agents carpet-bomb style. I added mention of a dog with shifty eyes to signify he is a double agent. I hope you don't mind. Now I'm off to go call each of them to say I've had an offer of representation, so if they want me (i.e. you) they have to act NOW.

BrooklynLee · Dec 10, 2010

This is great reading. It's like one-stop shopping for all the things about queries that agents have been saying forever on blogs.

regdog · Dec 11, 2010

You can add my recent mistake to that list.

Addressing the query to the wrong agent.

seun · Dec 11, 2010

Ignoring my first few books which weren't ready and were also terrible, I think the only mistake I've made on that list is the dear agent thing but in my slim defence, I've only done that when I've been totally unable to find a name at an agency.

Marian Perera · Dec 11, 2010

Once I spelled "apocalypse" wrong in the first sentence of a query. I wrote "apocalyse" instead and completely missed it when proofreading. Could have kicked myself when I finally spotted the typo.

KingM · Dec 11, 2010

I disagree a little bit with the bolded part below:

"Most writers query too soon – either before the book is really ready to be read by an industry professional, or with a book that is a learning book, or a starter book, where the writer is working through the themes that will come out in later books with more clarity, getting things out of their system, making mistakes that most beginners make, finding their voice.

Some people sell their first novel, while others may write a dozen before they break through. The problem is that you never know where you are on the spectrum. I absolutely agree that a novel should be written, rewritten, edited, re-edited, workshopped, etc., to get it into the best shape possible. After that point, however, I think the author should give her book a fair chance in the marketplace.

No, your first (or second, or third) book probably won't find an agent, but you'll never know unless you try. You will also be learning the valuable skill of query writing that will serve you in the future, when you've written a stronger manuscript.

Also, speaking personally, I never hold a past rejection against an author. Either it was terrible and I won't remember it, or it had some skill and I do remember it and will hope that the new manuscript will be better than the last. Writers improve, sometimes rapidly and dramatically. I'd be a fool not to give serious consideration to a manuscript simply because of deficiencies of earlier stories.

Giant Baby · Dec 11, 2010

richcapo said:
Every agent who has invited me to submit partials, fulls, or full synopses, I cold called -- twelve so far; I just got off the phone with one. And they've all been enthusiastic about receiving my materials, so breaking the rules can work, apparently. Ten agents I called told me that they don't represent my sort of fiction, and only one of them disliked that I called, but once she heard me out, she still connected me to her boss (this was ICM), who requested a partial. The others were all very pleasant and appreciated, as far as I could tell, that I called ahead to make sure I wouldn't be wasting anyone's time by sending a query for fiction they do not represent.

I guess I've gotten lucky so far. Or maybe it's because I was an editor for a financial services lobby -- we did a lot of publishing and dealt with many writers -- and I picked up a lot of useful skills during those years. Either way, I've done pretty well so far, I think.

_Richard

Erm... I don't know you, and I'm not saying that this is the case with you, and I am in NO WAY assuming that your book or your pitch isn't SO FANTASTIC that you're getting around the don't cold call rule on your own merit, but for anyone else considering taking this approach, I'd just like to throw this out there: If you make people uncomfortable, they will often do whatever they need to do in order to get off the phone. Up to and including requesting materials.

Again, not saying anything about your book or your pitch. But if it's that good, you'd have made it through the query system just as well, with the added bonus of not having been the guy who called instead of following agency guidelines.

Jamesaritchie · Dec 11, 2010

If you only knew how much trouble Maass has gotten into because of that first statement of his. It may be how he thinks writers should work, but it simply isn't in most cases. He's also gotten into a heck of a lot more hot water for doing in house editing and revising. Talk about a conflict of interest. And a huge disservice to new writers.

Other than this, there's a bunch of excellent advice on that site.

KingM · Dec 11, 2010

Giant Baby said:
Again, not saying anything about your book or your pitch. But if it's that good, you'd have made it through the query system just as well, with the added bonus of not having been the guy who called instead of following agency guidelines.

Yes, that.

Imagine that an agency gets 800 queries in a week. Now imagine if only 10% of those people decide to call the agency instead. It would get ugly in a hurry.

Please just send a query. Even apart from the impossible logistics of taking phone queries, we're talking about novels, which is a written form. Prose is more suitable for the task at hand.

The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make when Querying Agents - updated with link to follow up

Around

has a dog with shifty eyes

Purveyor of Prose

Around

Baaa!

Doing Pirate things...

Knight Templar

Entertainment Ronin

Snowman...on the job

for certain qualities of "sane"

Tell it like it Is

has a dog with shifty eyes

Got the hang of it, here

The Scavengers

Horror Man

starting over

Oh, the humanity.