"careful consideration"

Send some snail mail queries with samples of the writing (1st 5 pages). At least then you can believe that they read a bit of it before canning it.

Gak! I know this road sooooo well. With four different books (three genre novels and one non-fiction title), and over a period of 13 months, I received in excess of 125 rejections until I landed my agent. And this was writing full time during that process. I noticed a very distressing trend too--I would say that at least 40 of those agents that were emailed did not have the courtesy to acknowledge me with a "NO." I think that one hurt the worst. In total I sent three "hardcopy" queries. Believe it or not, it was the third hardcopy query I sent that sealed the deal.

I know it's tough. But wear them down. Personalize each query for the agent. Try some hardcopy queries where they are allowed. It just might work a little better. It did with me, and I have no idea why.

Tri

Plix said:

Just have to get this off my chest, since I'm counting 30+ declines from literary agents, eventhough I've got an idiot-prof proposal (does this say something about me?! lol) with celebrities and naked women. Anyway I've started to already feel, before the query e-mails are sent, that I'm gonna get declined on this... But ok, I've started to mark my e-mails with a delivery reciept and a read reciept, so they can't start saying:

"But we didn't get your e-mail" and I've got proff when it arrived, and also that I can see if they deleted my e-mail before it was ever read.

But eventhough I've had 2 experiences with agents that deleted my e-mail before it was read (I made sure they heard for it) the most funniest thing happened today...

I got a Read-Reciept at 14.35 'o clock. At 14.37 'o clock the literary agent had sent me an e-mail with all the usual formal "we are sorry that bla bla" and they even have the nerve to finish of saying "Please rest assured that your proposal was given careful personal consideration"

Wow .... that must have been some pretty careful and veeery personal consideration I got those whole 1½ minute. It takes what ..... 2 minutes to even storm through a query e-mail and then the consideration part?

Anyway, just wanted to let off some steam and .... yeah well, kiss my *** actually.

Mmmm that feels so much better now. I could keep swearing from now on until tomorrow.

Hehe

P.S. Can't we get a "whining" sub forum? I've got so much crap to blow out....

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First, I'd suggest you drop the whole receipt thing. It only tends to piss off agents and editors, it doesn't work nearly as well as you think it does with many e-mail systems, and it's teh equivalent of sending manuscripts by registered mail, which also tends to really piss off agents and editors.

Second, you're assuming that the time clock on read receipt is accurate. It usually isn't. It can be off from minutes to hours.

But mainly you're assuming that a minute and a half isn't careful consideration. Now, "careful consideration" is really no more than a polite phrase, but quite often, ten seconds tells you a query is not something you want to deal with, read another word of, or waste time considering at all.

It's pointless to waste a second considering something you know you don't want, and it's rare when you have to read all the way through a query before reaching the point where you know you don't want it.

I've said this before, and I'll keep on saying it. Any agent or any editor will keep reading until the writer gives them a reason to stop reading. This can happen at the first sentence, the middle sentence, or the last sentence. If it happens at the first sentence, and it often does, that's the writer's fault.

It's entirely up to the writer to write a first sentence an agent or editor can't resist, to follow this with a second sentence that makes the agent or editor want to read the third, and a third that makes the agent or editor want to read the fourth, etc.

Lastly, I'd also suggest you learn to use snail mail. E-mail has it's advantages, but it also has huge disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage of all is that it's cheap, quick, and easy. This means every wannabe writer on the planet seems to use it, and the percentage of garbage an agent or editor receives via e-mail is far, far higher than the percentage of garbage received via snail mail. In boxes fill up so fast you wouldn't believe it, and sometimes the "urge to purge" is irresistable, especially when you know 99% of what's there is junk.

Learn to write a professional looking query on real paper, send it using real stamps, and you have a much better chance of getting "careful consideration."

I have to agree with the above because one of my only three snail mail queries sent, did what 125 email queries failed to do.

Also, I was a bit conversational in the query and sent it on official business stationary--you know, that thick rag type variety.

Go figure. I couldn't understand what gave the snail mail query the edge or why it was the deal maker. Could it be that presentation meant that much more? Maybe.

Tri

The whine thread is Williams House of HAte, BTW. I can't add anything to the above, they nailed it. Post your query in SYW and let us take a jab at it.

Where are you Plix?
I'm UK-based and I'm querying US agents. Queries sent airmail printed matter rate get there in 3-5 days. I've had manuscript requests within a week of sending the query. You will need 84c of postage for your reply envelopes, this can be bought online from the US postal service.

Plix said:

Scfirencie:
I'm lost ... "SYW" ? House of hate? Link?

James:
You know? I've tried that too... the problem is that my letter is more likely to be used as a sailors toiletpaper than arrive in the states. I'm across the atlantic and eventhough snail mail "might be better" i takes...what... 2-3 weeks before the letter arrives (if it does), then at least 4-6 weeks before the agent might reply. And if the letter is lost, havn't read it or anything else, it's like being shot back 2 months due to the letter traffic...oh.... and what about all the horror stories about the slush-piles of letters that the agents recieve too... I mean.... it's like choosing my favorite way to die...either way doens't matter, you know

But I appreciate the comments nevertheless, so no worries. I'll probably end up sending the query through snail mail in the future...'cause this is getting me NO WHERE fast...

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You shouldn't have that much trouble getting snail mail here. I have no trouble getting it across the Atlantic in the other directiong. I have had several things lost in teh mail in country over the years, but I don't think I've ever had a problem sending something across the Big Pond, no matter what country it was headed for.

And as waylander says, it's almost as fast to send something out of country as in country, if you're willing to send it the proper way.

It's true enough that a snail mail query can be ignored or rejected, but from my experience, it's much, much easier to overlook or ignore e-mail queries. A good snail mail query usually gets noticed, but even high quality queries can get overlooked when they come in electronically. There's just so much junk that comes in with e-mail queries that the good ones get overwhelmed.

But e-mail or snail mail, the query must be good, it must set itself apart, it must be an attention getter. Bad queries, or just same old, same old queries, generally get ignored either way.