Query #2-11 update, plus an aside...
Got a request for 5 pages off a query-only email, so that brings total requests from unsolicited queries to 6-ish. I'll count it fully if the nice agent-person asks to see a partial or the whole book.
I don't know if a huge number of people other than the authors I have linked to the right read this blog, but in case anyone out there in Interweb land was wondering, I'm not making these posts to brag. I'm not making them to stroke my ego. I'm not doing it to point a "neener neener" finger at those who haven't had as much fortune agent-wise as I have.
I'm doing it to show that it IS possible for unpublished/unknown writers to get requests (and hopefully repped) off of querying the old-fashioned way. Sure, going to cons and knowing published writers HELPS, but the majority of my requests came from straight querying, with no more familiarity between the agent and I than "Hey, I saw in your profile on AgentQuery that you rep XXX genre. My novel is in XXX genre, want to take a look?"
Once this query-go-round (thanks to Jackie for the catchphrase) has been spinning a little longer I'll do the obligatory post on good query practices, but right now I just want to say: don't listen to people who tell you that new authors can't get repped, sold, or published unless they're doing John Grisham's laundry (or just doing John Grisham, period.) Don't listen to people who feed you misinformation because they're bitter about the publishing industry not bending and doing things their way to recognize their brilliant novel. Those people are full of crap.
There's no silver bullet to getting an agent. Seriously, there isn't. Write a good novel, write a better query letter, and if you have the money to spare go impress the hell out of a few industry pros at a convention or two. Try to build some short fiction credits if you can, it helps. Do these things and 99.9% of the time things will occur as they should.
Just saying.
Updated to add that nice agent-person #6 asked for a full based on the 5 pg. sample.
I don't know if a huge number of people other than the authors I have linked to the right read this blog, but in case anyone out there in Interweb land was wondering, I'm not making these posts to brag. I'm not making them to stroke my ego. I'm not doing it to point a "neener neener" finger at those who haven't had as much fortune agent-wise as I have.
I'm doing it to show that it IS possible for unpublished/unknown writers to get requests (and hopefully repped) off of querying the old-fashioned way. Sure, going to cons and knowing published writers HELPS, but the majority of my requests came from straight querying, with no more familiarity between the agent and I than "Hey, I saw in your profile on AgentQuery that you rep XXX genre. My novel is in XXX genre, want to take a look?"
Once this query-go-round (thanks to Jackie for the catchphrase) has been spinning a little longer I'll do the obligatory post on good query practices, but right now I just want to say: don't listen to people who tell you that new authors can't get repped, sold, or published unless they're doing John Grisham's laundry (or just doing John Grisham, period.) Don't listen to people who feed you misinformation because they're bitter about the publishing industry not bending and doing things their way to recognize their brilliant novel. Those people are full of crap.
There's no silver bullet to getting an agent. Seriously, there isn't. Write a good novel, write a better query letter, and if you have the money to spare go impress the hell out of a few industry pros at a convention or two. Try to build some short fiction credits if you can, it helps. Do these things and 99.9% of the time things will occur as they should.
Just saying.
Updated to add that nice agent-person #6 asked for a full based on the 5 pg. sample.
