Why I've Received No Writing Rejections This Year

I haven't received a rejection letter in a long time.

Why?

Because I haven't been sending out any writing submissions.

See how that works?

In order to be published, you need to send your work out into the cold harsh world.  If you're good (or talented, or lucky, or connected...whatever adjective describes your world view), you have your work published, it sells thousands of copies and you make a name for yourself (and a little cash too).

If your work is rejected, does it mean that it wasn't good/talented/etc.?  No way.  It could be any host of reasons.  You might be sending the right work to the wrong publisher or agent.  You might be sending it out a day after you finished writing the first draft, with no more than a bare spellcheck to get you through.  (Don't do that, by the way).  It might be okay but needs work.  Or it might be good and needs the right audience.

When you send the work out, you take your chances.  Without sending it out, there is no chance that it will be published.  Got that?  NO CHANCE IT WILL BE PUBLISHED.

That's what I've got right now.  No chance.  No hope of selling those thousands and thousands of copies and getting my name heard.

Yes, I keep writing every day.  But writing is about more than that (if you want to be read by anyone other than your family members).

I have to suck it up and get my work out there.  So should you.  We'll hold each other's hands, I promise.

Belated New Year's Resolutions from Writers

Over at Writer's Digest, Brian Klems has also been working on his New Year's Resolutions for 2012.  I had fun reading his resolution and those of the commentators, all writers who have similar goals to mine this year.

I love that Brian's main resolution (#8 on his list) is to put himself out there.  That's what I'm trying to do with my goal of sending out one hundred query letters this year.  Get out there, writers - that's the only way to get published and get read!

Panic and the Send Button

Have you ever spent an hour (or more) crafting the perfect email, only to hit send and then immediately know that you've made a terrible mistake?

I have.  It's excruciating.

Sometimes, I think I've left out the subject line.  Duh.  Other times, I'm convinced that I've forgotten to change the day/ address/ name on the email -- this happens when I send out queries to publishers or literary agents which, although they are personalized, are essentially the same content.

Have I ever actually made one of these mistakes?  No, not to my knowledge.

So why then do I feel that little pulse of panic after I send out an important email?  I think it's part of my overall fears (of succeeding, of failing, of both).  Anticipating a rejection even before I get the actual response is one of my failings.

Of course, I have learned to re-read my emails in draft and make sure they have a subject line that adheres to the submission criteria, as well as the right email address and contact info.  But do I still panic and have to scramble to re-read my email after it's been sent?  Naturally.  It's all part of the fun of being a writer.

Resolutions Progress - January

My resolutions this year were simple: Write more.  Blog regularly.  Send out 100 query letters.

So far (I know it's early days yet) I am on track.

For the past fifteen years, I've been keeping track of how many pages I write every day.  Yes, I know, quality over quantity and all that but I enjoy having a record.

I've set myself a target of writing two pages per day (up from my average of about a page a day last year).  As of January 30th, I was at 60 pages for the first 30 days of the year.  Woot!

On the blogging side, I've been experimenting a little.  Initially, I wanted to write a single long post every week.  I've been doing that.  But I've also added additional daily (or semi-daily) posts that are considerably shorter.  End result: I've stuck by my resolution to post regularly on this blog.

Finally, I've sent out (and already received rejections for) nine query letters to literary agents so far this year.  I would have been further ahead but I've been experiencing some internet disruptions that have put a dent in my output.  I also want to diversify with some submissions to publishers.  But, in the end, I have also stuck by this goal.

I feel great about keeping my 2012 resolutions through the month of January.  Tune in next month for my next update.

Resolutions - Send Out More Query Letters

One of my Writing Resolutions for this year is to "Send 100 Queries".  Here is how I plan to do it.

So the hard part is already completed: I've written my novel, I've created my query letter and I've researched dozens of literary agents to send both of these to.

The thing is that I've tried submitting for publication before but I've never been able to maintain a regular pace.  My pattern has been to send out a few queries, rest on my laurels, and wait for the rejections to come rolling in.  I don't send out a significant number of other queries until months pass.

The question, then, is why haven't I been sending out queries to literary agents and publishers at a scorching pace?

The answer: fear.

It takes an emotional toll to send out well-crafted and well-researched submissions only to have them returned (sometimes cruelly swiftly) with a form rejection or no response at all.  The non-responses are arguably worse because they keep hope alive.  If my pattern, as I've recently noticed, is to wait until most or all of my old queries are rejected before I send out new ones, then I am effectively handcuffing myself according to the whims of others.

It's time for me to take charge.

That's why, this year, I have vowed to send out 100 query letters.  Period.  End of story.

If they all get returned with form rejections in two days, so be it.  If none of them even get a response, oh well.  In either case, I've tried.  And what's more, I've given it a real sustained effort, not a haphazard Hail Mary shot.

Having a concrete goal has already made a difference.  Without the practice of sitting down in front of the computer and saying 'maybe I'll send out five queries today' and not revisiting them for five months, I am less concerned with the results and more concerned with the part of the process I can control -- getting my work out there.

It's a cruel world.  Rejections have already started to come in from the first nine queries I've submitted so far this year.  But I will press on.  Only 91 more to go.

2011: A Writer's Retrospective

Happy New Year!

Before we turn the page completely over on 2011, I wanted to share with you my amazing writing year.

As you may know, I spent a lot of time on my writing this past year.  But, unlike other years, I shifted part of my focus from production to submission--that is, trying to get published.

It was hard work.  I polished my manuscripts 'til they shone with an eerie light of their own.  I drafted and re-drafted several query letters, which took a lot longer than I would have thought possible.  If you think writing is difficult...whoa.

I researched and submitted to literary agents, publishers and periodicals, all in the hope of getting that all important nibble of interest from anyone, anywhere.  Of course, getting a nibble from someone whose interests you've researched and analyzed is worth so much more than a 'you'll hear from us in six months' auto-reply from another market.

My strategy this past year was to pay attention to calls for submissions from romance publishers and writing specific pieces targeting these publishers.  This strategy really paid off.

Pushing that send button on your email can be the most stressful action in a writer's life.  It puts your work out there in the cold hard world.

This year, I got several nibbles--people actually interested enough in my writing to want to read whole manuscripts!  I was thrilled.

I am pleased to report that my hard work paid off in 2011.  But my plans didn't start generating results in January or even by May.  I got my first showing of interest in the summer and signed my two publishing contracts in the last few months of the year.  Definitely worth the wait!

So, this year, I would urge you to take a little bit of time away from your writing and polish up those completed manuscripts--or do some looking and write a new piece specifically for a publisher's call.  Send your work out there.  That's the only want it will ever be read.

Photo courtesy of dream designs at freedigitalphotos.net

Query Letters 101 – Attachments

You’ve done your research and found out the specific guidelines for submissions set out by the literary agent or publisher your query letter is targeting. You’ve read these guidelines carefully and noticed that they vary from agent to agent, from publisher to publisher. So much so that you’re starting to confuse them in your mind.

Some submission guidelines ask for sample pages or sample chapters, some want a synopsis of your manuscript, and some just want a query letter alone. How do you know what to send? And what should your pages or chapters or synopsis look like?

Manuscript

First and foremost, your pages or chapters should adhere to the guidelines set out by your target reader, but there are standard rules that most agents or publishers will use.

As with your query letter itself, the manuscript has one inch margins and a readable font.
Novel manuscripts usually have title pages, although it won’t be fatal to your submission if you don’t include one (unless the guidelines say you have to). A title page has your name and contact information (address, phone number, email) in the top left hand side of the page. Centred in the page (both horizontally and vertically) is the title of your novel and below that “by [Your Name or Pen Name]”. Include the genre and number of words in your manuscript either at the bottom of the title page, centre justified, or at the top right hand corner.

Do NOT put a page number on your title page. Start with page one on the very next page, which will actually be the first page of your manuscript.

If you’re not using a title page, your name and contact information can go in the top left hand corner of the first page of your manuscript.

For the manuscript itself, remember that each chapter starts on a new page. The title of your chapter should be centre justified. The chapter begins either one-third or halfway down the page – chapter title followed a couple lines below by the text of the chapter. The text itself – that is, your writing – should be left justified (ragged right hand edges), not full justified (even right hand edges).

Text must be double spaced. Your contact information is single spaced. Confused yet?

On the top right hand corner of every manuscript page (except for the title page, if you’re including one) should have the following information: your last name, the title of your novel, and the page number. This appears in the header of your page. If your title is longer than a word or two, shorten it to the essential. So a title like “A Heart Full of Passion” may become Heart or Passion.

Example: Comargue/ Passion/ 1

Synopsis

Most synopses (yes, that’s a word – look it up) are one to five pages. Generally, agents or publishers want either a single page synopsis or a two to five page one. You should have both on hand. The task of preparing a synopsis will require a number of drafts anyway as you whittle your work of creative genius down to a skeleton of itself so you may find yourself with several lengths of synopsis in any case.

In general, the same rules about formatting a manuscript apply to a synopsis except that a title page is not required for a synopsis.  The title I use is simply: Synopsis for [Title of my book].  On the next line, I put: By Nan Comargue.

Now that you know how to craft a query letter and format your manuscript, you have no excuse not to submit your work.  Get out there!  Good luck.

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net

Query Letters 101 – Salutation and Sign Off

A query letter is the first face you show to a potential literary agent or publisher. It should read and look as professional as possible. Remember, you’re not writing a friend or even a colleague, you’re writing someone with whom you hope to enter into a business relationship and every interaction should reflect this relationship, even before it’s actually begun.

Font and style

No two ways about it: use a 12-point font, preferably Times New Roman or Courier, in black. If you must be a rebel, use Arial or Helvetica.

Yes, there are a whole host of lovely and creative font faces out there. Use them for your grocery lists and emails to your friends. For these purposes, stick with one of the four fonts mentioned above, 12 point, black. That is all.

Margins

Margins must be one inch all around. Do not cheat on your margins to squeeze in a half-page summary of your manuscript. In this case, readability (not to mention following the rules) is more important than whatever text you can fit inside of a 0.1 margin. Your target reader will notice and it will diminish your professional tone and make it seem as though you are either a) the type of person who takes short cuts or b) the type of person who tries to manipulate the rules. Few people want to work with this kind of person.

Sign on

Letters have a standard format. Start with the date at the top of the page and then your recipient’s address, which should include: name, business title, company, and street address.

Don’t get fancy. “Dear” works well for everyone. And most people (perhaps not all) have names. Indeed, they often have both a first and a last name. Address them by their title: Mr., Ms. or Dr., as the case may be, and their last name. I default to Ms. for women but feel free to use Mrs. or Miss if you are confident that they use that title (i.e. if it’s on their website).

Use a comma or a colon after the salutation line.

Example: Dear Ms. Smith,

If you don’t know the gender of the target reader, that is if you feel you have to guess, use the person’s full name. I’ve been addressed as “Mr. Comargue” in correspondence and it never stops hurting.

Example: Dear Taylor Smith:

Do NOT use “Hi”, “Hello”, “Dearest” etc. Do NOT use the person’s first name unless you actually know them personally (and they know you). Do NOT, repeat, DO NOT misspell the target reader’s name.

Read the name over several times. Spell it out loud. Better yet, copy and paste it off of the person’s website. Just remember to adjust the style so that your font is consistent throughout your query letter.

Sign off

Your concluding sentence should always thank your reader for their time. You should also say that you’re looking forward to their response. Don’t put a timeline on it. Just leave it at that. If a lot of time has passed, and you read in their guidelines that you should have had a response already, you may need to follow up.

End the letter with “Sincerely” or “Yours truly” or, if you’re feeling particularly affectionate, “Yours very truly”. Follow that with a comma and your full name. They don’t know you well enough yet to be on a first name basis.

Yours very truly,

Nan Comargue

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net

Query Letters 101 – Your Bio

After struggling through distilling your novel into a single ‘hook’ sentence and then agonizing all over again about turning into three or four sentences, you should be looking forward to an easy task today. The third paragraph in your query letter: your biography. This is all about YOU, so how hard could it be?

Relax, it’s not hard. It takes work, of course, but as a component of your query letter, your bio shouldn’t cause you to lose any sleep. It’s essentially fact-based. Who you are and what you’ve accomplished. In addition, if it’s relevant, you should include what makes you capable of creating the work you’ve created and making it authentic.

Here are some tips on crafting your bio.

Focus on the relevant facts

First of all, you need to know what to put in your biography. Like the summary of your novel, you’re starting out with a lot of raw material. Your life. Raw enough for you?

You’re not giving out your resume, or your mission statement, or your life history. You are talking about your writing here and you need to show your publishing track record, if any, awards or achievements for your writing, and why you wrote the book you did.

Publishing track record

Two criteria determine whether you include a publishing credit in your bio. Wait a minute! Determine whether? If you’ve published one story twenty years ago or never been published, you might rightly be asking why on earth would you ever leave out a publication, especially in your query letter where one of the goals is to establish that, yes, you can write. Then why purposely leave out a fact that shows other people thought you could write in the past.

Well, first let’s look at the criteria.

Recent: If you published that short story you’re so proud of, say, thirty years ago, you may want to think about excluding it from your bio. Why, you ask? For one thing, that writing credit you’re so proud of (and I have several of these of which I am inordinately proud) may not help you secure the agent or publisher you are targeting in your query letter. And that’ s the whole point, isn’t it?

At some point, the clock sets back. A thirty-year-old credit is the same as never being published in today’s market. The same rule may even apply for a ten-year-old publishing credit, particularly if it was in a genre that was trendy then and now no longer gets attention.

Relevant: You may write in your professional life or about a hobby. These credits will likely not help you to sell a work of fiction. So leave out the Journal of the American Medical Association when you’re trying to publish a romance novel. The exception is if it’s relevant to the work you’ve created, such as a medical romance, in which case you should mention it as a reason why you’ve written the book in the first place and why you’re best able to write that particular book out of all of the wannabe authors out there.

Awards and achievements

The same rules apply for your writing awards and achievements. Your Grade 6 essay contest winner will not help you publish a novel (unless it’s a YA novel about an essay contest winner). Ditto if you won the Technical Writing Achievement Award 2011 when you’re pitching a romance novel.

Why you wrote the book/ character

Comb through the piece of writing you are trying to publish. Why did you write it? Are you in it? Is your town, your friends, your job? What makes those things special to you? In other words, why are you uniquely capable of writing the book you did? It could be because you’re setting a story in little heard of Hundred Mile House and you want the world to know more about the quirky people who live in that town. You may have grown up there and the town itself is crucial to your work.

You may be writing about a topic about which you have special knowledge. You’ve put your romantic suspense manuscript in a legal setting and you used to work in a courthouse, seeing the most hardened criminals come through.

If it’s relevant, put it in there. What makes you special may make your work special. Use your biography to sell your writing.

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net

Query Letters 101 – Blurb about your Book

You’ve already crafted your hook sentence, agonizing to fit your brilliant work of writing into a single sentence. Now you’ve got three or four sentences to do the same thing. This should be a breeze, right?

Wrong.

Welcome to the Agony, Part Deux.

During the course of trying to sell your manuscript, you will undertake the task of describing it in one sentence (your ‘hook’), a page or two (your synopsis) and a paragraph (the instant case: second paragraph of your query). Think of it this way: you will know your book inside and out by the time you’re finished.

Think hard

Think you already know your book? Think again. Boiling it down to a paragraph or a page are both useful activities as they make you think hard about what your book is really about. Who is your protagonist? A clueless rich teen? A TSTL (Too Stupid To Live – ouch!) heroine? If it’s the latter who ends up being described in your paragraph then maybe you have to re-think your characterization of the heroine. Perhaps a re-write is in order.

If you can’t describe your book in one of these formats then you may be re-writing it – the book, not the sentence or synopsis. How do you know which one needs to be re-written? After you’ve exhausted every avenue, even reiteration, every person you know who is willing to read and re-read your paragraph, and you still can’t make it work, you may have a problem with the manuscript itself. Think about it carefully before you start hacking away.

Get some expert help from some writer friends. If you don’t have any, try reaching out online to a writing community website or even Twitter. 140 characters is an admirable length for a hook sentence or even a second paragraph.

Eking it out

I find the best way to write your second paragraph is if you already have your hook sentence formulated. You may not have the final version of your hook but a working product is fine for this purpose.

Tease out your hook sentence. You now have three sentences to explain what you just accomplished in a single one. You may want to break up these sentences as follows:

• Starting scenario: who the hero and/or heroine are – no, not how they look, unless that’s crucial to the story, but what their major hang ups may be about each, what’s going to keep them apart as they make their journey
• Journey: what their challenges are and perhaps a major obstacle or two that they’re facing
• End result: in a romance novel, the HEA (Happily Ever After) or HFN (Happy For Now) is assumed. But you can still explain how the hero and heroine get to that HEA (or HFN) and overcome their major obstacles.

A paragraph-long summary of your manuscript should read like the back of the book you eventually want to publish. The same way the back cover blurb should hook a reader who happens upon your book on the bookshelf, your second paragraph summary should make the agent or publisher reading your query letter want to go on to read the manuscript itself.

The end goal is the same: enticing the reader into wanting to read more of your writing.

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net

Query Letters 101 – Your Hook

A good opening hook is like a snowball in the face. It makes an impact. It leaves you reeling. It makes you want more. Okay, maybe not. This is where my analogy ends.

Query letter terminology invites analogies. In the case of writing a ‘hook’, this analogy is apt.

A hook is not just a piece of curved metal

The hook is right at the beginning of your query. It’s the first sentence. Yes, that’s right. A single sentence. And I’m going to spend an entire post discussing it, which should give you insight into its importance.

Your hook sentence can be short and punchy or longer if your story is complex and you can still keep the necessary impact. Above all, you need to hit the high points in order to give the reader a solid grasp of your story idea. Otherwise, your hook may mislead your reader about what to expect from your book.

Let’s look at what the hook in your query letter should do. It should intrigue. It should build interest. It should keep your target reader, whether it’s a literary agent or a publisher, reading. It should sing arias. Okay, the first few criteria are a tall enough order.

However, the hook sentence is not a cliffhanger. No ellipses.

Fishing with a hook

Imposing requirements, aren’t they?

But, really, at its essence, what does the hook do? It describes the piece of writing you are trying to find representation for or have published. So your hook is about your writing, not about you or the audience or your favourite sushi restaurant.

Your hook says ‘this is an interesting book’ and makes your target reader respond with ‘I want to see more’. More of your query letter and more of your writing.

If you’ve submitted a partial manuscript as per the target reader’s submission guidelines, then your hook will make the reader open up that attachment (or scroll down the page, depending on the specifics of the guidelines they’ve provided). If you’ve submitted just a query letter then the hook sentence is doing even more of the heavy lifting – it’s attempting to get your target reader to write back to you and request your writing.

Example of Clueless

Let’s try it out now.

Clueless is one of my favourite 90s movies. I’m going to write a hook for it which will form the first sentence of my query letter.

“Cher Horowitz schemes to arrange everyone else’s life in this Emma-update, until she falls for her stepbrother and finds that love can’t be planned ahead.”

This one sentence tells us the crucial aspects of the plot and character, as well as gives us a link to the inspiration for the story, which is always useful. But what are we missing? How about the age of the main character? What about the title of the movie? It refers to Cher’s initial cluelessness. We might want to explain that title. So, yes, the movie is about love but it’s also about teenaged Cher finding her social conscience, an important part of the plot.

Okay, let’s cast out again.

“In this Emma-update, Beverly Hills teenager Cher Horowitz tries to arrange everyone else’s life until falling in love with her stepbrother gives her a social conscience and her first clue about love.”

Ah, better. A little long-winded, yes, but I think it covers the essentials and no more. The hook is baited. Now let’s together the rest of our tackle box.

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net

Query Letters 101 – Overview

Sure, you’ve just completed the book of your life, your life’s work, your Great [Insert Country of Residence Here] Novel. Now it’s time to write your query letter, the first step towards getting your wonderful piece of writing published. So you can just dash it off and cross your fingers, right? WRONG.

Your query letter is the single most important document you will ever produce in your writing career. Read that sentence again. The. Single. Most. Important.

Get it right. You can’t afford not to.

Components of a query letter

A proper query letter is made up of 5 (or 6) basic parts: the salutation, a hook sentence, a brief summary of your book, your biography, a closing sign off and, in some cases, attachments of your work and/or a synopsis.

For our purposes, I will be focusing on crafting a solid fiction query letter. A non-fiction query is somewhat different.

The hook

Pay attention! This will be the most important post you read in your life.

The opening paragraph of your query letter is meant to grab your target reader’s attention. The agent or publisher you are querying after an exhaustive search likely reads hundreds, if not thousands, of these letters every year. Make yours stand out and, most importantly, keep them reading.

The latter part of the first paragraph, after the hook, is informative: what are you offering for sale – think genre, length, title. Facts only.

The line

The second paragraph is about your novel. Summarize the concept of your novel into an attention-grabbing blurb.

It is difficult to boil down an entire novel into a paragraph but it must be done. Space is at a premium in your query letter. The entire letter should be no more than a single page.

The sinkers

The third paragraph in your query is all about YOU. Unlike your novel, your life doesn’t have to be summarized in a few sentences. Stay focused. Tell your reader (briefly) who you are and what you’ve done. Make sure you mention your writing credits. If you have none, you want to tell them why you’re best situated to write the book you wrote.

Reeling them in

Some agents and publishers want a taste of your writing along with the query. You need to know the rules of what parts of your manuscript to send and how these pages should look.

Your hook and summary may get your manuscript a nibble but your writing is what really reels your target in.

Okay, I done with the fishing analogy

Remember, your query letter is your first and best sales tool for your book. It should be so highly polished that it glows softly in the dark. So get out the Sham Wow.

Photo courtesy of Arvind Balaraman at freedigitalphotos.net