Now It Can Be Revealed - I Was Query 43!
The results are in for Nathan's Be An Agent for A Day Contest! Needless to say, I didn't win - but then my goal was never to be an agent, but to be a writer. Well, I am a writer; my goal is to be published.
In picking my five manuscript requests, I invariably went for well-written letters and stories that interested me. Obviously a real agent looks at letters quite differently. And thank goodness for that; I asked: "what about the whole 'can't cram every detail of the plot' into the letter rule - because, invariably, the minute you leave something out, the reader comes back with 'but you didn't explain this aspect, therefore the plot isn't viable, therefore I'm rejecting your manuscript.' Argh! How do you get around that?" and Nathan responded "Readers might do that, but an agent wouldn't. We just need the setup." So that's good to know.
As for Query 43 - yup, that was me! I received 303 comments and Nathan has kindly tabulated my results - the letter as posted had a 16% request rate. Allowing for readers vs agents, I'd say I've got about a 5% chance of receiving a request from a real agent - 5 agents out of 100; to date, I've sent about 50 query letters and received 1 request for a partial.
My goal for the next few weeks will be to revamp ye olde query letter!
In picking my five manuscript requests, I invariably went for well-written letters and stories that interested me. Obviously a real agent looks at letters quite differently. And thank goodness for that; I asked: "what about the whole 'can't cram every detail of the plot' into the letter rule - because, invariably, the minute you leave something out, the reader comes back with 'but you didn't explain this aspect, therefore the plot isn't viable, therefore I'm rejecting your manuscript.' Argh! How do you get around that?" and Nathan responded "Readers might do that, but an agent wouldn't. We just need the setup." So that's good to know.
As for Query 43 - yup, that was me! I received 303 comments and Nathan has kindly tabulated my results - the letter as posted had a 16% request rate. Allowing for readers vs agents, I'd say I've got about a 5% chance of receiving a request from a real agent - 5 agents out of 100; to date, I've sent about 50 query letters and received 1 request for a partial.
My goal for the next few weeks will be to revamp ye olde query letter!
Comments
Best of luck!