Facing the at times twisted road
towards publication, I had a battalion of questions marching through my head
when I started out. Some of the first recruits were: Who did I need to address
with my manuscript? How should I address them?
Lieutenant Google helped me
perform a thorough search of the Austrian and international publishing
industry’s inner workings.
Our informed conclusions:
1) When
approaching American or UK publishing houses agents are indispensable allies.
2) One
of the possibilities of attracting an agent, besides chancing upon them at
certain events, is by sending out query letters.
What is a query letter? Simply put, a query letter is a writer’s
business card. They serve as an introduction and give the agent a first
impression of you and the manuscript you wish to sell. Your query letter needs to draw in the agent
in order to get him to actually take a look at your manuscript. It has to stand
out from the flood of letters or mails an agent receives on a normal work day
while still adhering to certain formal criteria. That dichotomy of uniqueness
and style restrictions makes composing a query letter a tricky business.
But what is a query letter supposed to look like? Once again
scouring the internet, trusty Lieutenant Google and I happened upon a number of
forums which function as a wonderful sounding board to writers just starting
out in their querying process. After checking out a number of sites, I finally
settled on www.agentquery.com as my
helpmate. The website features a very thorough list of “dos and don’ts” concerning
the composition of a query letter as well as a forum where you can get feedback
on your own query letter before sending it out into the world. Following the
“instructions” and the impression I won from reading the query letters of other
authors, I composed my own. I am currently on version five and ready to post it
in the Critique
Corner at agentquery.com. While hoping for constructive feedback from the
community, I plan to comb through the database of agents which can be found on
the same website: Multitasking in order to slowly chip away at the questions
still lurking in the trenches of my path to publication seems the best way to get
a hold of the situation.
After all, beside the fact that my
query letter should be concise and to the point, I also need to find an agent
that suits the type of manuscript I produced, but that is a story for another
post…
I would love to hear your
thoughts on contacting agents. Any unique ideas?
No comments :
Post a Comment