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matociquala posted her thoughts on Teresa Nielsen Hayden's response to Neil Gaiman's question regarding How To Get An Agent, and I thought I'd chime in with a couple of points, and then, though it makes me wince, an example of a Real! Live! Query Letter That Worked!.
How to get published:
1. Write A Book. If you're an unpublished writer, and you want to sell a novel, and you are not a celebrity, you have to write that novel before you try to sell it. I don't think there are any exceptions to this rule. Note that this is not true for nonfiction: a FOAF (Fiancee of a Friend) got offers from several world-class agents for a book of hers, based on a few sample chapters. But with nonfiction, you really have to have authority and credibility in your chosen field. Does this all sound obvious? Good.
2. Decide Whether It's Publishably Good. If not, you're just wasting your time and possibly even besmirching your name by trying to sell it. A million bad words before good words flow, etc. Many if not most "first novels" are the writer's four or fifth novel, etc. Even if it's good, will people want to buy it, etc. Agents and publishes are looking for reasons to reject not reasons to accept, etc. If yes:
3. Make A Decision. A question you should answer before you try to sell this book: do I just want to publish this book, or do I want a career as a writer? Why do you have to decide? Because the uncomfortable truth is, whether you like it or not, you will to some degree be pegged by your first book-length sale. Until then, you're just an unpublished novelist: after that, you're a thriller writer, or a sci-fi writer, or a YA writer, or an indie/small press writer, and it will be hard to jump from your assigned slot to another one. Why do you have to worry about this now? Because you have to decide under what circumstances you will turn down an interested agent or publisher. If you want a career, you want a major publisher and a first- or second-tier agent. Otherwise your first sale may do you more long-term harm than good. (Obviously many people have jumped from small press to large, and even from one genre to another, or genre to litfic a la Jonathan Lethem - but it's harder than you might think. People like being able to pigeonhole.)
4. Two-Pronged Approach. I'm not actually going to go into details becausematociquala said all this in her fine post. I would, however, like to mention that Ms. NH's words to the effect that
If you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an
offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't
have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get.
and
Some ways you might get an agent without getting an offer: Be
obviously and extraordinarily good. Sell a lot of short stories. Have
some other seriously hot credentials.
do not jibe with my experience. They may be true in the world of SF, but if you're writing thrillers, well:
I sent out the letter below as a blind query to a large number of American agents, some of them third-tier (which was a mistake that thankfully did not come back to haunt me). About 15% asked to read the first 50 pages. All three of those who asked to read the whole thing were major agents - they represented Anita Diamant, Sandra Brown, and Jean Auel, respectively. All three of them eventually passed (and quite rightly, seeing as how the book has pretty much sunk without a trace in the USA) but all three did seriously consider it. My first contact with my now-agent (who represents Margaret Atwood and Jeffery Deaver) was, again, a blind (and email) query. Three weeks after I sent it, she took me on as a client (also rightly, I think - it's sold about 30 kilocopies in the UK, though admittedly more than half of those were to Asda and who knows whether they've resold them to actual customers or not).
In short: personal experience shows that first-tier agents are willing to read and seriously consider unpublished thriller writers with no real credentials, who they don't know from Adam, and who approach them through blind queries. And the query letter in question is by no means "obviously and extraordinarily good". In fact I sort of cringe when I read it now. (The book in question is, I think, now that it's been reworked with input from agent and publisher, well above average by thriller standards, but not even near the bar set by, say, Martin Cruz Smith or John Le Carre.) But hey, it worked. So in case it can do anyone else any good, here it is:
( can you believe I stole a line from Robert Jordan? )
matociquala posted her thoughts on Teresa Nielsen Hayden's response to Neil Gaiman's question regarding How To Get An Agent, and I thought I'd chime in with a couple of points, and then, though it makes me wince, an example of a Real! Live! Query Letter That Worked!. How to get published:
1. Write A Book. If you're an unpublished writer, and you want to sell a novel, and you are not a celebrity, you have to write that novel before you try to sell it. I don't think there are any exceptions to this rule. Note that this is not true for nonfiction: a FOAF (Fiancee of a Friend) got offers from several world-class agents for a book of hers, based on a few sample chapters. But with nonfiction, you really have to have authority and credibility in your chosen field. Does this all sound obvious? Good.
2. Decide Whether It's Publishably Good. If not, you're just wasting your time and possibly even besmirching your name by trying to sell it. A million bad words before good words flow, etc. Many if not most "first novels" are the writer's four or fifth novel, etc. Even if it's good, will people want to buy it, etc. Agents and publishes are looking for reasons to reject not reasons to accept, etc. If yes:
3. Make A Decision. A question you should answer before you try to sell this book: do I just want to publish this book, or do I want a career as a writer? Why do you have to decide? Because the uncomfortable truth is, whether you like it or not, you will to some degree be pegged by your first book-length sale. Until then, you're just an unpublished novelist: after that, you're a thriller writer, or a sci-fi writer, or a YA writer, or an indie/small press writer, and it will be hard to jump from your assigned slot to another one. Why do you have to worry about this now? Because you have to decide under what circumstances you will turn down an interested agent or publisher. If you want a career, you want a major publisher and a first- or second-tier agent. Otherwise your first sale may do you more long-term harm than good. (Obviously many people have jumped from small press to large, and even from one genre to another, or genre to litfic a la Jonathan Lethem - but it's harder than you might think. People like being able to pigeonhole.)
4. Two-Pronged Approach. I'm not actually going to go into details because
matociquala said all this in her fine post. I would, however, like to mention that Ms. NH's words to the effect thatIf you're writing fiction, the True Secret Answer is "get an
offer." If you've got an offer, you can get an agent. If you don't
have an offer, you don't want the kind of agent you're likely to get.
and
Some ways you might get an agent without getting an offer: Be
obviously and extraordinarily good. Sell a lot of short stories. Have
some other seriously hot credentials.
do not jibe with my experience. They may be true in the world of SF, but if you're writing thrillers, well:
I sent out the letter below as a blind query to a large number of American agents, some of them third-tier (which was a mistake that thankfully did not come back to haunt me). About 15% asked to read the first 50 pages. All three of those who asked to read the whole thing were major agents - they represented Anita Diamant, Sandra Brown, and Jean Auel, respectively. All three of them eventually passed (and quite rightly, seeing as how the book has pretty much sunk without a trace in the USA) but all three did seriously consider it. My first contact with my now-agent (who represents Margaret Atwood and Jeffery Deaver) was, again, a blind (and email) query. Three weeks after I sent it, she took me on as a client (also rightly, I think - it's sold about 30 kilocopies in the UK, though admittedly more than half of those were to Asda and who knows whether they've resold them to actual customers or not).
In short: personal experience shows that first-tier agents are willing to read and seriously consider unpublished thriller writers with no real credentials, who they don't know from Adam, and who approach them through blind queries. And the query letter in question is by no means "obviously and extraordinarily good". In fact I sort of cringe when I read it now. (The book in question is, I think, now that it's been reworked with input from agent and publisher, well above average by thriller standards, but not even near the bar set by, say, Martin Cruz Smith or John Le Carre.) But hey, it worked. So in case it can do anyone else any good, here it is:
( can you believe I stole a line from Robert Jordan? )
