Reclaim Your Most Powerful Tool - The Query Letter

At a recent Pitching with The Pros workshop I was invited to participate in I met one attendee whose entire experience with the querying process so far could be summed up as confusing, exhausting and frustrating. As we sat listening to her dead-end, maddening attempts to query certain agents in the way they like to be queried or as per the instruction given in one magazine as opposed to a particular book...you get the idea - it underscored the reality that there is SO much advice on writing and pitching and how to get published, etc. - how does a writer know when to follow their gut or follow all the advice that's piled high on the shelves, online or via agents and other industry pros at conferences, and workshops? Like us.

As the writer broke down in tears, frustrated by all the conflicting advice on how to communicate what her novel was about, I wanted to cry right along with her. Here she was, an articulate, smart woman who completed a novel (how many people do that?!); had great reviews of the novel from her peers (success!); yet she couldn't get her foot in the door of an agency because her query wasn't to code and she didn't know what else to do.

After she practiced her pitch with us (and by the way, delivering your pitch verbally in front of industry people can be a little intimidating, so big bravo to her for putting herself out there!), we helped her hone her pitch. Not with don't begin your pitch this way or always include this in your pitch or else an agent will reject it advice, but by simply helping her gain clarity on the heart of her story by listening and asking questions, and then by providing her with a general frame of a query letter most agents would be happy with (which she already knew about from all her research).

The attendee later wrote to me expressing that through this process of gaining clarity, she reclaimed that important piece in a writer's arsenal - the query letter -  by not feeling bound by all the conflicting advice out there.  

So here's a boiled down version of what we shared with her:

1. You can't control how an agent is going to read your query letter. You could write the best query letter ever and it still might be rejected because the agent was in a bad mood that day, didn't have enough time to read it thoroughly or more likely, they can't take on another author like you (they already represent several authors in your genre and they don't want you to compete with them), or they just don't think they're the right agent for you. There are myriad reasons. Don't over analyze them.

2. You ARE in control of how your story is presented. If you're having a hard time narrowing your novel or nonfiction project down to a paragraph, boil it down to the most salient action points, then boil it down again and present that beating heart in a professional-looking query letter. I like query letters that begin with the conflict and then draw me into the resolution and a lot of other agents do, too (I'm no longer an agent).

3. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE GOLDEN QUERY LETTER. There is no perfect query letter, no perfect pitch formula, just variations of a theme. So...

4. After you've researched the basics, follow your gut on crafting the letter. Don't be afraid to grab someone's attention! Never apologize for taking up a busy agent's time with your work. Be confident and most of all, clear about what you've created. Claim your craft!

5. Send out your query knowing you're going to get rejected. A lot. Get more query letters ready to send out in their place. Always, always keep those queries cycling.
   
I feel for you, writers. And I'm calling you to action. So, here's your action this week and for as long as you want:

Action: Confident queries come from confident writers, and confidence comes from clarity. So be clear about your story or nonfiction project and pitch that baby with the passion you used to write your book! What an amazing accomplishment! And most importantly, remember it's people like you who keep us reading. You keep the publishing industry afloat. Reclaim your confidence. You know what you're doing. 


Have a fruitful week, my dears! I'm rooting for you.

TLC

image: "A Broken Soul" by crazer9.deviantart.com

Q&A with The Lit Coach

Q: I have experienced the most unbelievable couple of years. Honestly! It includes an appearance on a Dutch reality show and has been capped off by my having been detained in, and subsequently denied entry into, a foreign country just yesterday for having made a sarcastic comment to the border agent. To go along with this I have, what I've been told, a talent to write. If there is a god, he or she wants me to write a book. Either that, or he really, really doesn't want me spending time in Europe.


I need an agent. Someone to help me craft the most saleable book possible. Is it possible to attain an agent without a completed manuscript? How?


Kelly

A: You share a similar predicament with many new writers, well, not the border mishap (on second thought…) but possessing the talent to write and not knowing where to start or how to direct it. And like you, many writers would love to start with an agent in the hopes the agent can somehow direct them into writing a super saleable book, one of which that agent will turn around and sell to a publisher. While some agents can’t help but step in and offer direct creative development advice to new writers upon meeting them, (as this former agent is VERY prone to do…and which I DO do in depth with my clients who are just starting out), agents simply don’t have time to help shape your yet to be forged creative path.


An agent’s job is to acquire your completely finished and polished novel or nonfiction proposal, most likely guide you through some edits to get it to their standard and then submit it to the most appropriate editors for your work. After they sell your work (fingers crossed!), they’ll stick with you through the entire publishing process making sure your book is presented to the public in the best possible way. That’s how they earn their 10-15% commission.


Now. I’m reading and hearing quite a bit about agents who do counsel new writers on how to shape their writing careers, as well as offer evaluative and editorial services on the side for fees. This worries me. Those who are in favor of this seemingly shifting paradigm call it “evolution” but something stinks about it. When I was an agent, I followed AAR’s Canon of Ethics, a list of standards put in place by those in the publishing industry to help writers protect themselves and their work and to help agents keep good business practices. Most of the best agents in the country do follow these ethics and are either members or openly state they follow the Canon. The Canon states, members may not charge fees for reading, evaluative or editorial work unless in a writers’ conference setting. Anything else seems muddy to me and the risk of a writer to be taken advantage of by an agent who needs to make money to keep being an agent seems probable. And what about their actual clients who need their books sold? I’ll probably write more about this topic in the future, but for now I can tell you that the best agents who earn their living from selling their clients’ work are still doing just that. Call me a traditionalist.

Kelly, what you can do over time is decide where your writer’s heart truly lies through reading, writing and reflection. I’ve read your blog - you’re quite funny and a pretty good writer. With blog development, it’s all about content and consistency. You identified yourself to me as a funny writer who seems to have unusual experiences, sometimes in unusual places…great hook! So, your blog needs to be about that! The best blogs are story driven – so tell us a great, funny story and keep ‘em coming on a regular basis. I’d subscribe to that!
Hope that helps! Good luck.


Q: How do I query memoir?
KA

A: Just as you would a regular nonfiction project. What’s important here, though, is your hook because memoir these days are very story driven…not just “hey folks, this is my life.” The old tell all memoir has given birth to some very exciting subgenres of memoir: travel memoir – Almost French; cooking memoir – The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire and Ambition and memoir’s first cousin, humorous essay – Me Talk Pretty One Day. Even though it’s nonfiction, you’re still telling a story, so make it a good one. You also want to consider the organization of your memoir; will it be linear or will it read as a collection of short stories tied together with a common thread? Some of my favorite memoirs read like a novel because the author’s retelling of their lives is that moving, compelling, engaging or funny.

Check out the covers of some of your favorite memoirs and notice how the brief overview teasers draw you in. You’ll capture an agent’s attention with an equally compelling overview of your memoir.

To read more about how to query nonfiction, check out these books:

Author 101 Bestselling Nonfiction: The Insider’s Guide to Making Reality Sell by Rick Frishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman

A Writer’s Guide to Nonfiction by Elizabeth Lyons

Writing The Perfect Book Proposals: 10 That Sold and Why by Jeff Herman and Deborah Levine Herman


Good luck, KA!


Have a fruitful, exciting holiday week, writers!


TLC

A Writer's Education: Luring an Agent and The Not-So-Secret Handshake

Happy Thanksgiving week, U.S. readers! No new blogs this week as I'll be focused on family and co-creating a killer T-day menu. Instead, I'm re-posting some of the most popular TLCG blogshops and whatever else I feel might supplement your week as a helpful side dish.

Today, I repost a prior blogshop featuring the absolutely wonderful literary agent, Kristin Nelson.

Here's to your agent luring success!

Despite the many resources available online and on the shelves, I'm still asked "Ok, so how do I find an agent? Really, what's the secret?" When I was an agent, I contributed to two books on the subject, Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent's Eye by Katharine Sands and Author 101: Bestselling Secrets from Top Agents by Rick Frishman and Robyn Spizman. There are several books like these out there with equally great advice and most of what you read from all those agents is accurate: there is a certain formula to pitching an agent and you must stick to the formula. Knowing the right people certainly helps get you in the door, but successfully landing the right agent boils down you possessing or exhibiting three things:

1) Great Writing!

2) Strong Author Platform!

3) Emotional and Professional Accountability!

We've talked about great writing and strong author platform in previous blogshops. We're going to tackle emotional and professional accountability later this month. Today we're talking about how to approach and attract an agent.

I realize when you've got someone there with you giving you all the seemingly secret ins and outs of finding an agent and anything else pub world (books not beer) related, something clicks and you get it. That's why I invited Kristin Nelson into this blogshop on how to approach an agent...the right way as we kick off Author Education month on The Lit Coach's Guide.

Kristin is one of the most successful agents in the country. A shining example that literary life does indeed exist (and thrive!) west of the Hudson River, Nelson started her own agency in Denver, Colorado in 2002. Her client roster boasts many bestselling and notable authors and she's a regular fixture at several renown writers' conferences.

We're here with you right now to help you approach an agent successfully. Kristin's word is gospel, so look no farther, take notes and take heed, my dears.

I approached Kristin at least a month ago about coming on the blog to share a little expertise with you all, but she contributed well above and beyond what I asked. She's that way.

I asked Kristin, "What's the secret to attracting an agent? How can an author lure an agent to request their manuscript?"

Kristin: Most new writers think that landing an agent is about a secret handshake. If they only knew how to do it, they could get their foot in the door. Book deals and fame and fortune would follow. Or, they mistakenly assume that the only way to get an agent is via a referral.

In actuality, all a new writer needs is a terrific query letter (although if you have a referral, that never hurts). Wait! Before you say you don’t believe me, I checked out Nelson Literary Agency’s roster of authors. With about four or five exceptions, the majority of our clients came to us via a query letter—including New York Times bestselling author Jamie Ford, who has graced the NYT’s regular and extended bestseller list for almost a year now. His career began with a simple query letter in our inbox and so can yours.

Ah, now you are thinking, “So there is a magic way to write a query letter and if I just knew that, then I could land the agent and the fabulous book deal.”

I wouldn’t call it magic, but I’m certainly happy to share the secret of how to write a good one.
You have to nail the pitch paragraph in the query letter. If you do that, I guarantee an agent will request sample pages. [Insider secret: When agents read query letters, we automatically skip down to the pitch paragraph. If that grabs our attention, then we go back and read the rest of the letter. If it doesn’t, we might glance at the author creds but most often, we just hit the button to send our standard rejection. Here at NLA, we get 150 query letters a day. We don’t have time to do anything else but read the pitch first.]

So you can see how important that one paragraph can be! I’ll teach you how to nail that but when you submit the sample pages, whether you get a request for a full is up to you and the quality of your writing.

Most writers stumble over the pitch because it’s such a daunting task to take 300+ pages of a novel and try to boil that down to one or two pithy paragraphs. On top of this task, that little paragraph has to leave the agent dying to read more. A herculean undertaking, right?
It would be if that was what you actually had to do but here’s the secret. You don’t have to take 300 pages and cram it into one paragraph. All you really need is the first 30 or 40 pages of your manuscript. The core of your pitch paragraph is right there in the beginning of your story. And another secret to writing the pitch? Make it read like the jacket flap or back cover copy you see on an already published book.

In other words, another title for this blog entry could be: Writing Jacket Copy 101.
See, your pitch paragraph is the jacket or back cover copy of your unpublished novel. If you want to master your pitch, start at your local bookstore or library or go online and grab copy from similar books in your genre. Analyze those paragraphs. You’ll get the rhythm and a sense of how many sentences it actually takes. For the record, most cover copy is anywhere from 8 to 10 sentences long. That’s it. Don’t believe me? Grab the nearest book and check it out for yourself.

But back to the core of your pitch paragraph. You only need the first 30 pages of your novel because all cover copy is shaped around the main event (also called the inciting incident or in my terminology, the plot catalyst) that begins the novel and without it, the story could not move forward. In other words, the event must happen or you have no story to tell.

Two key things to keep in mind:

1. Plot catalysts are always events. It’s not an introduction to a character or a theme. It’s a plot element.

2. If you can’t find it easily in the first 30 pages, you know your manuscript is in trouble and a revision is in your future. The biggest beginning writer mistake I see is that the writer will often incorporate a ton of back story or related information that’s crucial for the writer to know (but the reader doesn’t need it) in the first 50 to 100 pages of a work. The plot catalyst ends up on page 80—way too far into the novel to do the writer any good.

So let’s give an example. Since I mentioned Jamie Ford, let’s look at his novel HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET.

The opening plot catalyst is that our main character, 56-year old Henry Lee, stumbles into a press conference being held on the steps of the Panama Hotel in Seattle. The owner of the hotel has discovered in the basement the belongings of 33 Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during WWII. In front of the journalists, she unfurls a Japanese parasol that she has found. Henry instantly recognizes it as belonging to Keiko, a Japanese girl he knew and loved back in the day. That discovery propels him on a journey to find her and in doing so, he must confront the choices he did or did not make all those years ago during the war.
That’s it. If you look at the back cover copy for this novel, it will highlight this event. Without it, Henry Lee wouldn’t be forced to confront his past and there would be no story to tell. That parasol has to be discovered first.

Now, go back and read the first 30 pages of your own work. The plot catalyst has to be there. Once you find it, you craft your pitch paragraph for your query letter around it. And if it’s not there, you’d better start looking for it. If that key element doesn’t come until page 50, page 80, or page 100, then you know you have a problem and your novel more than likely needs a major revision to bring that plot catalyst forward.

For more discussion and examples, check out my blog Pubrants. I did a whole online workshop called Agent Kristin’s Query Pitch Workshop (see right side bar of blog).

Happy writing!

TLC: Ok, so not only did Kristin give you great advice on how to pitch...but pointed out if you're having trouble nailing down your main plot catalyst, it's time to take another look at your work to decide if it's truly ready for prime time.

The exercise of writing your own book jacket copy is a favorite of mine. What better way to gain clarity about HOW you want to pitch it to an agent...not to mention this is a great visualization tool to help keep you motivated on the big dream - your published book! Remember a few weeks ago how you dreamed big and worked backward uncovering all the steps you took to land your book deal? Pitching your book is no doubt near the beginning. Follow Kristin's advice and see where it takes you. And let us know!!!

Good luck, writers!

Your Exercise This Week: Stuck on how to pitch your novel or nonfiction proposal? Write your book jacket! Head to your local bookseller (I'm big on field trips) and check out like genre work. Find some really juicy book jacket writing you gravitate toward and take notes. What's the tone? Are you drawn to the promise of action, romance, suspense or a slice of life story? Why? If it's nonfiction, what tips and info is the author promising? Why is this THE book that will solve your problem or be the definitive book on a particular subject matter? What makes you connect? How will you make readers connect with your book? Try on the voice of those book jacket writers...then find your own. Make an agent want your manuscript!

About Kristin Nelson

Kristin established the Nelson Literary Agency in 2002. In such a short time, she has sold over a 100 books to all the major publishers. She has landed several film deals and has contracted foreign rights on behalf of her clients in many territories. She specializes in representing commercial fiction (mainstream, women’s fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy, young adult & middle grade) and literary fiction with a commercial bent. In general, she does not handle nonfiction projects with the exception of an occasional memoir.

Clients include New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal bestselling author Ally Carter (I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You and Heist Society), New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jamie Ford (Hotel On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet), New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger (Changeless), New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Simone Elkeles (Rules Of Attraction), USA Today bestselling author Courtney Milan (This Wicked Gift), and RITA-award winners Sherry Thomas (Not Quite A Husband) and Linnea Sinclair (Gabriel’s Ghost). Member: AAR, RWA, SFWA, SCBWI.

Please visit our website www.nelsonagency.com before submitting and also check out Kristin’s popular blog http://pubrants.blogspot.com.