Got a bite!

Just yesterday, I got a response to a query for Genesis Earth that I emailed to an agent at Nelson Literary Agency, LLC.  Apparently, my query piqued their interest and they wanted to see the first 30 pages of my manuscript!

It’s not a huge development, of course–they haven’t requested the full, just a partial–but it’s comforting to know that my query letter is decent.  Enough, at least, to lead to the next step, and that’s all that matters.

Writing query letters is hard. There are so many ways to screw them up.  I queried another agent over the weekend with a similar (but different) letter, and I got a standard rejection…within the hour.  Ouch.  I was kind of worried something was wrong with the pitch, but with the other agency’s response, I’m not quite so worried.

Submitting is something that I have to get better at doing.  I’ve started putting together a personal database of agents and editors, but still, it takes guts to put your stuff out there.  I still get chills whenever I slip that envelope into the mail slot, or hit send on the computer.  It’s hard to say exactly what that thrill is–fear of rejection?  Fear of failure?  I think it’s more complex than that, but I’m not sure exactly what it is, or how to put it.  I’ll let you know when/if I figure it out.

I read an interesting post on agent Nathan Bransford’s blog about sending out queries.  He suggested the best strategy is to submit in little spurts, rather than all at once–that way, if you only get form rejections, you can figure out what’s wrong and fix it while still having places to send it.

That sounds like a good strategy, but to really make it work, I should probably set a goal to send out a certain number of queries a month.  Not sure how many that is, but since my main goal is to have a publishing deal by 2015 (and making a full-time living at this by 2020), it should probably not be a small number.  Maybe eight or ten.

I don’t know.  I’ll figure it out.  In the meantime…here’s to hoping!