Query letters are the bane of my existence. They’re the literary equivalent of a world-class chef having to create her trademark meal – all seven courses of it – only to shove the whole thing into a blender. Once the meal has been pulverized into a gooey mess, the chef must then send a cup of the blender mush to restaurant owners with the hope that they’ll love it and interview her for a job.
In my opinion, the whole querying system is antiquated and ill-matched for the modern era. One great way to revamp the system would involve agents and publishers exercising a bit of tech savvy and placing custom query submission forms on their websites. This has worked very well for recruitment and hiring, so why wouldn’t it work for connecting writers and agents?
(I have heard other great implementation ideas, but they will have to wait for a future article.)
Anyway, if I had room to spare in my query letter, I’d love to include a number of relevant things, including this list of items.
A Résumé or C.V.
As a working member of the corporate world, I find it shocking that more agents don’t require résumés from potential clients. If I were an agent, I’d seriously consider reviewing a résumé before a query letter – because if a writer has a horrible résumé, you can bet their writing would match.
I, for one, think my case as a writer is much more compelling with my résumé attached. I have a diverse set of work experience (including owning an online music studio for three years, teaching at a local arts academy for two years, and my current job as an information scientist for a major supplement company) and every one of those jobs has taught me skills that have positively influenced my writing. Owning an online business taught me all about marketing – especially online marketing. Teaching brought a whole new insight into what teenagers think about life, school, friends, and even fiction – all of which is applicable to a YA writer. In my current job, I’ve edited hundreds of articles for scientific accuracy and consistency, as well as replying to over 6,000 customer inquires regarding my company’s products. That’s a lot of writing.
I could go on, but the antiquated format of query letters forces me to be selective in the employment information I present. Why? Why not ask for a résumé or C.V.? Agents talk often about the agent-client relationship being a business relationship, so why not treat it as such and require a résumé? That could be an excellent way to pre-sort “applicants” and reduce the number of irrelevant query letters they have to read.
Why I Wrote THIS Novel
Admittedly, this information could find its way into a query letter (though not easily) but I have to believe that WHY someone has written a particular novel is almost as important as the novel that has been written. Did you write this novel because you were bored? Are you just trying to escape corporate life? Is this novel your greatest accomplishment, or are you just a liberal arts major who can’t find a job? (haha!)
Certainly an awe-inspiring motivation can’t make up for poor writing, but I’m surprised that agents and publishers don’t take this under consideration. The fact that I am a successful member of the corporate world who is willing to give it all up to take a stab at writing – doesn’t that count for something? Please? :)
Plans for Future Work
Yeah yeah, it’s premature to discuss future work in a query letter. But if the agent-client relationship is going to be a long-term arrangement, don’t you care about my long-term plans as a writer? Wouldn’t you like to know that I’m also working on a non-fiction book, or that my audio experience totally lends itself to a podiobook adaptation of my novel? Aren’t you interested that I’ve designed my book with video game adaptation in mind?
Again, this isn’t a deal-breaker – but it seems to me that the agent-client relationship should be approached from as long-term an angle as possible.
I believe that my long-term plans for my novel make it a very compelling choice for agents. I’ve worked on multiple indie game development teams, and the link between video games and books is far too often overlooked. A video game based off a book could create massive interest – maybe even more than a movie tie-in, and at a potentially lower development cost.
Another angle emerging authors should examine is podiobooks. For those who don’t know, podiobooks are a new venue with enormous potential – basically, audiobooks in mp3 format. Podiobooks.com is a great place to learn more.
It’s no coincidence that I ran an online music studio for several years and I’m a huge believer in the potential for podiobooks. The idea of free mp3s of a book is very, very cool. Add in an original musical score, sound effects, and other things shunned by the traditional “audiobook” crowd, and you can start to see why podiobooks get me excited. Teens would devour podiobook versions of novels if produced and marketed correctly.
Education
Now I know this is going to anger people, but I’m going to say it anyway.
An MFA in creative writing says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about your ability to write a good book.
I feel that I can safely say this because I am a trained musician who taught at a legitimate music academy. However, my bachelor’s degree is in bioinformatics – about as far removed from “music” as you can get.
So it was not my degree, but my composition experience and non-college music training that got me the job, and I greatly enjoyed my years in the music education field. Sharing the gift of music was a treat.
But I learned something very interesting during my time as a teacher – that a degree in music in no way correlates to musicianship. There were some college-trained teachers at the academy who could bring you to tears with their playing, and there were those – with piano performance degrees – who were significantly worse musicians than I. (Than me? I never know.)
And I was a science major.
Now I don’t mean to imply that a degree isn’t useful and that it can’t indicate a certain level of proficiency. But in the creative arts, there are some things that cannot be taught. Music is one of those things. I had teenage students with an innate talent for music that could outperform almost any one of the academy teachers. And, conversely, I had students who could get a PhD in music and still sound terrible.
Writing is the same way, which is why I am frustrated that some agents give more credence to individuals with MFAs. This is a cop out, and a distinctly unfair one at that. Yes, individuals with MFAs may have “formal” training in writing – but what does that have to do with their creative talent? How many of the great writers in history have MFAs? (I know that’s a logically flawed argument, but that doesn’t make it meaningless.) How many of YOUR favorite writers had an MFA degree before they published a first novel?
MFAs serve a definite purpose, and they can certainly be the icing on the cake for an otherwise excellent writer.
But an MFA alone does not indicate any degree of writing proficiency, and my science degree does not disqualify me from being a good writer.
Opinions of My Friends and Family
I can appreciate why the opinions of friends and family are a major taboo in query letters. And, unlike previous bullet points, I don’t think this will ever be something that agents care about.
But honestly, if only you knew MY friends and family! :)
My wife is a brilliant woman. In fact, she took the GRE last weekend just to see how she would score – and her score was higher than that of the average Yale graduate admittant. (I love being married to a genius!) But she’s not just brilliant – she’s also a voracious reader, and a very discerning one at that.
So when my wife finished the first in a popular series of YA/middle-grade novels (having to do with a certain P.J. and Greek mythology) and said “you know, your book is much better than this,” I was ecstatic. That’s no small praise from a woman who knows her literature, and one that loves me enough to be honest with my writing.
Then there are my ever-reliable teenage test-readers, to whom I owe a great debt. This group of friends and family helped me fix some glaring logical flaws in my early manuscript drafts, and without their help I would have written a much worse novel.
Add to this the friends that I made in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition – whose advice was both consistent and insightful – and man, I’ve had quite the committee to check and double-check my manuscript.
Do agents care about any of this? No, and I can’t say that I blame them. But it sure would be nice if I had some way to share this type of information in context…
Referrals and/or Letters of Recommendation
The more I think about it, the more I think that getting a novel published should work more like getting into college. Imagine if there were a “good writer” test you could take – maybe something like the verbal sections of the GRE or SAT. That couldn’t be too hard to put together. We could call it the PAT – the Prospective Author Test.
If you wanted to try your hand at being a writer you would need to take that exam, then send your score, letters of recommendation, résumé, and a query letter to prospective agents. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Because seriously – if agents had the time to read letters of recommendation and/or contact a few referrals, I bet they’d love the information this provided on prospective clients.
Call my boss. She’ll tell you that I’m a good employee – I show up on time, think outside the box, and don’t take lunches longer than I have to. Call my landlord. I’m never late on rent and the neighbors don’t complain about me. Call my mom. She loves me and thinks I could be the best writer in the world. :)
If only this were an option.
In Conclusion
If agents had all the time in the world, I think I could put together a killer 50-page query letter. It would include all of these elements (and more) and by the end of it, they’d be crazy to NOT read my manuscript.
At least that’s what I envision. Hehe.
In the meantime, I guess it’s back to sending out my equivalent cup of blendered literary mush. <sigh>
Let me know if you have any bright ideas on what the PAT should include!
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