Massive Fail

So, you know how they say to work on your query letter for a month? I chose to throw that advice out the window. I worked on my letter for four days, got some people to read it, edited it and sent it out. How professional of me. And the weird thing was, it wasn't the worst query letter I've ever seen. It wasn't great, either, but it wasn't terrible. People have gotten published on a lot less (or so I hear. I'm not published yet).

Of course, after going to different sites and reading successful query letters from other authors over the past few days, I've seen areas that do need improved upon and will be changed next time I send out letters. For one thing, I spent all this time working on making sure I didn't sound like an idiot, and I forgot to put my contact information on the first four I sent out. I guess it wasn't that bad, because I sent the letters via email, and the agents probably will just email me back if they're interested, but it's the principle of the thing that counts, in my opinion. For another thing, I got stuck with the idea that I had to keep my synopsis to one paragraph, for all the good that did me. A lot of successful query letters have more than one paragraph, which helps when your book can't be pigeonholed into one topic (like mine). One other thing: I forgot to write to the two agents who cared that I was sending out the letter to other agents. I wasn't intentionally lying, but that doesn't matter. They're still calling me a liar face behind my back. I can feel it.

And how did the agent responses go? About how one would expect for only working four days on a query letter. The first response I got back asked for some pages, and I figured that was awesome. I sent them to the lady, and she wrote back a few days later saying the pages didn't grab her like she thought they would, and that she had reservations about the project, so she probably wasn't the right agent for me. Which was fine. She was super cool and polite about the entire thing, and I appreciated that she was prompt and honest with me. The second agency gave me a standard rejection letter.

Two out of ten. The whole process has made me realize something, though. I can write a whole hell of a lot better than what I sent. It's not making me depressed, because I realize that it wasn't the most terrible letter these agents have ever read, and the concept interested at least one of them. I believe in the concept. I'm just starting to falter in my belief about how to go about it.

So I'm not sending out any more query letters for the time being. I'm going back to work- fourth draft time. I know Miss Snark says query widely, and send it out to 100 agents, but I know the problems and I know how to fix them. In my opinion, it's better to put out the best piece of work I can than open myself up for an easy rejection. And then, once I finish the fourth draft, and the writing is impeccable, and the story is less confusing, and the ending is less deus ex machina-ish, I'm going to go on a blitzkrieg of awesomeness.