Querying

Queries.

Are stressful things.

Not even just querying agents... which in and of itself is super nerve-wracking because you have to A) talk to people, B) talk about your baby, C) try and make your baby sound good, D) try and make yourself look good without coming across as a pompous asshole.

Despite all that, I'm actually talking about the process of writing a query.

Which, to my understanding is a ONE PAGE description of you and your book, nothing longer.  You start out with a grasping sentence about your book, then proceed to explain a little more in detail (think the backs of paperback books or the inside flap of hardcovers, except more detail than that if you have the space).  You're not trying to grab any old reader's attention here, you're trying to grab THE reader's attention here.  The AGENT's attention here.  Then, after that, you get a little blurb to make yourself sound good and professional and like you know what you're doing and what you're talking about.

If you're lucky, you're allowed an additional 1-2 page synopsis on top of the initial query letter.  This 1-2 pages must cover your ENTIRE book.  Imagine, taking a 300 page book and summarizing the whole thing in 2 pages? It's a right pain!

Sometimes though, you're not lucky.  Online query forms usually allow you a paragraph or two summary of your book and that's it.  Less than the query letter (from what I've seen.)

Writing my query letter and synopsis took me two weeks.

Thankfully, now that I'm done, I can send that out to a few people and see if I get responses.  Not at a point to write a new query letter just yet.  There's not many ways to change it, anyway.  Not without changing the whole book.

Did that once.

Publishing Update

I meant to do this last night while I was thinking about it.  But then I got tired and went to sleep.

I just wanted to make a formal statement about THREE RIVERS and its publishing status.

I'm not officially published.  Not even self-published.  Everything is all set up in CreateSpace for me to start selling on various channels, but I'm not doing that right now.  I used CreateSpace to get my five free copies of the book, as a result of winning NaNoWriMo, and that was it.  The five free copies are for me and my family and friends--end of story.

Sure, I could start self-publishing now.  But, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do once I finished THREE RIVERS and its editing stages and I decided I wanted to query different agents and see if I can take a more "traditional" route of publishing before I went the way of self-publishing.  But right now, my book is not out there.  I'm only querying.