Good Things Can Happen...and Query Quandary

I'm so excited for my dear friend, Tess Hilmo!  Her book With A Name Like Love comes out in September.  But that's not even the best part of it...With A Name Like Love got a starred review from Kirkus.  A starred review means  they think Tess's book has remarkable merit.  I knew it the first time she shared her work with the Wad.  Tess has a beautiful voice...on paper and in real life.  I hope you will check out her awesome review and buy her book when it comes out.  I preordered my copy last week.    If you don't know Tess please hop over to her blog and her website to check her out.  You won't be disappointed! 

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I have a couple query questions for you guys?  I'm about to query several picture book manuscripts...

• Do you submit to publishers, agents, or both at the same time?
• Do you do simultaneous submissions?
• Do you tell everyone you query that it is a simultaneous submission?
• Are you querying anything right now?  How's it going?

Any advice is welcome... 

Thanks everyone and have a wonderful weekend! 

(Updated) Thank You & Query Letter Queries....

First, I’d like to thank everyone for their kind words and thoughts over the loss of my beloved Stripes. I’m working my way back into the blog world…

Literary Agent, Wendy Lawton at Books & Such has been blogging about queries letters this week. I've been reading them every day and thought you might find them interesting.

Monday, Wendy talked about #queryfail announcements on Twitter and gave everyone a chance to sound off on their frustrations.
http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/queryfail-frustrating-process/

Tuesday, she talked about query myths:
Myth #1: When I get a form letter or no response at all, it means either my book is no good or my query was no good.
Myth #2: If I don’t follow the rules for a query an agent will dismiss it out of hand.
Myth #3: Agents remember the queries they receive. If I sent an amateurish query early-on to an agent I’ve got that mark forever against me.
http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/queryfail-debunking-the-myths/

Wednesday, she wrote about using humor in your queries and gave some examples.
http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/queryfail-clever-queries/

Thursday, she posted on the negative impact of putting too much information (TMI) in your query letters.
http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/queryfail-tmi/

Friday, Wendy discussed the effects of putting over the top information or promises in your query.
http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/queryfailover-the-top/#more-6135



Wendy has written a great series, full of information that is helpful to both the new and the seasoned querier. I hope you hop over and check out her posts and their informative website.

Books & Such will accept e-mail queries for the following genres:
• Adult fiction and nonfiction
• Teen fiction and nonfiction
• Twenty-to-thirty something fiction and nonfiction
• Children’s and youth fiction and nonfiction.

(My Summary) Know who you are querying, their likes and dislikes, if you follow their blog let them know, go to conferences and meet agents and editors, and most importantly read their submission guidelines…

Do you have any query advice you’d like to share?

QUERY KNOWLEDGE QUEST...

The truth is; we all want (at least) one of these to be ours. Query letters to agents, editors, and publishers are the means to our desired end. So how can we make our query letters catch someone’s eye. First, we have to look at the rejections we have received and ourselves some serious questions:

Check out the links to my Wadmates, Susan and Amy’s blogs for what they have learned about queries in the past week.

My analysis of my (query) entry in Joanna Stampfel-Volpe’s contest follows each question…

 Did I target right person to submit it to? No, I treated this like it was a contest.
• Did I do enough research? Answered…I should have known what she was looking for.
• Did I critique my query like it was a manuscript? Did I check for adverbs, that's, be verbs…Umm, well you can see I didn’t.
• Did I study interviews of the recipient and found out his or her likes and dislikes in a query? Answered.
• Am I aware of what is going on in the market? Thanks to a Skype interview with Agent Mark McVeigh, I feel aware of what is going on in the market. That was why I didn’t query a folktale or a picture book manuscript. Link one and two will get you to my interview with Mark.



 Was it the best letter it could be? At that moment, I thought it was. In retrospect, I should have considered who I was sending it to. I was thinking about using the book in the classroom, not how am I going to hook her and get her to want to read the manuscript.
• Did I have a hook? I thought I did, but not so much…I was thinking of how I would use it as a teacher.
• Did I ramble? I don’t think so.
• Did I keep it under 300 words? Yes.
• Did I follow their guidelines? Yes. I reread the rules of the contest before I hit send.
• Was it tailored to their taste? No, foolishly, I considered this a contest rather than a query letter.



On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:01 PM

Dear Ms. Stampfel-Volpe,

I appreciate the opportunity enter your Query Contest –I can handle the truth.

BORROW, BEG AND EARN is a beginning chapter book that reflects our society’s current obsession with living beyond our means at any. It incorporates math and personal responsibility on the level that would be appropriate for a second or third grader.  (See what I mean about how I would use it in the classroom...)

8 (Should I have spelled out his age?) year old David desperately (adverb) wants a pair of Ninja Heelys. The problem is; he’ll have to save the money for them. David thinks this will be impossible, but Mom’s willing to pay him for doing chores. The first day of vacation arrives and he borrows money from three people. David gets into a cycle of borrowing and spending. When he hits rock bottom, his family and friends seem to pull away from him. By the end of the summer David has figured out how to live within his means, pay everyone back, reclaim his best friend, buy the Ninja Heelys, and learned to save.  (Did I ramble? Characters? Plot? Resolution?)

I have a B.S. in Elementary Education and taught elementary school for seventeen years. I am a SCBWI member and a Highlights Foundation Summer Workshop at Chautauqua alumni. (Didn't include my magazine publication ecause it wasn't relevant to submission.)

Thank you for your time (Thanks in advance...) and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Sharon Mayhew
http://skmayhew.blogspot.com/  (Showed a little of my platform, in case she was interested.)


Dear Sharon,

I don't really fall in love with the pushing-the-moral type chapter books.

Pass for me, but thanks for participating,

J

Joanna Stampfel-Volpe
Agent
Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation



WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM YOUR REJECTIONS? Please share…

LITERARY AGENT MARK MCVEIGH...and ME

Literary Agent, Mark McVeigh sat down with me via Skype  and answered my extensive list of questions. Mark gave me permission to share our discussion with you, my blog friends. (A word of advice…Practice using Skype several times before you talk to an agent. I got into a bit of a tizzy when I could see and hear Mark, but he couldn’t hear me. I do have to smile when I think of him holding up a sign that said “Volume.”)

Mark taught elementary school, in Brooklyn, from 1993-1997. He then went to work for Golden Books as an editorial assistant. Mark has written many books for young reader, almost all under pen names. He worked in editorial positions for eleven years before he switched roles and opened his own literary agency. The McVeigh Agency  is a boutique literary agency handling writers, illustrators, photographers, and graphic novelists for both the adult and children’s markets. Mark recently joined the blogging community. If you haven’t had the opportunity to hop over there and become a follower, now is as good of time as any…but be sure to come back and read my Skype interview with Mark.

In Part One of my interview with Literary Agent Mark McVeigh I’m going to address the issue of query letters…

Me: “Mark, do funny query letters work?”

Mark: “What makes a good query letters is very subjective. I like them to read as if the author is writing to a lawyer, very direct and clear; only including materials relevant to the manuscript you are submitting. The first paragraph should be brief and about yourself. Are you a librarian, a teacher, or something that relates to the manuscript? Do you work with kids? The second paragraph is your pitch. Imagine you have six seconds to tell me about your book, and write your pitch that way. NO RAMBLING! Mention the setting, the main character, the conflict, and the resolution. If you can fit it in, make a comparison to something currently popular in the media. For example, I think Modern Family is hilarious, say I got a query that said the main character had a similar voice to the oldest daughter in Modern Family, I’ll want to see it. The third paragraph should be 75-100 word synopsis of your manuscript. That’s about it. Anything else isn’t really necessary. People often describe their motivations for writing the manuscript. I don’t think that’s helpful.”

Me: “Should you include National Reading Standards if you know they fit your manuscript.”

Mark: “You can, but be brief.”

Me: “Should you send a thank you to an agent after a response to your query or is it just more mail in their inbox?”

Mark: “I prefer it when people close their business correspondence with ‘Thank You’ in advance. A follow up email or letter uses up time I could be spending with manuscripts.”

Me: “One agent I queried suggested I submit a manuscript to a specific editor at a specific publishing house. Should I send him a thank you for that suggestion?”

Mark: “I don’t think so. Only send him a thank you if the editor expresses an interest in that manuscript. Then email the agent, specifically thanking him for pointing you in the right direction and letting him know that the editor requested to see your manuscript. The agent will store this information, in his mind, for future contact he might have with you.”

Me: “When you receive a query, do you Google the potential client?”

Mark: “I don’t Google them, but if they say they are a published author I look on Amazon for their book, and then Publisher’s Marketplace to look up the publishing house, if I haven’t heard of it.”

Me: “Do contests and magazine articles listed in a query impress agents?”

Mark: “Unless you won a big contest, run by a publishing house, I wouldn’t necessarily put it in a query. Don’t put anything in the query unless it relates to what you are submitting, or your platform.”

Me: “That leads right to my next question. What is a platform?”

Mark: “A platform is any media based entity you have that puts you out there for people to read or experience in some way. It could be a blog, a local radio chat, contacts you have with the media, even Twitter. You should be tweeting.”

Me: “I’m glad I caught your Tweet. It landed me this opportunity to visit with you. But Twitter is something I have to get better at.”

Me: “How do you pitch yourself to an agent verses pitching a project?”

Mark: “You don’t pitch yourself, you pitch your manuscript. An agent chooses clients based on the book they are presenting. That said, I do look for clients who have ideas for more than one book in them.”

Cynthia Smith  interviewed Mark in 2009. She asked him who would be a dream client. Mark said, “Someone who has both a voice and a message, is willing to work at both their craft and the business of publishing, and knows it takes time to build a career.”

Mark is a genuinely nice guy.  Hop over to his blog , become a follower, then hop over to his website and read his submission guidelines .

I hope you'll come back tomorrow when I’ll be posting the rest of my interview with Literary Agent Mark McVeigh…