McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Beta Readers for Novel-length work
Kali:
The reason I mentioned the first five was because this agent wants queries that contain the query letter and blurb, the synopsis, and the first five pages. There's another agent in my list who wants the letter, the synopsis, and the first ten, so that's what I'll be sending to them when it's time. And I'll probably rewrite the query letter a little, targeted to their particular likes and dislikes.
Some agents, for example, want the basic info first. "The Book is an urban fantasy novel complete at 80,000 words..." All that stuff. Then the blurb. Some agents want to dive right into the blurb and they'll get to the other stuff later. So that, if nothing else, requires personalization and knowing your audience.
۞†Grey Warden†۞:
Good luck
meg_evonne:
--- Quote from: Kali on September 23, 2010, 06:18:35 PM ---I'm sending out one query first, to my first-choice agent. I want this agent, so I'm giving them a first shot at it.
--- End quote ---
Make sure the agent knows that you are giving them exclusive first look. I think they would appreciate your interest in them specifically. However, initially this was what I thought as well, however those first-choice agents are often highly sought after with many, many queries in their queue each morning. If you query is not exclusive, you have this option. This seems really backward and frankly rude, BUT I was told by someone that I trust a great deal who said. "Get the request for pages." Once you have it, send out your query to your favs. Then if you get THE CALL, then send notes to your favs. "I've forwarded query to you, and I have been offered representation. I'm hoping that you will pull my work out and let me know what you think before I reply?" Or something similar.
You don't say 'yes' right away when the call comes, or you shouldn't. (How the heck would I know, but I'm a business woman and it makes sense to take these things slowly.) On the other hand, the person offered and wants to represent your work. That COUNTS for a lot! It seemed--well, crass, but you can see the logic here. I remember also seeing an agent's literary blog that said, if you have been offered, please tell us immediately.
On the initial query. Recommendations say to send a few, wait for results. If you get all passes, then modify the query and hit more agents, etc until successful. That way you hit your fav agents with something that is top notch, not just good.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: meg_evonne on September 23, 2010, 03:47:23 PM ---Hi Kali! I would encourage you to wait on the query until you are sure that your manuscript is as perfect as you can manage.
--- End quote ---
This does need to be balanced against the risk of never sending out anything at all, though. I mean, I can usually see how to improve things I wrote a few years ago, which can make it hard to send out something I know is less than perfect in the hope that in five years' time I'll see how to fix it.
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