Q&A: Agenty Questions

Thanks for all your kind words yesterday, everyone! You all make me sound so much cooler than I am. It was actually a really hard post to write-- it kind of weirds me out to write all about myself like that. I know how much I love reading book deal posts with the details, though, so I bit the bullet.

But I'm really grateful that today's questions are about other things.

In the comments yesterday, Iain asked, "Is this just a US release date? Are there any international plans yet?" 

To which I answer, Uh...... Um..... I guess I don't really have a clue! They bought World English rights, but I honestly don't know what that means for other English-speaking countries. I don't even know how long it will be before I know that kind of information. I'm sure that's not something I'll hold back on when I do know, though. ;)

Why did you have to write a new query letter after you had representation?

This question came from someone I did NaNoReviMo with, so they knew about my crazy synopsis / query writing day. The reason I had to write it was because Random House wanted to decide whether to offer a one book deal or a two book deal. Since they wanted to make a deal quickly, I ended up sending the query and synopsis to Sara sixteen hours after I started them! (Sleeping time included.) And yes, like I told them, every perfectionist bone in my body was twitching. My advice? Get really good at writing queries. And then convince yourself that you LOOOOVE writing them. I’m pretty sure you have to keep writing them for every single book, whether you are querying for agents, giving them to your publisher, or writing them for them for the back cover of your book, no matter which publication route you take. It really never goes away.

Have I mentioned that I LOOOOVE writing queries? No? Hm... Maybe I better keep working on convincing myself.

Did you meet Sara Crowe at the conference you were at shortly before you were signed up? [This was referring to a conference I went to at the beginning of October.] If yes, was she expecting your MS when you sent it?

No, actually, but I did met her at a conference I attended this past May. I had a pitch session with her then, and she had requested my full manuscript. I wanted it to be as golden as I could get it first, so I worked on it another five months after she requested it, but agents are cool like that. Pitch sessions at conferences definitely help, but if they ask for pages, don’t be in a rush to send them! Get your manuscript in the best shape you can get it first. They’ll wait. I promise. They'll even wait patiently.

Anyway, Sara hadn’t read my manuscript before another agent called and offered, so I told the other agent that I needed to think about it and get in touch with Sara first. I asked Sara if she wanted some time to look at my ms before I committed to the other agent, and she said yes. She read my ms over the weekend (while on vacation(!), because she’s sweet like that), and offered representation on Monday. So yes, pitch sessions help. But I had cold queried the other agent, with no connection to her whatsoever before that point, and she offered, too. So regular querying does the job just fine! Don’t stress out if you can’t go to conferences, or if you can’t get a pitch. Just get that query to shine, get your manuscript to shine, and you’ll be just fine. You can totally do this.