If you’ve been querying agents for a while—or even for multiple books, in which case, I salute you—then you know opting for the trade route can be a slog. And that’s putting it mildly.
I cobbled together this post specifically for those of you who have been querying and querying without making inroads. There are many reasons an agent might say no—I’ve decoded what some of their nos mean here—but sometimes, the entire problem is the delivery system.
Maybe you’re a dynamic personality or you have a great elevator pitch, but the fact that you’re surfing in on the slush pile surrounded by a bunch of pitches that are just… bad… can leave a foul taste in the prospective agent’s mouth. After all, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and unless the outside force of your pitch is strong enough to impact it, the momentum of that rejection button can be easy to keep up.
There must be something psychological to it, but the same manuscript can get much different feedback when it’s presented from the place of face time and mentorship than from the slush pile. So, without further ado, here are several resources meant to give you a leg up over your competition: two for those who are reaching the end of their inbox-based querying tether and two for those who might need basic querying assistance.
Pitch Wars: For Those Who Love Mentorships
From the Pitch Wars website: “Pitch Wars is a volunteer-run mentoring program where published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one writer each to mentor. Mentors read the entire manuscript and offer suggestions on how to make the manuscript shine for the agent showcase.” The mentorship lasts from November to February, when mentees’ manuscripts are presented in an agent showcase. In 2016, fifty manuscripts found representation as a result of this event!
Pitch Wars is a great fit for writers of middle grade, young adult, and adult commercial fiction who are motivated to work with up to four mentors to strengthen their manuscript. In other words, you should be open to killing your darlings and implementing most if not all feedback if you apply to Pitch Wars.
Pitch Wars also has a series of Twitter pitch parties called #PitMad that occur quarterly; the next one takes place in December. Unlike Pitch Wars, which requires an accepted application for mentees to participate, this pitch party is open to all querying writers. Through the use of elevator pitch tweets and genre-specific hashtags, writers try to get agents to request their manuscripts. If an agent likes a pitch tweet, the writer should go to the agent’s Twitter profile for instructions on where to send their query package. Neither Pitch Wars nor #PitMad can guarantee representation, but you’re much more likely to get a polite rejection, possibly even with feedback, when an agent requests your work rather than when you skate in on the slush.
Keep in mind that Twitter offers a multitude of resources for aspiring writers, from direct, social communication with agents to #RevPit, to authors Kat Brauer and Susan Dennard’s Mighty Pens mentorship program for charity. Sure, in general it has become one of the more loathsome social media out there, after Facebook of course, but Book Twitter specifically can be a beautiful place for encouragement, networking, and education. I recommend checking it out.
For more information about Pitch Wars, which opens up for mentee submissions this Sunday, September 27, 2020, visit https://pitchwars.org/new-start-here/.
For more information about #PitMad, visit https://pitchwars.org/pitmad/.
The Writer’s Digest Conference: For Those Unafraid of Elevator Pitches
The publication Writer’s Digest hosts an annual conference targeted toward industry professionals and writers, both published and aspiring. Though 2020’s event is virtual—and coming up in November—most years it’s held in New York in August. The fact that this is in the city and in the “slow season” of the summer means more agents are likely to attend.
Not only are there panels, signings, and educational content, but the conference offers a Pitch Slam. This is an event not unlike speed dating, in which writers sit down one on one with agents and editors to pitch their book. The writer has three minutes with as many preferred agents and editors as they can meet in an hour. Given the math, I imagine this is a maximum of twenty industry professionals, which is not too shabby. The three minutes are comprised of ninety seconds to pitch and ninety seconds for feedback. Though this rapid-fire pace may sound as though it wouldn’t lead to much, I know writers (including one of my middle grade clients!) who have received manuscript requests as a result of this process.
The pitch slam itself is likely not a good fit for anyone made anxious by time constraints or who is unable to speak in soundbites, no matter how hard they train themselves not to. Otherwise, I think this is a great opportunity to be connected with agents who willingly put themselves through the process in order to build their list.
For more information, visit https://writersdigestconference.com/pitch-slam/.
What if my query is the problem?
Finally, here are a couple of extra resources in case you have the self-awareness to think that maybe your query or your pitch list is the problem, not the slush pile/email delivery system itself.
For what it’s worth, my Editing Vault has several free resources to help put your best querying foot forward, including:
A fiction query letter swipe file
A query tracking spreadsheet
How to find a compatible literary agent
Publishers Marketplace: For Those Building Their Pitch Lists
Publishers Marketplace is an industry-facing site that agents and editors use to announce their deal news and career moves. It’s also useful for writers building their pitch lists in that we can look at individual agents’ profiles. While an agency’s website may list a catchall submissions email address for queries, with a little digging and for $25 a month, you can learn more about how individual agents like to be queried and may even get access to their email addresses. (Of course, if the agency has strict guidelines that a form must be used, do that. You don’t want to access an agent’s personal inbox only to get an immediate no because you were too invasive.)
I recommend paying for the subscription only while you’re building your pitch list. Once it’s complete, double-check that each agent is still at the agency you have listed before querying.
For more information, visit https://www.publishersmarketplace.com/register/.
Query Shark: For Those with Acute Query Letter Writer’s Block
Oh, Query Shark, how I love thee for your viciousness and your many rows of teeth. This blog is a powerful tool that will help you learn what NOT to do in your query. In each post, an intrepid reader has submitted their query letter to veteran literary agent Janet Reid, the Query Shark, for feedback. Reid often damn near eviscerates said query, but with good intentions. She shows the querant where they went wrong, and we all learn how to write a more professional, polished query for our respective genres as a result of their sacrifice.
This is a good resource for the writer who is querying their little heart out but rarely gets anything beyond a form rejection in response. Reid has had this blog for at least as long as I’ve been in publishing, so there are years and years of archives for you to comb through.
For more information, visit https://queryshark.blogspot.com/.