Uh Oh, there’s the “Q” word.
In social work, the Q word is “quiet”.
If my colleague or manager comes to me and says “how’s your day going?” and I respond with “pretty quiet so far” I’ve walked into a trap. My day will inevitably get busier.
A client will call me with an urgent request. My admin tasks will then pile up. My to do list will continued to be added to and changed. Last night I stayed back at work for an hour and a half just to ensure the most important tasks were still completed before my planned day off.
Authors have a different Q word. Especially aspiring authors doing it for the first time.
Querying.
You might have heard it described as the “query trenches” and trenches they are for a reason. When you start querying, you’re stepping into a highly competitive arena of authors who all want the same thing: for an agent or a publisher to see potential in their work and feel strongly enough about it to do something with it.
Publishers have to see the potential in your work. They have to feel strongly that they can put this book on the shelves and have it benefit them as well. They are, after all, a business. They do care about making some money by selling a product.
Agents have to care about your work. You want them to, believe me. Because they will be the ones fronting up to some of the publishing giants and saying “this is why you should take a chance on my client”. It’s highly subjective, and agents at the end of the day are human beings.
They’re allowed to like what they like. And they’re allowed to say no to projects they feel they can’t take forward in a meaningful way. And they have a mountain of sorting through hundreds and hundreds of queries from hopeful authors.
So…when I receive a generic form rejection from an agent where I am the 100th customer today and they’ve been making some tough decisions about who to take on, and they just don’t have time to explain why my work wasn’t chosen over someone else’s? I get it, I promise. I’m a social worker remember? I know what it’s like to want to help everyone, give everyone attention, and do everything. But I also understand the importance of keeping a manageable workload where you can give clients the time and attention they need.
But I’m not an agent or a publisher. I’m an author. And I want to talk about our experience.
It’s a heartbreaking, soul sucking, brain frying process.
Just look at all that red in my Query Tracker account.
It’s hours of carefully reading manuscript wish lists from your choice of agents and trying to decipher whether your manuscript fits the bill.
It’s trying to work out what an agent actually means when they use phrases like “strong voices”, “character driven stories” or “page turner”, when that means different things for different people. I think I have a page turner, but it might not be for you.
It’s google searches that look like this:
“What is grounded sci fi?”
“What is literary sci fi?”
“What is military sci fi?”
“What actually is a space opera?”
“What is science fantasy?”
“What does accessible sci-fi even mean?”
“Is ‘potential comparable title X’ science fiction or science fantasy?”
“What are the themes in ‘potential comparable title Y’?”
It’s sifting through pages after page and post after post of conflicting advice about what makes a good query letter, what should go in a synopsis or what a good hook looks like.
And, when you express how deflated you feel after receiving query rejection no. 50, it’s being inundated with the “just self publish” brigade, followed by the ruminating thoughts about the hours of work you’d have to put into that too.
As I said: Brain Frying. Soul Sucking. Heartbreaking.
And highly, highly varied from author to author.
That’s the problem. That’s the most exhausting thing. There are so many influences that determine how you will go in the query trenches.
Is your book hitting the market at the right time?
Are the agents who would rep your book accepting queries?
Are there authors out there pitching things that are too similar?
Did your query letter just not hit the right notes?
And whilst you can control some things, there are factors outside your control that also influence the course of things.
Look, if you’re reading this and you’re in the query trenches right now, I have no advice for you. I am still querying. I am writing this on the back of a query rejection from an agent I really thought I might have a shot with. My soul is sufficiently sucked, my brain is sufficiently fried, my heart sufficiently broken.
I haven’t given up yet of course.
But whilst I have no advice for anyone who is in the trenches with me, what I do have is empathy and understanding:
Querying is bloody hard work.
If you’re here with me: I see you. If you take nothing else from reading this, just take this.