To query or not to query, that is the question.<\/p>\n
I stay about a project ahead. So right now, I'm doing a final, pre-publication edit on Boz's story, the third in my forever series - A Sixth Sense Of Forever.\u00a0 <\/em>My talented hubby, the graphic design guru, is working on the cover.\u00a0 We hope to have it\u00a0up\u00a0and out very soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n I started\u00a0editing Sixth Sense<\/em>\u00a0 after I finished my just-written legal-contemporary romance, Griffin's Law.<\/em>\u00a0 In the olden days of yore, before the gates of freedom and the rise of the internet made self publishing financially viable, I'd be working on a query letter about now.\u00a0 That means, I'd be getting out my old, faithful list of literary agents and crafting the best letter in the history of letters to try to convince them that they want, need, bloody have to<\/span> read the full of my MS.\u00a0\u00a0 This time around, I haven't even started the query.\u00a0<\/p>\n So I could be, perhaps should be,\u00a0composing a letter to sell my MS to agents in the hope that one can sell it to a publisher.\u00a0 The publisher would take a year or more to turn it into a book and then try to sell the book to Barnes & Noble, Wal Mart, Books a Million, etc.\u00a0 If all of that succeeded, then the book might eventually, someday, be sitting on a shelf, trying to lure you -\u00a0 all of you -- to put it in their basket and take it to the register.<\/p>\n Today, I can skip all the steps and put it out there for you to read and hopefully buy and more hopefully enjoy.\u00a0 And it's not just little old me lured by the possibilities of getting it out there fast.\u00a0 I understand\u00a0that the Vonnegut estate is about to put the late, great literary geniuses' final work, short stories, out as an ebook first.\u00a0 If the goal is to get the work in the reader's hands, ebooks do it a lot faster.<\/p>\n I love writing.\u00a0 In my dream world, I'd get up every day and sit before my computer and write.\u00a0 When reality and a day job don't intervene, I'm a pretty\u00a0prolific writer.\u00a0 I don't love trying to sell myself to an agent.\u00a0 I don't look forward to getting a query letter together and getting it out there so that eventually agents can request material.\u00a0 I'd then spend weeks and weeks, sometimes months, and in the case of my last contact with an agent - over a year and a half - waiting to get the letter that says thanks, but no thanks.\u00a0 Oh, I suppose I at least progressed in the process.\u00a0 My latter letters all generally said, you're a good writer, but....\u00a0 Yeah, having folks who work with so many excellent writers say you can write is a compliment.\u00a0 And I do and did appreciate it.\u00a0 But it's a\u00a0back-handed compliment at best - you're good, you're just not good enough for me and I've decided\u00a0you're not good enough for publishers or the American public.<\/p>\n Self publishing is the ultimate act of democracy.\u00a0 Am I good enough for the American public?\u00a0 Will you enjoy\u00a0the stories I so enjoyed writing?\u00a0 Will you get my over-the-top style and understand it's a little bit \"I wish men in love acted that way\" and a little bit tongue in cheek?\u00a0 Maybe or maybe not, but I don't have to convince a bunch of folks in the middle that I'm good enough to have the opportunity.\u00a0 America is the land of opportunity and I can put it out there and let you decide.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite everything I just said, I haven't given up my dream of being published.\u00a0 For all their delays and deferrals, publishers don't just get it out there - they get it out everywhere.\u00a0 You may love it or hate it or you may just\u00a0ignore it altogether, but a big publisher is going to make sure you're exposed to it.\u00a0 That, I can't do and no self-published author can do.\u00a0 So\u00a0being published remains the dream.\u00a0<\/p>\n Perhaps the path to the dream has changed.\u00a0 With self publishing, an agent could\u00a0hit the buy button and purchase\u00a0my work on Kindle or eBook or even a paperback at Amazon (or soon -\u00a0over the mass market by Lightning Source).\u00a0 The agent could read my bio, find this blog and email me.\u00a0 An editor at a big publishing house could find it the same way.\u00a0 And they can contact me and say, I think we can sell this.\u00a0 But in the interim, it's out there instead of gathering dust\u00a0on my hard drive.\u00a0 And people are reading and being entertained, uplifted and yes - taken over the top.<\/p>\n Perhaps today, the question for agents should be - what kind of writer doesn't self-publish?\u00a0 If an author who has never put anything out there queries, then an\u00a0agent should examine that person mighty closely.\u00a0 Either that person doesn't believe in their work, isn't willing to put their best efforts out to get it to readers, or isn't\u00a0current with the technology or the trends.\u00a0 All of these things should raise big red flags.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maybe I'm not querying because the\u00a0old process is over.\u00a0 If you're an agent or an editor and want to know whether my work is good enough, then read my work.\u00a0 If you don't get it, you don't like it and you don't think you can sell it\u00a0then\u00a0don't call\u00a0me and don't email me<\/em>.\u00a0 I won't clog your inbox if you don't clog mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n I think my books are my queries.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>Brotherly<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Faerie<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Golden<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>E-mail<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 are out there now.\u00a0 Sixth Sense<\/em> will be available in the next few weeks and in a couple of\u00a0months, my brand new and just-finshed contemporary legal romance, Griffin's Law,<\/em> will be out and about.\u00a0 I love to hear from readers, but if you're an agent or an editor who gets my over the top style and\u00a0thinks the reading public will enjoy the trip\u00a0past the top -- then my e-mail information appears on this blog.<\/p>\n Agents and editors have often discussed outsourcing their slush pile.\u00a0 I think technology has done that.\u00a0 If you have authors in your inboxes and your slush pile who aren't brave enough to put it out there or who'd rather let their work linger on their hard drives instead of actually getting it to readers, then I think agents and editors should ask themselves why they'd want to work with those kinds of people.\u00a0 Books belong in the hands of the readers, and\u00a0all of us who love them can now work together to get them there.<\/p>\n I think the day of the query letter\u00a0is over. Today, the work is the query and\u00a0if you're an agent or editor who enjoys my books, then I'd love to hear from you.\u00a0<\/p>\n The internet is the great equalizer and email works both ways.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To query or not to query, that is the question. I stay about a project ahead. So right now, I'm doing a final, pre-publication edit on Boz's story, the third in my forever series - A Sixth Sense Of Forever.\u00a0 My talented hubby, the graphic design guru, is working on the cover.\u00a0 We hope to ...continue reading \"To Query Or Not To Query?\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}