“Never Waste A Reader’s Time.”

I’m a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut. His advice continually resonates with me, especially that line in particular. It informs not only my primary writing – a pair of novels both shorter than what is often called for – but also manifests in much of my ancillary writing.

So you’ve written, revised, edited, workshopped, and polished a novel that you’d like to see published. Cool. Lauren’s approached one method of how to do that. Here’s my take on another.

Query letters.

When I picture agents, I imagine them inundated with queries, letters coming out their ears, clicking through endless emails, No, no, no, like the teacher from A Christmas Story liberally doling out failing marks. Composing a query can feel like a daunting, futile task, where you’re destined to be lost in the sea of submissions and probably just end up rejected anyway.

But if you want to be published traditionally, they’re your next step.

So, how to draft a query that maximizes your chance to escape the whirlpool of rejections?

My first stop in researching this craft came from scouring the excellent “Successful Queries” section of Writer’s Digest. Here, one can find a number of queries accepted by agents, with a breakdown of what made each appealing.

One thing most have in common: They’re brief. In these queries, no one’s time is wasted. If the agent has to field a hundred of these a day, they don’t need anything more than the basics – they have enough to read as is. If they’re bored by the query before they even get to the pitch, they’re going to toss you overboard, even if you did have an A-plus-plus manuscript.

The examples there informed how I set about querying my second novel, The Archivist, which as of the time of this writing has had multiple requests for full manuscripts.

• Dear xxxx –

My name is John Pedersen. I am a writer living in Northern Arizona. I found your page from a listing of agents seeking science fiction, and I think you may be a good match for my material.

I have recently completed my second novel, The Archivist, a cyborg western for fans of Logan, Hell or High Water, and anyone who grew up with 80s scifi/action.

Lance is a future version of The Man With No Name living in seclusion in a frontier town until a former partner once again calls on his skill as a hired gun for a job that turns out to be much more than they anticipate – severing their bond and putting Lance on the run with an ancient artifact that shouldn’t exist.

xxxx

The Archivist is a complete at 71,000 words, available to you wholly or in part.

I look forward to hearing from you.

John Pedersen

Pretty basic, right? It’s concise. It tells the agent everything they need to know. But it isn’t trite. Each sentence was crafted carefully to highlight key points.

• Dear xxxx –

This is personalized. Whomever you are begging to consider your blood, sweat, and tears, putting their name at the top of the document (as opposed to Dear Agent) is the first step in cracking their rock-hard facade. They’re a person, not some automaton, and ostensibly their job is not only to represent your work, but to establish a personal relationship with you, represent you, and when you’re blindly shotgunning your masterpiece all over the internet in the hope that someone, anyone, will bite, the onus is on you to reach out as a person, first.

• My name is John Pedersen. I am a writer living in Northern Arizona.

This is, obviously, who I am. I include where I live in an effort to be personable, to give an intimate detail about my life, but stopped there for the sake of brevity. Instead of limiting that tidbit to location, it would be better if you’re able to swap in some detail to make you more appealing to whomever you are querying. Remember – you’re trying to convey as much meaning in as few words as possible.

My name is xxxx and I am a roboticist living in Canada.

My name is xxxx and I am a schoolteacher living in Nova Scotia.

Both of these would be good only if the details are relevant to what you are trying to sell. If you have a novel about the trials of students, mentioning you are a teacher may help solidify you have some base of knowledge you’re building from. Since I am neither a cyborg nor a cowboy, I didn’t feel the need to include that in mine, though in hindsight I suppose being from a rural area may inform the authenticity of my characters.

Again, brevity.

• I found your page from a listing of agents seeking science fiction, and I think you may be a good match for my material.

This is the reason I contacted this agent in particular, and I get straight to the point. (If you’re curious about the list I used, it can be found here.) It is crucial to ensure the agents you are querying are appropriate. No reason to pitch to someone who only represents romance for your novel about a zombie apocalypse. If they’re looking for the next Nicholas Sparks, you’ll only be wasting your time, and theirs.

• I have recently completed my second novel,

This is definitely tooting my own horn, chosen to show that I am not a one-hit wonder, even if my first novel isn’t in any shape to be queried. Though I’m sure both types of authors have their place, those who want to publish one book and those who want to publish multiple, I seek here to establish myself as the latter. Should a particular agent and I enter a business relationship, I intend to be a steady stream of revenue.

• The Archivist, a cyborg western for fans of Logan, Hell or High Water,

Many of the queries featured at Writer’s Digest emphasize works that are similar to the author’s own. It’s savvy to right away to establish that not only is there an audience for your work, but that you’ve targeted that market as well. This also lets the agent know if they are the right person to sell it. For the record, I have received more than a dozen rejections on this query, which tells me it’s effective in this regard. Those agents weren’t interested, for whatever reason, and I presume at least a couple of them knew it wasn’t their particular jam to sell it based on subject manner. So it goes.

It also specifically states the genre, because they’ll want to know that. Here, I present a “cyborg western.”

My other working idea included, “The Archivist, a mashup of Robocop and Unforgiven,” which, while still accurate, felt dated. The comparative works I ultimately settled on are more modern.

• and anyone who grew up with 80s scifi/action.

The tidal wave of nostalgia continually washes over pop culture. This phrase signals my work to be commercially viable.

• Lance is a future version of The Man With No Name living in seclusion in a frontier town until a former partner once again calls on his skill as a hired gun for a job that turns out to be much more than they anticipate – severing their bond and putting Lance on the run with an ancient artifact that shouldn’t exist.

And here’s my pitch! Here’s a 71K-word novel, condensed down into a single sentence. It’s a bit of a run-on, but it’s (again) the briefest way I could describe the entire story. It tells about the protagonist, reinforces the genre-blending element, and gives a sense of the sequence of events. Plus, I hope, it’s interesting enough to hook an agent looking for original science fiction.

• xxxx

While these might look like kisses, most agents don’t appreciate bribes. Nor are they my spin on the crude drawings Vonnegut often included in his books.

These are a placeholder for personalized information, directly targeted to a few specific agents.

For most, I tailored the query very little beyond what I’ve indicated above. It’s only about 150 words. But for each agent, I scoured their personal page at their agency, looking for any details that may make me stand out just a little bit more.

Below are some of the (very) few additions to the form letter, each targeted to a particular agent.

• What draws me to you is your expressed interest in new twists on cyberpunk and genre-blending. I didn’t set out to write a cyberpunk western, but as the story matured, the parallels were too great and I had to follow them.

• What draws me to you is your stated interest in science fiction that covers political and social systems in the worldbuilding, as well as the morals of the characters not exactly being black and white. I’ve taken great care to ensure that each force at play in The Archivist has understandable motivations, without having explicit good and bad guys. The main protagonist’s arc balances around how the macguffin allows him to find personal meaning, not what’s at stake in the larger world.

• What drew me to you is your phrasing regarding speculative fiction – The Archivist takes place in a world where everything has been changed, not by some catastrophic apocalypse, but rather the natural human tendencies that plague us all. In the world Lance and his colleagues inhabit, we’d been given a second chance to do things better, but instead took a much darker route.

• What drew me to you is your expressed interest in sci-fi that messes with established tropes. The Archivist may feature a protagonist with a familiar backstory, but as the narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that it isn’t your typical misunderstood “bad guy with a heart of gold” driving the plot.

Each of these examples makes the claim that my work encompasses something that a particular agent has indicated they are looking for. They also reinforce that I’ve done my research on the agent as a person and chosen them specifically to consider my work.

• The Archivist is a complete at 71,000 words, available to you wholly or in part.

This is important to include because everyone wants to know how long your work is. There is a definite window (generally 70K to 130K) in which a science fiction novel is considered “sell-able.”

Mine’s on the short end of that spectrum, but again, this detail lets an agent know if you’re going to be a waste of their time or not. And I admit, I did submit this to more than a couple people who wanted stuff closer to 100K. Nothing ventured . . .

And “wholly or in part” . . . It’s important to make sure, and I can’t emphasize this enough, that your submission to a particular agent meets their exact specifications. No, you don’t get to be lazy and formulate one package that you can send out in a mass email. “I’m too busy to look into who you are or what you’re looking for, so here’s a press kit about my book,” will always, always, always be met with, “I’m too busy to consider your work.” No exceptions. You can’t, can’t, can’t just write a “Dear Agent” form letter and expect anything more than a “Dear Writer” form rejection. You’re not a unique and beautiful snowflake, and neither is your precious manuscript, so put some effort into it.

And finally, “complete” signifies that your work is ready to sell. You’re not going to be wasting your agent’s time while you muck about finishing your book. Make sure it’s done and as good as it can possibly be before you try to get anyone else on board with it.

• Please find the first 10 pages

• Please find the first 30 pages, and a one-page synopsis

• Please find the first 3 chapters, and a two-page synopsis

These lines were included at the bottom of each query that answered a specific request, to show that I paid attention to their requirements. If the agent got past my “Man With No Name” pitch, they’d now also see that I took the time to provide exactly what they’re looking for. Don’t give them any excuse to put you in their “No, no, no” pile other than your work. If you did write the Next Big Thing, give them every opportunity to find it without throwing you out because you can’t follow directions.

This means submit it at 12pt Courier if that’s what they ask for, indent your paragraphs, number your pages, align the stupid header on the left if that’s what they want. 12pt Times New Roman isn’t what they’re asking for? Rejected. No page number on the first page? Rejected. Include nothing more or less than what they ask for. They have enough material to sift through that anything they can use to contribute to the process of elimination is probably welcomed. Might not be fair to you, but presumably you’re literate enough to barf out a whole novel, so you should be literate enough to read their webpage and submit to their specifications. Really.

• I look forward to hearing from you.

John Pedersen

And then there’s me! Hey! I’m a person who has authored a pretty good novel about rusty old robots and cyborgs beating the hell out of each other! You should check it out, if it seems like something you might be interested in. We might be able to do some business together.

And finally, the caveat that needs to be included in every query letter blog post from now to the end of the time – anticipate rejection. A lot. Best develop thick skin now. JK Rowling got three hundred million rejections before Harry Potter became the phenomenon it is. Stephen King used to keep his “Unfortunately . . .” letters spiked on an old nail above his desk, eventually collecting so many that he had to put up another nail. (Presumably these nails were actually sentient creatures that are currently enacting their plan of world domination by drowning us with his success.)

Rejection’s just part of the game. It may not mean your work isn’t good (or good enough) it just might not be the right fit for that particular agent. Just keep submitting.

But, if you’ve carefully crafted something competent and marketable, and spent just as much (if not more) time-per-word on your query, you’ll stand a good chance of elevating yourself over the rest of the rabble clamoring for the agent’s precious attention.

Despite this breakdown being sixteen times longer than the query itself, I have tried to convey as much meaning in as few words as possible. As you send your queries out into the world, keep that in mind. Never waste a reader’s time.