Best and Worst Times to Query
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- Опубликовано: 18 дек 2019
- After a viewer question about whether authors should query in December, Literary Agents Jessica and James decided to discuss the best and worst times to submit.
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Jessica Faust’s love for books is what first brought her to open BookEnds Literary Agency. It is her desire to be an advocate for all authors that pushed her to create her blog, the BookEnds RUclips channel and to maintain a vibrant presence on Twitter.
Jessica is proud to have grown BookEnds to an agency that represents authors of all genres for children and adults, allowing her to reach more readers and help more authors and illustrators achieve their dreams.
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Since interning at BookEnds as an undergrad in the summer of 2015, James has (basically) never left. He's just continuously level-up-ed inside of BookEnds. Now he is the Literary Assistant and Social Media Manager for the team. He’s been a reader since his mom gave him the first A Series of Unfortunate Events book and ordered the sequels regularly through Scholastic book orders.
James is currently growing his own list and is actively seeking submissions in adult literary and upmarket fiction, mystery, thrillers, and suspense. He is also accepting submissions in all sub-genres of Young Adult fiction, and is actively looking for Picture Books that make him laugh.
Connect with BookEnds!
Twitter: bookendslit
Instagram: bookends_literary
Website: www.bookendsliterary.com
Connect with Jessica: bookendsjessica
Connect with James: jmcgowanbks
I worked in publishing for 32 years between 1966 and 1998, editing a variety of things from academic books to paperback novels. I came across your channel today. How I wish I had you to refer to back then! Today I am a published translator, but with a push from professional agents like you, who knows, the series of mystery novels whose plots have been haunting me for years might have been written and published by now!
That was so nice to hear. Good luck Priya!
You picked my question!!! I feel like I won a million dollars. Thank you!!!!
:)
General compliment. Thanks so much for putting a face on the industry. Providing somewhere to turn to. Level-headed. Clear, anxiety-reducing orientation about representation. And maybe most important, real. The perfect invite to a "Yea-I-can-do-this.". Thanks so much.
Thank you
Thank you! I was literally just wondering this! Getting ready to query in the new year!
I want to thank you for these videos. They are amazing. I am trying to gather some courage to even submit a query and I had no window on how this process even goes so far. Thank you for all the insights, and your time devoted to these videos.
📚❤ You guys are THE BEST! Thank you! Merry holidays, and see you next year!
!!! Thank you !!! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Thanks for the info. Your twelve days of videos have been a great present. Merry Christmas.
Great advice, as always! I love your enthusiasm and positive attitudes!!!
Love your videos. They're so helpful and honest. You guys rock.
I have learned SO much from you two! Thank you!
Yup makes sense. Good advice, good to know. Thanks guys always informative.
These videos have been well worth the postage for my letter to 🎅Santa thanks guys!
Preparing two manuscripts for submission in the New Year. Stressing far more than I should and missing all of your brilliant advice already. Hurry back. Cheers!
December is for resetting. Great advice. Have a Happy Holiday!
Thank you for all the good wisdom and tips!
This is great, helpful advice. I love your videos so much.
Once again guys. Nice work
Merry Christmas to you both!! I've so enjoyed yr personalities and all the interesting insights. I'll be watching in 2020 ;)
Best I could come up with was "The Dog Days of Summer" and you can theme each video with a different office pet (sorry to hear about Buford! I just saw the blog post from September).
Is it not good to beat the January rush? Presumably my query sits unread towards the top of the pile ready for a refreshed agent?
I have, I think, a strange question. I'm a British writer based in the Russian Federation. Do you ever get queries from people from a different country to where you're based? How do you tend to deal with those queries? Is it worth it as a writer to target a specific foreign agency, or only local ones?
I queried in August... Ooooh. Lol. 😂
Getting ready to query again January.
Okay, January 2nd, I got it!
On this general subject, how much does the number of clients you have signed in a given time period affect your ability/desire to sign more? Do you have a quota, or a limit, for a given period, say, a year? If you've already recently signed someone, are you less likely to sign someone else even if you really like their work?
Awesome question. Added to our list
Have a great holiday rest. See y'all in 2020!
Thanks. Same.
If an author gets an offer of representation and they let other agents know to give them a chance to check out the query, how would the author compare agents? The usual commission is 15% (I believe) so what other differences should an author look for?
Quality of the agent. Their recent sales. A matching vision.
Great question, Julia! We've added to our list :)
@@BookEndsLiterary Awesome! I'm wondering if the Thunderdome comes into play...
This helps🤗🤗
I queried an agent in December.
Question: Can a writer submit any chapter in lieu of his or her first chapter? I've read many years ago that some authors would skip over their opening chapter...
It should be the very first chapter that starts your book
Thanks. I greatly appreciate the feed back.
Can we get a 365 days of videos? 😊
On the 365th day of christmas my true love gave to me ... 2 turtle doves, and a video of BookEnds agencyyyyy. :p
@@urorazbojnik5678 Hahahaha!
the dog said, "queried the neighbor cat when he'd stop yowling at midnight." - tenderbastard.com
Twelve Days of Lit-MS?
I found the query process to be extremely aggravating. I know it's a part of the process, but when we authors get rejection after rejection on standard form letters, it's hard to know what needs changing. I went through four rounds of editing myself, then sent it to a professional editor. Made more changes before querying. Still was rejected more times than I can count till I finally gave up. I know you all are busy and can't tell everyone what's wrong. I get it. But I can't help but wonder how many great authors we'll never be able to read anything from because they got discouraged and gave up. So my question is this. At what point should an author give up? Or what could they do differently to help change the outcome?
I have just started querying. The rejections are starting to arrive. It seems that a face to face interaction is one of the key things to try and get. Sadly it probably means spending exorbitant sums to meet them at conferences. I also hate stories where agents accept authors who did dirty tricks to get an agent to properly read their manuscript. i.e. bluff their way into their office, or begging them to send the manuscript back because it was there only copy (it wasn't). Both have worked.
I'm with you in the query trenches! Remember that agents WANT to find good work and sign it, but they're inundated, so they often don't have time to give feedback. Bookends has a "Top 10 Reasons your query was rejected" video. Other reputable channels to check out are iWriterly (mostly sci-fi/fantasy) and Alexa Donne (mostly YA) with lots of good advice. Check out queryshark.blogspot.com/ for writing better query letters. There are many online contests you can use to find critique partners and test whether your query/opening pages are working. Look on twitter for #CPMatch (for finding authors to swap work with) and #WritingCommunity or #amwriting to find contests.
@@Nath-cy4eh It's really rare for bluffing to work, though, and if they find it out, you've peged yourself as unprofessional. It can help to get their attention if you meet an agent in person, but a great query letter is just as effective. Even if you get an agent to read your ms, they'll know within a few chapters if it's for them. The "secret trick" is just to write a great book and query letter (very different skills!).
Send out 10 queries and if you get nothing but crickets (assuming you've researched agents and they're not closed and they rep what you write) then revise the query letter and/or opening pages. Good work gets noticed.
@@aeshort Thanks and good luck
Seven days of sizzling summer suggestions
Can you right the mic so it stands straight up and down. Speaking to the top doesn't do anything, only the sides.
All you talked about for most of this is when NOT to, and Dec/Jan.