Hello, dreamers. With editing finished on The Ursa Frontier, I’ve done all I can. I’m confident I’ve made this the best story it can be. Now, after taking some time away to work on new (and existing) projects, next week I’ll be working on my query materials. Once that’s done, I’ll be ready to send out my next round of queries.

To this point, I’ve consciously avoided checking QueryTracker to see how many of my target agents are now closed to queries for the summer. Whether my next round goes out next week, next month, or has to wait until later in the year, it will happen.

However, I take each round of queries very seriously, because I only get so many shots at this. If I don’t put my best foot forward with each round, I risk burning precious chances to find an agent.

Striking Out

In case I haven’t made it clear enough through these posts, the query process has a lot of rules. Some of those pertain to exactly who you can query. Obviously you can’t send queries to agents closed to unsolicited submissions. You can’t query multiple agents at a single agency simultaneously. And most importantly, you can’t query the same agent with the same manuscript twice.

Once an agent passes on your query, that’s it. You can’t rewrite anything and try to resubmit. You can’t change the title, tweak the wording, in hopes of catching an agent in a Gotcha! moment, hoping a few minor tweaks will get them to say yes when they’d originally said no. No means no. Agents always remember stories (and queries) they’ve seen before. Trickery won’t work. What’s worse, if you do try to pull a fast one, you might find yourself blackballed for the attempt.

The only way to query an agent who’s already said no again is to do so with a completely new story. So once your current manuscript has been passed on by every agent who might be interested, it’s over. You’ve struck out, as I call it (me and my baseball analogies).

As I mentioned last week, the risk of “striking out” is partly why I limit the number of queries I send out at one time. I refine my query after each round, giving myself a better chance of getting a “yes” on the next go. My options are limited; as a genre fic writer, I face a much shallower pool of potential agents. If I exhaust all the agents who specifically seek to represent science fiction, I’ll have to resort to the “everything” agents; any of the large number who insist the represent all genres of fiction. However, as sci-fi appeals to a niche market, it stands to reason those agents will be less receptive to a science fiction story, much less hard sci-fi like I write. Thus, I must assume that they’ll be a much harder sell.

So every single query counts. Much as I’m eager to just get this over with, there are inherent risks to rushing. Even still, despite my best efforts I could end up spending the next several years querying every agent who might possibly be interested in my story, and come up empty. I could strike out. I’ve been assured my many fellow writers who’ve read The Ursa Frontier that it won’t happen. But it could. Which means I must be prepared for the possibility.

That’s where my next project comes in.

Even if The Ursa Frontier strikes out, that doesn’t mean it’s all over. I could still get the story published. After all, not being able to sell it with a query letter doesn’t mean it’s bad. Maybe I just have a lot to learn about salesmanship (I probably do). But what striking out would mean is that, in order to get The Ursa Frontier traditionally published, I’d have to publish something else first.

That grim reality has played a significant role in my decision on my next project. For better or for worse, I’m now a querying writer. I’m serious about this. That means I’ve finally reached a point in my evolution as a writer I’ve long dreaded: the point where market and business considerations play a role in my writing direction.

And that is something that will lead neatly into next week’s post. Until then, dare to dream. – MK