Hello, dreamers. My current round of queries is approaching the six-week mark, which is a major milestone. Most agents will respond to queries roughly six to eight weeks after they’re received. That means I can expect to start receiving responses in the next few weeks or so. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. Rejection is always hard, no matter how prepared you think you are for it. And while I’m hoping to receive at least one request for more materials, I know odds are most of the agents I’ve queried will say no.

That said, however, I’m already looking ahead to the next round. I mean hey, it’d be nice if it didn’t have to happen. But I always feel I’d rather get an offer of rep while preparing my next round of queries than get rejections across the board when I really thought I’d get a yes.

To that end, over the past week I began my “Post Mortem” for this round of queries. It’s where I start every time I pull the plug on one round, and start prepping for the next. Here’s how it works:

The “Post Mortem”

So you wrote a book. You wrote a query letter. You wrote a synopsis. You were confident enough to send them out to agents. And you struck out swinging.

Bummer.

As I said above, rejection is always hard. But it’s part of the business. If you went into querying expecting to get a yes from every agent you subbed to, you’re delusional. And if you can’t handle a little (or a lot of) rejection, well…you’re in the wrong line of work.

The first step after an unsuccessful round of queries is what I call the post mortem. Like an autopsy, it’s a top-to-bottom assessment of your query materials. And it all starts with having the right mindset: whatever you did, it didn’t work.

Now, agents will be the first people to remind you that writing is subjective. Just because they passed on your work, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. But if you sent out ten or more queries, realistically, what are the chances that you just happened to select the only ten agents who don’t think your work is the right fit for them at the moment? Even if you didn’t receive any feedback from agents, you have to assume something isn’t working with your query package.

So all you can do is go over everything from the ground up. And, as with all things query-related, it starts with the manuscript.

The Sample Pages

By the time you’re ready to look ahead to the next round, you probably have lots of ideas of how to improve your overall manuscript. As I always say, there’s no better way to find something wrong with your work than submitting it to someone. But if you had a query round pass without a single full request, there’s not much value in, say, rewriting your climax. Nobody’s even seen it yet. Instead, you should focus on your sample pages. If there’s a problem with your work itself, that’s where it’s hiding.

There are several reasons why agents only request a sample of your work in a query. For one, they’re busy people. Yours is probably one of literally hundreds of queries they’ve received. Even if they would like to read your entire manuscript, they just don’t have the time. But the other, far more important one, is your hook.

In the literary industry, the hook is your first several pages. As with fishing, those opening lines and pages are intended to hook the reader and reel them in, convincing them to read further. If a reader picks up your book and isn’t intrigued by the first few pages, they’ll probably put it back on the shelf and walk away. To you, the writer, that may seem terribly unfair. You’re probably very proud of the action scene in chapter 17, or your slow-burn romance that doesn’t flicker to life until halfway through part two. But if you can’t persuade the reader to get that far, none of it matters.

Agents know that. That’s why many agents won’t ask for more than the first five pages of your book. You have that long to introduce your main character (or at least one of them, if your book is multi-POV), introduce your plot, begin character development, and start raising the stakes. If you can’t do that in five pages, you’re in serious trouble.

Broadly speaking, when you set out to revise your opening pages, you’re looking to condense your text and increase impact. As with writing a query letter, every sentence counts. And those opening paragraphs need to do a lot of heavy lifting.

The Query Letter

So you probably don’t need to worry about your synopsis; that will only change if you make major changes to your manuscript, and a lot of agents don’t even ask for it anyway. Thus, the next step is your query letter.

I’ve talked a lot about query letters and how to write them, so there’s no need to rehash the basics. First and foremost, you need to make sure your QL is impactful, adequately conveys your stakes, and captures the basics of your plot without reading like a summary. As I learned recently, it’s also worthwhile to give your comps another look. I’m not saying that comping to John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society was the one thing that torpedoed the queries I’ve had rejected so far. But after reading the book (which I really should have done beforehand), I doubt it helped.

The Agent List

Last but not least, if there’s nothing wrong with your sample pages of query letters, there’s always the possibility that you’re barking up the wrong tree.

I know, I know. Somebody who looks just like me said earlier “What are the chances you just happened to query the wrong agents?” Well, if you’ve been through everything else and only found minor tweaks to be made, there could be an issue with your overall query strategy.

This is where I found myself in late autumn of last year. I’d queried a lot of junior agents, knowing that they’re usually more open to fresh ideas and emerging voices, and are aggressively building client lists. But the feedback I received from several of those agents told me something I hadn’t considered: they’re also more likely to be looking for highly-marketable works. Querying a romantasy or dark rom-com right now is like shooting fish in a barrel with dynamite. In terms of sci-fi, most junior agents are currently seeking young adult novels.

Rapid rejections can be another indicator of problems in this regard. Most agents take at least a cursory glance at every query as soon as they receive it. At first glance, they’re looking for something that immediately catches their attention. But they’re also looking for their own personal “red flags”. Among these are books that are too long (or even too short), or books intended for audiences or genres they don’t represent. More reasons why it pays to do your homework before selecting target agents.

If you find yourself in the boat I was floating late last year, with agents constantly complimenting your work but informing you it’s not for them, that’s a good indication you’re querying the wrong agents.

As I always say, querying isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. As with most marathon runners, for most writers it won’t matter how long it took to get to the finish line. You’re just glad to have finally made it. You can’t let one unsuccessful round of queries, or two, or even more than that, let you down. Remember: the one key difference between writers who fail and those who succeed is the successful ones never gave up. So pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to work. The world deserves your story, and only you can tell it. – MK