It’s that time again! Yes, it’s that semi-regular blog feature wherein I ask people to rule on the pressing questions of the day, or at least the questions that I have randomly alighted upon and deciding they are pressing.
This question is a simple one. I thought I would poll the authortariat with a rather basic question. Agents across the land have decided upon a system whereby authors may send a brief description of their work to agents, who then decide whether or not they would like to see more.
No one much likes it, nearly everyone, at some point, has to go through it if they want to be published (including me).
Do you ultimately have faith in the query system? Do you think it works? Do you think it succeeds more than it fails? Do you think there is a better way?
Here be the poll (e-mail and feed reader subscribers will need to click through to see it):
Ron says
Saying that if you're a good writer you should also be able to write a good query is like saying that if you can write a good historical novel you should be able to write up a good business plan. They really aren't related.
In addition, some books/writers just don't lend themselves well to a query. Do you think that you could write a query that aptly conveys Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" or William Gibson's award winning "Virtual Light"? I can't even imagine what those would look like.
Okay fine, I hate the publishing "hierarchy" says
Here is absolute proof that the query system is flawed and doesn't work – What would you rather have: a flawless query (which says NOTHING about whether a book is good/marketable or not), or a friend who will hook you up with their agent?
Nathan Bransford says
okay fine-
Well, I think your premise is flawed because there's really no such thing as a "flawless" query that is not reflective of a good/marketable project. There's really only so much lipstick you can put on a pig.
Also, referrals are great, but even still all things being equal I'd probably choose the flawless query if it were my novel (preferably you have both). Finding an agent is about fit, and you ultimately never really know who is going to be a fit.
Anna L. Walls says
Well, I suppose it works – I certainly can't think of a better way. But it sure hasn't worked for me. 🙁
Ashley A. says
I voted "yes." I don't have an agent, but I do have a general sort of faith in the people who have chosen to work in publishing.
Agents who request the first 5 pages of a ms along with the query seem to improve the odds of everyone's success. Neither writers nor agents exist in a vacuum; we cannot become rich and famous independent of each other!
And really, a query is just a business letter, the basics of which, I believe, are taught in seventh grade.
P.A.Brown says
I don't think it works. I'm not selling my query, I'm selling my novel. Having to write some 3 paragraph piece that won't look like a million other 3 paragraphs that cross an agent's desk and in the end tells the agent nothing about my skill as a writer is ludicrous. All I want is the agent to look at the first page of my ms. Forget the query, forget the synopsis, look at ME.
I imagine after the first thirty or forty they scan in a day their eyes glaze over and all the queries blur together. How can anyone stand out in that? If your query is at the top of the list read that day, then maybe the agent actually reads it. Chances are, as the day goes on and the eyes start crossing, they don't get really read, just skimmed.
bethhull.com says
It works okay. No it isn't perfect. I read about this idea or dreamed it: some online database where authors upload their pitches, and agents in the market for authors to represent can then click on whatever genre they want, read through the pitches, and shop for authors & manuscripts. Does this exist, and if so, is it used? Would it even be feasible? I don't have time to check because I'm busy revising (er, procrastinating).
ElizaJane says
Poor unpublished me voted "yes" out of pure blind faith: I believe! Yes, I believe that the system WILL work for me.
I feel slightly like a figure from George Orwell.
M Clement Hall says
Works for whom? It's designed and operated by the agents and editors, not the writers, and only the agents and editors can change it.
The face to face opportunity at a meeting seems to me to be a better system, especially if a few pages of the manuscript precede the meeting.
Caroline Starr Rose says
The process was long, exhausting, and often discouraging, but it worked for me.
Kristi Helvig says
I'm an optimist by nature so I voted yes, although I have yet to go through this process. I might have a different response in a few months! 🙂
Julieanne Reeves says
What I think would be really cool is a genome project for books.
I listen to Pandora Radio, while I write, or clean house or… well pretty much anything.
It's a database that lets you listen to music, you like.
It takes each song and divides it into catagories such as symphonic metal, classical overtones etc etc etc. YOu enter a song. Say "Forever" by Kamelot or "Soldiers Of The Wasteland" by dragon force (both good songs by the way) And the database says: "That's a song A so if you like song A what about Aa, Ab, Ac and lets throw in B just to see what you think.
You decide you like song Aa, Ac and B and it throws more at you until it has a very clear idea of which songs you like, then it plays those type of songs occassionaly introducing new songs for you to decide if you like or not.
So lets apply that to books for a moment. If every book was assigned in such a manner and tracked which ones were purchased, what made them hits, what sunk other ones (kind of going back to the BUZZ article the other day) and Agents knew what people liked, what made books sell, then they could create thier own Agent wide database.
I as a writer could go in and enter all the information about my book, maybe even download the entire MS or sections of it. Have drop and drag menu screens to put as much info about the book out there then pick the agents I'm interested in.
Agents X, Y and Z take a look at my "query" size it up based against the market and say "Hey, this has potential because the readers out there say this is what they like."
So X and Z contact said author and make an offer for representation.
Just a thought.
Joanna van der Gracht de Rosado says
At one time the query process must have worked well. That time being when there were far less queries. When an author had to type up original hard copies and mail them off, you can bet fewer went out. Now, ten, twenty or more can be generated and emailed in no time… Agents must feel completely overwhelmed and sometimes miss a pearl.
Tyler Davis says
Queries work… It's that simple. Once you are an established writer, you really don't have to deal with them. It won't take you years to become an established writer if you can't write queries. It will take you years because you can't write a good story. Face it. The hardest part of writing is WRITING. Not writing queries.
Genella deGrey says
I think the process works for the most part.
However, if the agent is distracted, not on top of their game for whatever reason or just having a bad day, it can color their judgment.
Heck, I've had a distracted EDITOR before.
🙂
G.
It happens.
Alpha Otter says
What I LOVE about the query system is that it gives everyone a fair shot to be looked at by people in the heart of the industry. This is one thing I love about the publishing industry and writing in general.
I am also a musician/composer and the path into the heart of the music industry is much more opaque and troublesome in my opinion (there is no query system or even a clearly defined path to getting music published or getting a record deal).
Compared to what composers/songwriters go through, I think there is much to be thankful for about the query process.
Cheryl Gower says
Querying is an aruduous process on both ends. I'm helping a person re-write a query letter that you rejected–and I recommended you to be her agent!!
An agent has such a pile of letters to plow through; the response should be a little more personal, which takes time–I get that; and authors want the AGENT to read their work, not an intern. But there must be a lot of great writing that is being passed over because the query letter intimidated the hell out of the author. Gosh, what a conundrum!
Anonymous says
Along the same lines, do you think the agent querying editors is working? It's a side of the business that we don't hear a lot about.
As a writer approaching this process, I sometimes feel like I don't know have enough information to make informative queries. I think more agents needs to provide lists of books they're selling, so that writers can find the right agent. Although a lot of agents say they will represent a lot of genres, agents' selling behavior don't always follow suit. So more information would be nice.
Jeffery E Doherty says
In an ideal world, the agent would read the manuscript and judge the entire work. But then you would be swamped in paper an never get to even a fraction of the submissions. I can't see any other way than the query process.
Jeff
Priya Parmar says
it worked for me. it was tough and took tons of research and i am sure oodles of luck but my book found the right agent and now the right publisher and i couldn't be happier.
Liesl says
I don't have a personal opinion, as I haven't started the query process, but lately I've been thinking that it's probably flawed. I see books that have a great "hook" or "high concept" and I get all excited about them, but they fail to deliver the goods on the actual story and writing. It seems like these authors got in because they understood the business and marketing in general, had good ideas and their writing was passable. But I sure feel cheated after reading their stories.
I think there are probably some amazing writers who are incapable of boiling their work down to a 200 word pitch, who really don't know how to maneuver the business side of things. Query writing a different art-form. Incredible artists often has difficulty thinking about the business part.
I can't really think of a solution, as no editor or agent can read thousands of books every year to find the hidden gems, but I think we're probably missing out on some amazing stuff. All I know is that many of the new books I've been reading lately, books which got a lot of marketing hype, failed to impress me. And they all had agents.
Cassandra says
Nathan — what do YOU think? Presumably if you thought there was a better way you'd be using it for yourself, but if you could decree an industry-wide model what would it be?
Suzann Ellingsworth says
It works. It's about as effective a sales tool as jacket copy,movie trailers and commercials: an unquantifiable element will resonate for unquantifiable reasons, while the majority will not, many also for unquantifiable cause.
Determining effectiveness by a percentage who go on to land representation and/or a contract is as silly as deciding queries are fatally flawed by the number that fail to elicit representation and/or contracts. Somewhere upward of 90% are awful.
It is as and what it is. Getting off duffs and meeting prospective agents and editors at writers' conferences is often the best business practice. No words on a page can express story-passion like a face-to-face.
nomadshan says
It worked for me, though my agent wasn't the one I queried at his agency; the one I queried shared my manuscript with him. So there was some goodwill involved, too.
Anonymous says
The query process is dehumanizing.
I put hundreds of hours into those queries, writing and rewriting, printing and sending. My reward was a series of form rejection letters.
I continue to write books, but I won't query again. I publish ebooks, and I've sold over 5,000 in the past 6 months. If my work is good enough for big publishing I figure I'll be found out here on the interwebs.
Nathan Bransford says
Cassandra-
If I could think of and implement a system that worked better than queries I'd do it in a heartbeat. Haven't found it though. In my opinion there's no real substitute for seeing a concise description of someone's work and a brief sample. Anything more is too time-consuming. Anything less doesn't give you what you need to make an informed decision.
Moira Young says
Oh, wait. What about Authonomy.com?
JEM says
I said this before. Compare results.
Pick an agent and determine his/her success rate: books published using the query process that made money.
Then number all his/her new queries, and pick a few of those out of a hat. Work on publishing those as if they were the result of fantastic queries.
If the success rate for the hat is better than the success rate for the current query process, the hat wins and some other process needs to be created.
I'm not just being a wise ass. If we first assume that identifying publishable books is truly random, then we can ask what additional info could the agent request to find out who got into the hat and who didn't?
That info is where agentry should focus, because everything that goes into the hat is therefore worth publishing.
An agent can only process so much material in a 40-hour week. So if the agent can do justice to only 3 new works per week but gets 200 queries, let the sorting hat determine who gets in and let the agent give that material his/her full attention. Everything else gets returned to authors. The agent gets a workload he/she can manage. The writers may have missed the lottery at that agent, but they can quickly go on to another. And the 3 books the agent can actually work on get his/her full attention.
If the agent is good, those books get published, the agent gets paid, the publisher makes money.
Lia Keyes says
I prefer to meet agents and editors in person via conferences and workshops. By submitting pages for review, wonderful things can and do happen. I took a class on how to write a query letter (taught by a top agent), but I couldn't reduce the breadth of my story without the result sounding generic. Yet each time I submitted pages at conferences and workshops I received offers to submit a full manuscript, and offers of representation.
I signed with one of the three big name agents who made me an offer. I doubt it would have happened if I'd queried.
It's a pity that workshops and conferences are so expensive. But it's certainly a test of how badly you want to be published. I had to make a lot of sacrifices to attend each one, so each one had to be a calculated gamble. But I did my research, chose carefully, and came out smiling.
Renee Sweet says
(sorry! blogger freaked and double-posted my comment)
scott g.f.bailey says
It worked for me. If you can't write a couple of convincing paragraphs regarding what's cool about your own book, then either your book isn't that cool or you don't know your own book very well or you don't write convincingly or some combination of the three. And that's probably enough–in the general case–for most agents to judge by. Also, I included the first 5 pages of my novel with every query I sent, no matter what the agent's policies said.
Anonymous says
"A father and son travel along a lonely road facing canibals and starvation as they head toward the ocean in a post-apocalyptic tale."
Would you have requested more?
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
I would have if the author signed their name Cormac McCarthy. I wouldn't even have minded that he spelled cannibal wrong.
Cyndy Aleo-Carreira says
Personally, I hate it. It's the equivalent of asking a singer to sing two notes for an audition. The ability to tell a story isn't the same as writing a query and I think it does a disservice to some writers who may not be able to write a concise marketing piece, while it might help those who are better at marketing than writing.
However, it's not like I can think of any other idea for the process.
Jeffrey Russell says
No. I think it is a flawed way to go about finding new talent, or even new works from previously published talent. Advice on query writing usually includes some version of “think jacket copy – but include the ending.” And it’s universally accepted that a writer is, or certainly should be, qualified for the task. But let me ask you this: How many publishers ask the author to write the jacket copy? I’d guess none. Why is that? After all, wouldn’t it save the publisher money?
They don’t ask authors to do it because they wisely employ skilled, trained marketing people to do it. People in whom they have much more confidence than they have in the author for something so important.
The music business has an intense, never-ending need for talent too. But they don’t ask for a demo tape of 10-20 seconds which somehow magically encompasses everything the artist has created. They listen to the actual music, not a summary of it. I get it that listening to a 3-5 minute demo tape is a lot different than spending an hour or two reading 3-5000 words of a manuscript. And I get it that publishers and agents are deluged with submissions. But I’d guess there are just as many new musical acts seeking recording contracts as there are writers seeking publishing. Finding new talent, and new works from established talent, is equally vital to both the music business and the book business. But the music business takes it more seriously. Publishers rely on established authors for everything, and devote little time seeking new writers. If the music business went about things like publishers do The Rolling Stones would still be chart toppers.
I’m not saying I know how to fix it. I don’t. But I don’t know how to fix the furnace in my house either, but I can tell when it’s broken.
Jeffrey Russell says
No. I think it is a flawed way to go about finding new talent, or even new works from previously published talent. Advice on query writing usually includes some version of “think jacket copy – but include the ending.” And it’s universally accepted that a writer is, or certainly should be, qualified for the task. But let me ask you this: How many publishers ask the author to write the jacket copy? I’d guess none. Why is that? After all, wouldn’t it save the publisher money?
They don’t ask authors to do it because they wisely employ skilled, trained marketing people to do it. People in whom they have much more confidence than they have in the author for something so important.
The music business has an intense, never-ending need for talent too. But they don’t ask for a demo tape of 10-20 seconds which somehow magically encompasses everything the artist has created. They listen to the actual music, not a summary of it. I get it that listening to a 3-5 minute demo tape is a lot different than spending an hour or two reading 3-5000 words of a manuscript. And I get it that publishers and agents are deluged with submissions. But I’d guess there are just as many new musical acts seeking recording contracts as there are writers seeking publishing. Finding new talent, and new works from established talent, is equally vital to both the music business and the book business. But the music business takes it more seriously. Publishers rely on established authors for everything, and devote little time seeking new writers. If the music business went about things like publishers do The Rolling Stones would still be chart toppers.
I’m not saying I know how to fix it. I don’t. But I don’t know how to fix the furnace in my house either, but I can tell when it’s broken.
Jeffrey Russell says
No. I think it is a flawed way to go about finding new talent, or even new works from previously published talent. Advice on query writing usually includes some version of “think jacket copy – but include the ending.” And it’s universally accepted that a writer is, or certainly should be, qualified for the task. But let me ask you this: How many publishers ask the author to write the jacket copy? I’d guess none. Why is that? After all, wouldn’t it save the publisher money?
They don’t ask authors to do it because they wisely employ skilled, trained marketing people to do it. People in whom they have much more confidence than they have in the author for something so important.
The music business has an intense, never-ending need for talent too. But they don’t ask for a demo tape of 10-20 seconds which somehow magically encompasses everything the artist has created. They listen to the actual music, not a summary of it. I get it that listening to a 3-5 minute demo tape is a lot different than spending an hour or two reading 3-5000 words of a manuscript. And I get it that publishers and agents are deluged with submissions. But I’d guess there are just as many new musical acts seeking recording contracts as there are writers seeking publishing. Finding new talent, and new works from established talent, is equally vital to both the music business and the book business. But the music business takes it more seriously. Publishers rely on established authors for everything, and devote little time seeking new writers. If the music business went about things like publishers do The Rolling Stones would still be chart toppers.
I’m not saying I know how to fix it. I don’t. But I don’t know how to fix the furnace in my house either, but I can tell when it’s broken.
Anonymous says
"A young girl remembers life with her family in racist Mississippi as her father defends a black man in a rape trial while she and her brother try to catch a glimpse of the mysterious loner at the end of their street."
Nathan Bransford says
jeffrey-
I don't know, how the music industry treats demo tapes sure sounds a lot like the query process. 3-5 minutes for a good query plus sample pages sounds about right. I somehow doubt they listen to the whole 3-5 minutes of every mix tape.
Marilyn Peake says
It depends on how this question is interpreted. I think there are many agents out there who are really great people and who love literature – and this definitely includes Nathan. I know quite a few authors who have received phone calls and long emails from agents telling them that their manuscript is outstanding, but probably won’t sell enough copies, so they have to reject their book. Years ago, I read about mid-list authors who were happy to remain mid-list authors, and the big publishing companies were happy to keep on publishing them. One such author had something like thirty books published by a large publishing house. Recently, I’ve read quite a few blogs by agents and authors talking about how authors selling only at mid-list level in today’s market have been refused future contracts because they didn’t bring in enough money. Some of those authors (and I know some of them personally from online writers’ groups) were told to consider using a pen name, in order to appear to be a debut author, if they ever wanted to get another book published. There are many excellent books out there. Many of the best books are published by the big publishing houses, but others that would have been great mid-list books are now published by indie presses. This year, an indie press novel by a debut author who had trouble getting published won the Pulitzer Prize in Literature. The novel only sold 15,000 copies, considered "nothing by commercial standards" according to USA TODAY. Here’s the article: Paul Harding’s debut, 'Tinker,' takes Pulitzer Prize for fiction. So, I answered "No" for "Do You Think the Query Process Works?" because, for me personally, the query process will work when agents are free to offer contracts for every submission they consider exceptionally well-written and no longer feel compelled to reject outstanding manuscripts because they might not sell enough copies. Until then, I buy some of my books from big publishing houses, some from indie presses, and some that are self-published.
And I don’t accept the argument that publishing houses have to do business this way in order to stay in business, considering that CEOs of corporations that own multiple publishing houses are multi-billionaires. They’re nowhere near going out of business. Here’s an article about Albert Frère who sold back his 25% percent stake in Bertelsmann to Bertelsmann (Bertelsmann owns many companies, including Random House which in turn owns many publishing houses): The Relentless Hunt for the Next Deal. This excerpt is particularly interesting:
Deals, Mr. Frère freely acknowledges, while sitting in his favorite high-backed crimson chair in an apartment furnished with 18th-century antiques, are his drugs.
"Listen," he said with a mischievous smile, "it’s so enriching and really amusing to succeed at a deal. It’s like when little children receive gifts. For me, it’s the same thing. It’s why I often say to work hard, but do it with pleasure."
Mr. Frère’s heady, high-stakes play is just as intoxicating to analysts and rivals eager to anticipate the next move of this self-made billionaire, sometimes called the Warren Buffet of Belgium because of his diverse portfolio of value-driven investments.
Nathan Bransford says
anon-
Does the author mention that she can get a blurb from Truman Capote?
Also: I've seen S.E. Hinton's query for The Outsiders. There are so many debut classics that went through the query process it really disproves this whole "would you have spotted such and such" game.
Anonymous says
I'm tired. I can't help my spelling when I'm tired. *lol* But what if he hadn't signed his name Cormac McCarthy? Who would have taken a chance on that book had they not known the author?
What if he'd been a completely new author?
I'm not saying the world couldn't have lived without The Road, but it is one of my favorite books and I wonder how many other amazing books are turned away because of a bad or non-descript query letter…because no one took a chance to read even a few pages. You can usually tell within a page if the book is going to be horribly written. Wouldn't it make much more sense to have authors send in their first page? Or maybe the query and first page?
Sandy Shin says
Considering most agents ask for the first 5-10 pages to accompany the queries, YES, I do think the query process works.
The query is to "hook" agents with your premise, your pitch — frankly, if the premise of your book won't hook agents, how will it do readers? And if agents can always read the first 5-10 pages to judge your actual writing. Personally, I've stopped reading books after fewer pages, so I believe 5-10 pages are perfectly sound numbers.
I can't say I'll enjoy going through the query process, but yes, it's fair and it works.
Ink says
Anon, I find that sort of funny. It's not a question of whether your most simplistic description of The Road is enticing. It's a question of whether Cormac McCarthy could write a single page query interesting enough to get a request from an agent. I'm pretty sure Cormac wouldn't be bitching about the impossibility of the query. I have a feeling he can write a bit. And that would include a query. Hell, I'd read that man's grocery list.
Neil says
I didn't do an actual count, but by what I read, "not sure" would have gotten the most votes. But that option wasn't available. Most of us who read you and other agents blogs are not published authors or have even queried. So how can we assess a system that we have so little information or experience with?
Marisa says
Okay, here's an idea I've got.
It's still querying but has a few elements that might eliminate a few friction points…smooth out the funnel from wannabe to rejection/acceptance. Because while we all want acceptance, what is needed is quick and relatively painless exchange…"want to see this?" "um, no." OR "hell, yes!"
Have a big SUBMIT QUERY TO NATHAN button on your website homepage. No more emails. (agent gets his email in-box back, woot!) When an author clicks on it they are sent to a simple form (I am thinking it would look like wufoo's forms).
The first fields are the basics: name, contact info, word count, genre and/or category.
Radio button the genre/category options and ONLY options are the areas the agent reps (here is next major friction point reduction effort: this would hopefully contribute to massively reducing the submissions that don't fit the agent). Include one "other" type-in field for the hybrid or "hey, I never knew I wanted to rep that!" gem; yes idiots will abuse this field but they'd all be together since the database report can be sorted by the radio button entries.
Then a field for the query itself. Limited word/character count visible on the screen = set by agent's preference i.e. 150 words.
Then a field for the author info, background, publishing history. Limited word/character count visible on the screen = set by agent i.e. 150 words.
All elements are coded so if author skips/forgets…say contact info…form won't submit. No more incomplete queries!
Form submissions dump into simple database report…sortable by genre, word count, type of genre/category, etc.
Plus length of query/author details is controlled with the agent's preferred word count, so pacing through the day's subs might be more predictable and hence more manageable and quicker to process.
The beauty is more for the agent than the authors but anything that makes process simpler, quicker and flow better for Nathan/agents… the better for us authors.
stupid idea or a maybe?
wufoo is free for a single form with report and 100 replies. easy to test-pilot!
Fawn Neun says
As you've declined mine, I would have to say no. 😉
Seriously, my own work aside, I can't think of anything better but I'm not happy with the query process.
As an editor, I really feel I need to read more of the work than a query + five before I can say whether or not I'm interested in publishing it. On the other hand, a query letter will definitely indicate if it's something I will never be interested in publishing.
Queries with synopis? Query with a larger writing sample? Query with an outline? Query with the whole manuscript?
I say yeah. We use a submissions management system that works great, filters out a lot of chaffe, doesn't bomb our computers with viruses and has an automatic confirmation email and a set up for a form rejection and form acceptance. We can read the cover, read the submission in pdf, no obligation to go past page five, nothing standing in the way of reading to the end if we are intrigued.
I can't imagine what kind of query letter some of the most recent great novels would have read like. Can you imagine querying 'Atonement'. Or 'The Road'? 🙂
I would say that it works for some writers and most agents. I would guess that it doesn't work for the majority of writers. The editors, on the other hand, are having a field day.
Anonymous says
The process works, but its overall relevance has shrunk in the last few years and will continue to do so.
Anonymous says
"Also: I've seen S.E. Hinton's query for The Outsiders. There are so many debut classics that went through the query process it really disproves this whole "would you have spotted such and such" game."
——-
The Outsiders was published in 1967, not 2010. Completely different universe as far as the publishing industry.
It's funny, the biggest no-no in a query is to say that your book will make soooooo much money, when really, that's all they want to hear anyway.
Anonymous says
I don't know why writers always say, "they should read the wholel thing before deciding." How sillyl is that? How do you pick which 2-hour movie to go see? From the 30 second trailers they show you online and on tv, or from the 2-sentence descriptions on the netflix site. When your book is for sale in the store or on Amazon, how do you think people will make the decision to buy it? By the cover and the jacket copy.
So if you, the author, can't convince agents/editors/publishers to at least take a look at the opening chapters, then how are you going to get book buying consumers to plunk down their cash and time to read an unknown writer's book? Many naively think "the publisher will get people to buy it with ther magical promotion wizardry," but that's not true. If you lack the skills to sell it to agents and publishers now, it means you also lack the skills to sell it to the public at large–perhaps because of your pitch, perhaps because of the book itself, perhaps both.
Most stuff just isn't that marketable, economically viable, commercially competitive, pick your phrase of choice.