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):
Ted Cross says
Melissa –
I can completely imagine authors writing great books but blah queries, because the author is passionate about the book they are writing, but often just dreading writing the query. That's how it is for my anyhow.
wendy says
As a member of the *clears throat* authortariat, I think the query process does have its strengths. Within a few short paras, the agent can discover if the proposal might work and is something that might interest him or her and, also, if the writer has skills. I quite enjoy the challenge of composing queries now I'm more use to them. Can't think of a better system right now. A better system might be one where my work was snapped up and published and thoroughly enjoyed; however this is something I need to make happen, through increased self-confidence and positivity – not through trying different paths or doing more work.
GhostFolk.com says
Query is good.
I admire (and thank) the community of agents for allowing (and, in fact, encouraging) multiple submissions among agents at the query level.
New writers have no idea of what we used to go through and the huge amount of time that was wasted to get three agents OR publishers to pass on sample chapters and synopsis (let alone a complete Ms.) sent snail mail. That was a year or your life.
Alternatives?
Writing contests? Amazon.com's breakout novel contest has seen agents approaching a number of the runners up and several of these books are finding publication besides the one selected for AmazonEncore publication.
Another alternative is getting your work in front of an established author who will pass it along among publishing professionals (be it editors or agents). You don't want to know the truth why this doesn't work most of the time.
The blog frontier? Post your writing on a blog until someone notices it/you… and, uh, likes it. Longshot and best with non-fiction.
Self published, create huge sales, then seek representation?
What am I leaving out. Be really famous?
Pitch in person? Lots of travel expense but if you choose the right conferecnes the hotels are reasonable.
Get an mfa and hope an agent reads your master thesis in your college library? An mfa seems to be one of the most exspensive forms of self-publishing known today, especially if you throw in the cost of your undergraduate tuition.
Write a screenplay based on your novel and get it made into a hit TV series or movie?
Even if agents accepted full manuscripts, instead of queries, for submission for representation, they'd only read a page (or two, or less) for 90% of the stuff they'd get. The query process is a much more honest up-front system.
Kidnapping the next of kin of power agents and/or editors?
Okay, I vote query.
GhostFolk.com says
Ted Cross: I can completely imagine authors writing great books but blah queries, because the author is passionate about the book they are writing, but often just dreading writing the query. That's how it is for my anyhow.
There's a big hole in there somewhere, Ted. Screw your passion to the query hitching post, buck up, and get 'er done. And so on.
GhostFolk.com says
Nikki Hootman: Queries work swimmingly for plot-based books. They do not work so well for literary or character-based fiction.
Same could be said for publishing, actually.
What works for queries is a direct reflection of what works for the marketplace (assuming the agent is getting her/his clients publishing contracts and, uh, they seem to be doing just that).
I wouldn't really blame the query process for disliking or rejecting literary or character-based fiction, I would blame the publishers (or credit them, whichever).
Beryl Hall Bray says
Queries benefit agent and writer alike because it's the quickest way to learn whether it's a fit–or not.
One thing that will never change, there are only two eventualities: acceptance or rejection.
VIP: An agent knows in a split-second if the writer researches and is willing to follow guidelines.
G says
You should have put in a third option "I don't know", for those people who are either doing the querying the process for the first time, or (like myself) return to it after a long hiatus.
I know when I did it the first time around, I was so bad that it really was hard to tell if it worked or not.
But, considering what I do for a day job, querying is a necessary evil. Just like a good cover letter and a knock out resume will get your foot in the door for an interview, a query must do the same thing.
And unlike how your first commenter (Richard Kriheli) states it, it's not considered brown nosing but simply sellig yourself to a head hunter for an industry that we all want to be part of but very few qualify to be in.
Anonymous says
I think rather than send a query, the agent should require the first three pages. That would give the agent a better understanding of the book. Query letters can be very misleading and an agent might pass on an excellent novel and later regret it.
Anonymous says
Umm, i'm not so sure but i like it!
J.S.
Jason says
It works, there's no doubt about that. But is it the best system or can it be improved upon? That's a whole other issue.
Anonymous says
I have an agent. My second. I had multiple offers in both instances. Yet I don't think the system works at all. And as a client, I REALLY resent the time it takes away from, well, me.
If you follow the threads on AW, for ex, you see something interesting-agents constantly turn down projects that you then see repped and sold. Some, quite well. As a matter of fact, some writer-friends and I were joking over one agency in particular who's notorious for it. If you look at the people reporting they'd been formed by them and counted how many had gone on to be published, you'd be shocked.
Donald M@ass even posted about how he got sick of hearing people he'd passed say they'd gone on, with his advice, to be published.
If you added up how many agents and time it takes a writer to get a yes, it's alarming. If you added up how many queries and time it takes an agent to find a marketable ms and make the correct call on the query, it's alarming.
Queries, via Internet in particular, don't work so great. They just don't. And agents' success rates with them, low. Writers' success rates with them, very low. And ohhhhh the time and energy wasted in the process.
Just because no one has yet come up with a better system doesn't mean one doesn't exist. It does. It just needs to be discovered. And if it were me, as an agent, I'd be looking REAL hard. Because it's not necessarily the smartest, most efficient way to do business.
Melissa Sarno says
I'm torn on this topic. Having just entered the query wars, I feel the whole process is incredibly daunting. I agonized over the pitch and the query and I'm frustrated that without it, no one will ever see the 2 years of serious, serious work I put into my manuscript. But I don't know what the alternative could be. I don't have any connections in the industry and I can't imagine trying to pitch my book in person as effectively and tightly as a query does.
Tamara Narayan says
I hope it works, because I've spent a lot of time reworking my query, researching agents, and so on. But it is mucho frustrating. I ranted about my past query fiascos on my blog today.
Amy says
I think it works. I do like when an agent requests pages with the query — 3, 5, 10, whatever, but something.
Of course, if there weren't so many writers with no respect for anyone but themselves, maybe we'd have a better chance of "fixing the system." Everyone here – obviously, we are taking the time to get to know an agent. But we are competing with lots and lots of people who just send mass queries out to anyone with an address. And they send them several times.
magolla says
I've queried seven stories over the past nine years, and until the last two stories I never tweaked my query DURING the process. So far, I've tweaked my query seven times while querying agents.
Yes, I think the system works.
If you aren't getting bites, then there's a reason–re-evaluate the query and rework it. Oh, it could be due to the lack of agent/editor interest in that particular topic, but most likely it's the query.
–I DO like to paste the first page of my story since it gives the A/E the true 'voice' that I might not have been able to duplicate in the query.
Mystery Girl says
Anonymous
I am still querying agents and only keeping ten out at any one time. I do think that the process of querying is rather like having a part time job where you pay your own expenses:-)
I think I may checkout Inkpop though.
Mike Martinez says
Is the query process imperfect? Absolutely. Got a better idea?
Um…er…uh…
Writing is highly subjective. What one agent might dismiss as unvarnished crap, another agent might see as brilliant. You have to hope lightning strikes and the stars align.
But before we start complaining at how unfair it is, think about what it takes to get a job, for example. You have to be in the right place, at the right time, and strike people just the right way…and hope that you're the best candidate. (There's always someone better…you just have to hope they haven't applied for the job you want!)
It's the same thing with querying, really. You have to have the product, sure, but you also have to be able to find the right person to take it on, and impress that person with your query, synopsis and pages.
Now…would it be nice if it were standardized among agents? Absolutely. It'd be great if the association could come together on some guidelines and processes for everyone to follow. I ain't holding my breath.
It'd also be nice if agencies could invest in someone who could weed out the obvious crap. Let's face it…anyone with access to a computer could submit a query. Agents could devote more time to the well written queries if they could find a way to sift through the junk.
It is what it is. It's obviously worked for many good authors, even first timers. And until someone comes up with something better, it's all we have.
krisula says
The answer to this question really lies in the question of whether or not the thousands of books filling the bookstores (and discount stores and e-stores…) are qualitatively better, more worthy books than the ones hiding in thousands of drawers and hard drives across the country. Probably not.
Ulysses says
Consider the agent's job at this stage: assess the work for publishability and the author for professionalism. The best way to do that would be to read through the whole work and then interview the author.
For 300+, 250-page books a week (semi-informed stab at query incoming rate and book size), that's 75000 pages. Impossible.
So we shorten the process. For fiction, writing skill and plot are most important. For non-fiction, it's writing skill, organization and subject expertise. Instead of reading the whole book and interviewing the writer, take a look at a few sample pages, an outline and a note about qualifications and experience that might indicate a professional attitude.
Of course, some good stuff is missed because five pages doesn't showcase the writer's brilliance, and an outline doesn't convey the depth of the work.
But still, 300+ sets of 5 pages and 2-page outlines? Who's got time for that? (That's 2100 pages a week!)
So we speed things up further. We ask for the essentials combined in a single page. For fiction: a plot description. For non-fiction: a proposal indicating topic, approach and qualifications. Both of these need to give some indication of the writer's skill.
Yes, more stuff is missed.
But 300+ one-page summaries? That's something that can be read over lunch and after work and while brushing teeth… although we'll probably have to max out our free time to do it.
The number of manuscripts seeking representation is massive, and the market available for them comparatively tiny. To be absolutely certain every good book reaches the shelves we can increase the number of markets (the economics make market growth rare), decrease the number of manuscripts ('tis a consummation devoutly to be wished), or rely on the query system to reduce the task of finding good ones to something manageable.
Does the query system work? If you want it to give an agent a reasonable chance of finding marketable books without the time required for the search exceeding their lifespan, then yes. If you want it to ensure that all good books make it to the shelf and all bad books make it to the shredder, then no. If you want it to ensure that YOUR book makes it to the shelf, then… well, no. Sorry.
Margaret Yang also makes a great point. The back cover copy is different, though, in that it's (supposedly) written by a professional pitch writer, not the author.
Yes, I know Nathan@3:56 summed up my whole argument in 1/15th of the words. There's a lesson there, I think.
Ink, can I have that grocery list when you're done with it?
Kim Batchelor says
Since I haven't had any luck with people showing up at my house to request work, I still have faith in the query process and have to keep at it. Marketing is a whole nother skill set you have to develop if you ever hope of publishing. My wishes: (1) that there was some way to sort out the mass queries/queriers so that those who follow the rules have a chance of getting out of the query pile and (2) I respectfully wish that agents would say no to pitches at conferences if they're not interested so that we don't waste their time. At a conference two weeks ago, I constantly heard the excitement of those whose work was requested, as was mine, but I've been around enough to know that those requests are very common.
Watery Tart says
I would have to throw out a definitive SORT OF. I think 95% of the stories that manage to make it through the whole process deserve to, but would bet about 30% of the stories that DON'T are even better than a lot of those.
I think the process is conservative and uses a lot of rules, but I blame the publishing business model more than agents for that. I think there is just a lot of great literature that never sees the light of day because the process requires skills that a lot of great writers don't have.
Dara says
It's not a perfect system but it's the best that we have. It's daunting, stressful, etc. but the whole publishing process is. I take it as part of the road to publication. It's not something I look forward to and I may get lost along the way, but it'll be worth it eventually.
I have to look at it in a positive light or I'd go crazy 😛
Hillsy says
To paraphrase Winston Churchill:
"The query process is the worst form of submission, except for all the others that have been tried."
S. S. Post says
The system is nothing short of painful and frustrating. But is there another way to do it? No! To ask you to sit down and read the whole book is insane. And sometimes the first few pages won't give a good taste for what the book is. Considering these, a query letter is the best chance a writer has. Which is sort of depressing, considering the number of rejections I've gotten already. But it's time to get more… If you'll excuse, I have a letter to try and write! ^_^
Walt M says
I voted yes, as I can't think of a better method yet. I remember the first time I got a full request from a query. My wife got excited and asked if it meant I was going to get published. I told her it more like sending in a resume online and being offered a first interview. Still a long way to go.
Ted Cross says
I imagine there could be some innovative ways to use the internet to help with the process. What about a site where people could all post the first 50 pages of their novel (but only complete novels should be allowed) under their specific genre (not just all lumped under, say, Fantasy, but under more specific labels such as YA Fantasy, Vampire, etc.
I would allow no commenting or voting or anything, and only legit agents should be allowed to interface with the pages. If perhaps 3 or 4 agents who do that genre all mark a manuscript as mediocre then it would drop off the site. This would allow agents to go to one place and look for what suits them and is good, while altogether filtering out the spam.
S. S. Post says
@Ted Cross: First off, I actually really love this idea. It's simple, concise, and not impossible at all!
If it were 3 or 4 agent rejections, I'd be dead by now. The agents would begin to overload the writers instead of the writers overloading the agents. 9 or 10 might be a safer bet.
I love the idea of first 50 pages- my story starts off fairly mild and really fires up around chapter 3- chapters 1 and 2 get the very basics of the world across. Without those basics, the rest can't make sense without clogging the action with explanation of things the reader should already know. The fact that the first couple chapters are a little calmer really causes problems when submitting, though.
Ted Cross says
I really mean, though, that only agents who do that particular genre would vote on the MS. Perhaps it would need more than just a few votes to drop off completely. I'm sure it would need tweaking, but why not a one-stop online shop for first-time authors to post their stuff (in a manner that protects their rights), and only real agents get to cull through and separate the wheat from the chaff?
Hillsy says
OK now I've got my pithy remark out of the way – let's at least try and solve this.
Please – Follow the link and participate: https://forums.nathanbransford.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1285. Lets crack this thing!!!
Just to touch on something that's come up a bit: Agents workload.
Firstly, it's obvious it's a large part of the reason a query exists. But seriously, you CAN'T deal with this. It's impossible! Who is arbitrator of the right to send a book idea to an agent????? Get real!
AND the easiest way to increase this workload is to drop the query and just send pages. Everyone who has an MS has pages, not everyone has a query. If 1 in 10 are daunted by a query, and an agent gets 100 queries a day, remove queries and they now get 111 a day. *headdesk*
If nothing else this shows that an author is 1 in a few million. Whatever you apply to yourself to make it easier, you apply to millions of other people. Look up Emmanuel Kant's universal imperative and apply it to everything you want changed, because the consequences can easily be missed otherwise.
Andrea says
If it would be more helpful (and if I was an agent I'd be open to this) I would make the first couple pages of my novel available as an audio file. You could just listen whenever. I think that it would add convenience to some agents. Perhaps.
sex scenes at starbucks says
I said yes as far as getting people published. I think the query system puts decent books in the hands of agents.
That said, I think the industry falls down on marketing and selling. Otherwise we'd all be making a hell of a lot more money. And I have to say, there are a crap-load of BAD books out there. There are good ones, obviously, but too many bad ones to make me believe the industry doesn't still have some serious maturing to do.
Remus says
From everything I can see, from watching and participating in the query process for several years now…it is not much better than selection by lottery. Good stories are picked up, or left behind, at random. Bad stories appear to get picked up at the same rate.
The query process works very well for the publishing industry, whose main concern is filtering some good out of the enormous torrent of submissions they receive. It's like a miner panning for gold — they get enough to sustain themselves, but also a lot of silt, and the process also dumps a lot of gold back into the river. But it's the most cost effective method anyone can think of.
For authors the process is the worst thing imaginable. Rolling dice would be kinder.
sex scenes at starbucks says
Lots of people, btw, have mentioned sending pages. ALWAYS send the first five pages (just add it to the bottom of your email and mention in the query that they're there). Miss Snark even said to do it.
If the agent doesn't want it, then they don't have to read it. And seriously, if they're going to reject you on the bases of sending a few "unrequested" sample pages, then it's probably not someone I want to work with anyway. Agents are just people, too, remember, and they WANT to find fabulous writing.
Those pages get read, too. I've gotten comments on mine too often for it not to be true.
Hillsy says
Remus – the dice analogy is perfect.
If you have a 10 sided dice, and you need to roll a 10 to get published, that's why you query multiple agents: to give you more chances to roll a 10
If you've only got a 6 sided dice, you never will
Memoirs of a Heroinhead says
Nathan,
Well done you've got nearly as many 'followers' as me… and I can offr people nothing but words.
All My Best, Shane.
Mary McDonald says
If I get an agent, I'll think it's a great system, if I don't, I'll think it sucks. 😉
Ted says
I think the query system is broken, overwhelmed by the tidal wave of queries. If you think it works, ask yourself if it would still work if the number of queries doubled from its current level (and the number of books purchased by publishers stayed the same.) Still working? OK, what if it doubled again?
I think a new model will emerge. One possibility would be for unpublished authors to post their completed MSs online (on their own websites or Scribd or Smashwords), and let agents find these works by referral from trusted readers. Those trusted readers could in turn be informed by casual readers. Validation of a work could bubble upward. An agent's interest might be piqued once 2000 or 3000 readers had commented on the work.
The agent could sign the author, help improve the book, and encourage the author to launch it as a $5 ebook on Smashwords. The author would be responsible for all marketing efforts (which is where the industry is heading anyway.) If the ebook sells reasonably well, the agent could try to sell the book and ebook rights to publishers.
Lots of potential issues and problems, but not necessarily worse than the status quo. And agents wouldn't have to process the huge percentage of queries that are instant rejections.
JDuncan says
It works and it doesn't. The main problem I see is that for many authors, writing a good one is more difficult than writing the book. It's a different skill. I couldn't right a very good one. I also marketed it as the wrong type of story which hurt my chances as well. However, in the end, an editor saw it and liked the story and I got an agent (this agent) because of them. It only takes one, and I agree it's a very fallible process. Too many good books out there that can't be published. There just isn't shelf space for them. It's a very tricky thing indeed to be compelling in half a page of writing.
Anne R. Allen says
I would have said yes yesterday, but that was before I got back the requested partial of my romantic suspense novel with a personalized rejection letter saying "We don't represent nonfiction." This is a wild-ride adventure story with a high body count. Anybody who suspected it was remotely true should have called the police, not just sent a rejection.
It's not the first time I've had a rejection that makes it obvious nobody's read my submission–usually a requested partial rather than an initial query–but the system does seem to be too overloaded to work. Is there another one that would work better? I haven't the foggiest.
Nathan Bransford says
anne-
I'm sure it was a failure in the reply, not that no one read it. On the flip-side, I request plenty of partials from people who wildly misspell my name.
Candy says
I queried an agent who used a form; the form asked some interesting questions I never would have included in a query: favorite line from my manuscript, what writer influenced me the most, and so on. At first I was intimidated, but then I saw how I could make the form work to my advantage. (The agent also requested a query and opening pages.)
If I were an agent, I'd take this approach, too–ask some questions that would help me understand the writer and his or her work a little better, things a query and/or the first opening pages might not reveal. I think a lot of good work slips through the cracks because it doesn't fit into the query/first five pages mold.
Marjorie says
The query process would work if the literary agents handle the process in a professional and structured manner. What writer will send in a query thinking it might become fodder for a mass joke? It certainly gives pause for thought.
Having said that, literary agents need to be intuitive. They need to look past the structure of the query and determine if the content of the described project will interest the public. The rest is all nonsense.
It would be like a comic "selling" his set to a booker. Shut up with the well-honed pitch already and let's hear the meat: the material.
This would be a great query:
"My book: How a great manicure cured my fear of sex. Literary agent, are you interested in seeing more of my memoir?"
You do not need more than a one-pitch line. 'Nuff said.
Lavender says
I would like to take issue with this claim I see a lot: that a writer should not have to be good at writing a query, because writers aren't salespeople, and therefore queries are a bad method for finding agents. I completely disagree. As writers, we are salespeople to the core. If we write fiction, we need to sell readers on an entire cast of characters, plot, and often a new world; convincing them they want to read on and making the above items believable.
In fact, they need to be so believable that readers will knowingly choose to care about people and events that they know for a fact are fictional. We have to do that using only words. If that does not require good sales ability, I don't know what does.
It is even true for nonfiction; we need to present things in an exciting way that says: this matters.
For a good book by a good writer, the query should be a simple afterthought. A matter of learning the format and just fitting it to the book. If I were an agent, I would be concerned if an author couldn't create the tension and present the conflict and relatable main character in a few paragraphs, or summarize their book in a synposis. I would expect the author to be so excited by their story and character that they can easily show what makes their book special in a few words.
If I saw that an author used the excuse that "writers are not salespeople" to explain a poor query, I would lose interest and wonder how they missed this very basic truth: Writers are nothing but salespeople who use the written word to convince readers of something. I think convincing a reader that an entire imaginary story is worth hours of their time; worth shutting out the real world–that takes more sales ability and convincing than selling used cars by a long shot. So don't say we aren't salespeople.
Just my two cents.
Emily Anderson says
There is no way to have a perfect system on a subjective process. I don't envy agents having to scan through the mass of queries, but it's no fun being a writer being scanned over either. I read books all the time that I can't believe made it to publishing when I know there are great works out there being overlooked because writers don't like to market themselves or they haven't found a way to spark an agent's interest.
If I were an agent, I'd go for an online submission to weed out form queries. I'd ask questions about genre with specific instructions about what I was interested in and what I wouldn't read. I'd ask if the ms has been critiqued to encourage first-time authors to edit and get feedback. I'd ask what books writers read during the process or influenced them to see if they are serious about improving their craft and what style they are aiming to achieve. I'd ask if they saw their work as literary or commercial, plot-driven or character driven which isn't something you can tell from a blurb. I saw an online submission form that asked for a favorite sentence; I liked that. I'm sure as an agent you could come up with other things that you can't find out from a query but are nonetheless important and then include a small space for experience and blurb. More than anything, I'd want to see those first 5 pages. You can get a better feel for a writer's ability to write by reading the first paragraph of an ms than you can from a query.
Marjorie says
Lavender:
You wrote at the end of your comment: "Just my two cents." I hate seeing that at the end of anything. It seems so darn apologetic. You should be strong and confident in your opinion. It is interesting. I think you should lose that expression, "just my two cents."
Francis says
Marjorie, it has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of confidence with one self when you sign "my 2 cents".
It's simply a humble way of saying "in my opinion" so you don't sound like an arrogant ass,
Lavender says
Marjorie,
I agree with Francis in this case, haha. Thank you for your support though. My point in adding that "my two cents" was to clarify I know not everyone will agree with me, nor am I claiming to be 100% right. Also, that I am not brushing off the thought and work many people put into queries at all–I know that is not always easy. I simply think that the reason some people give for disliking them (about "sales") is incorrect; since sales is about convincing people of ideas, and so is writing fiction.
Adam says
I don't think the querying process works as well as it could. It is the quality of the manuscript that matters in the end, and adding a query letter on top only makes it more difficult to get the manuscript evaluated. How many good books get missed because some arbitrary thing in the query wasn't up to snuff?
But at the same time, there is no feasible way a publisher or agent can read as many manuscripts as people send them. So the query process was meant to make things more efficient.
I think the best solution is for publishers (and maybe agents… I'm not sure if it is a good idea for them yet…) to hire sub-editors who are trained to critically evaluate manuscripts. Then then search through the slush pile and hand over the cream of the crop to the editors, who end up with much less junk to sift through. But why would they add the expense of pre-readers? By requiring the submitting author to pay for the service. Perhaps a payment of $40 or so with every submission. Not only would it keep many people who aren't as serious or professional from submitting, but even in the unlikely event a screener spent an hour on each manuscript, it would be profitable ($40 an hour? To read? Sign me up!) The publisher doesn't lose any money, nothing good is as likely to slip through the cracks, and the editor has more time.
As an author, the only way I would accept paying that money is if I got some type of evaluation back. For a work I've spent a year writing, doing my best to make perfect, I'd pay $40 a few times over for someone to give their honest feedback on sample chapters. But the way it works now, I have to rely on friends (not too reliable), online critiques (can't really trust them), pay a book doctor ($40 is ok. $4000 is not), or hope that the editor gives a good critique back with a rejection… which due to the fact that they are busy reading too many queries just won't happen.
So that's my dream world. Authors pay for the time to get their book reviewed. Everybody wins, and it eliminates the frustration that an author just can't get their foot in the door.
Marjorie says
Well, if she wrote it I know it is her opinion. I do not conclude that somebody stating a strong opinion is an "arrogant ass." I think that would only be the case if a person was trying to convince others that his opinion is the correct opinion. It's not a debate. Everybody weighs in.
When I read "just my two cents," it sounded apologetic, not humble. There is no right or wrong with opinions. So, what Lavender had to say is interesting to me, even though I disagree. And I was disappointed with that cliche, "just my two cents." It's not worth two cents, it is worth more.
I hate that expression.
wishnackha says
I don't believe sending a query on its own works. Why? It's not the story, no matter how well it's written.
A page stating genre, word length and author details is all that should be required, along with 1st 3 chapters.
An agent can tell if it's good or not, so may reject after the first page on some; may find themselves at the end of chapter three – wishing they had more – with others.
This system would not require more reading, as the agents would only continue reading if the story grabbed them.
This would work much better, I think. Let the writing sell itself.