Querying Phillip

So, the third draft of the novel is done, and today begins the querying process.

I get asked a lot about what this process is and how it works, so I’m going to try to lay it out short and sweet, in the hopes to be informative, but not boring.

I’m now looking for an agent. An agent will represent the book with publishers, drawing on knowledge of and relationships in the publishing industry. He or she will take a standard 15%.

Today, what I’ll be doing is preparing proposals for each agent I think might work well with this book, and my career going forward. I’m looking to pitch it to six or eight.

Agents’ guidelines differ. The first guy I’m going to pitch–after a follow up to the agent I’ve already pitched it to once–requires the one-page query letter, a 35-word synopsis, a one to two-page outline, and the first three chapters.

After that, different ones will want different things, with the one-page query letter as standard among all.

So, that will be today. It’s a lot of work, and since I haven’t written a chapter outline or a synopsis–you can’t imagine how difficult it might be to write 35 words–and I’ll be drafting a new query–the same basic template used and then personalized to each   agent–that might be tomorrow too.

So, I’ll see you here when I see you here. Keep me in your prayers. Lord knows I’ll need them.

Until soon…