But what if you can’t do that?  I mean, what if you try to write a query letter–and by “try” I do not mean “give up after the space of an afternoon”–I mean, try and try and try to write a query letter over the space of months, and still don’t get anything that you love?  Some people say that this is a sign your manuscript has fundamental flaws in plot, or that you are a bad writer.  But since this happened to me, I’m going to tell you that it’s possible you are just a bad querier.  Being a bad querier doesn’t make you a bad writer; it just makes you a bad querier.  Think of it like this–you can be bad at flirting, but still be really, really good in bed.

So what do you do if you are bad at flirting–uh, I mean, querying?  Obviously, my path to publication is not one everyone can follow, but it was hardly the only path to publication.  And, knowing that I was not particularly good at querying, I did not hang all my hopes on the slim possibility that I would win Sherry’s query critique, and the even slimmer possibility that she would read my pages as a result, followed by the completely anorexic possibility that she would like what she read.  I had a lot of irons in the fire.  Here’s some of the things I considered.

Ways to Skip Querying

If you can’t query, it makes sense to try to find ways to get your material in front of an agent through some other means.  Here are some that I tried.

• Networking. If you know someone who likes your writing, who has an agent, ask them to recommend you.  I didn’t ask Sherry to recommend me to Kristin–she offered–but I did ask a few other people, who said yes.
• Networking (part II). I volunteered to do things, like give a workshop at the Beaumonde’s annual conference.  One of the multi-published, award-winning authors who attended my workshop ran into me a few days later and said she’d enjoyed my workshop so much that she’d mentioned me to her agent, who wanted to see more.  Someone else (who had also judged me in a contest) later told me she’d mentioned me to her editor, and her editor had asked to see my manuscript.  At the time, I had an agent and we were already on submission (with offers on the table), but I really appreciated both those efforts–and you can be sure I would have followed up on them.  If you are bad at querying, it helps to put yourself out there.  It may never pay any dividends–in fact, when I volunteered to do the workshop, I never imagined there would be dividends; I just thought I’d done a lot of useful research that might help other historical romance writers–but if nobody knows who you are, nobody can help you out.  And believe it or not, a lot of published authors–including multi-published, award-winning authors–really do want to help out younger writers.
• Conferences. I went to Chicago North’s Spring Fling Conference, where I pitched to two agents (one of whom was Kristin) and one editor.  All three requested materials.  Of course, this depends on your having a good pitch, but believe it or not, I found it much easier to pitch in person than on paper.  I think it’s because expectations for in-person pitches are lower, and since I’ve spent time as a lawyer, I probably have more experience handling my speaking-out-loud anxiety.  Also, most agents are too nice to say “no” in person.  Take advantage of that.
• Contests. I specifically entered contests that had agents listed as the final judge.  To be honest, I am surprised that more people do not do this.  Editor judges are well and good, but I wanted to get an agent first.  So I targeted contests with agent judges.  Of course, my manuscript that ended up getting published fared exceptionally unevenly in contests, and so I never finaled in any of those contests–but don’t think I didn’t try it!
• Critiques. At the point when I signed with Kristin, I had not yet bid on agent/editor critiques, but these are offered every so often from various auctions.  I got a lot of mileage out of Anna Campbell’s critique from Brenda Novak’s auction, and at the point when I signed with Kristin, I had already scoped out the agents on the list there.  Let’s be frank–this option is very, very expensive, and I hadn’t decided if I was going to do it.  But you do get your pages in front of the agent in question.  It’s useful.  But the price is so high that unless you really don’t mind donating that money to charity, it makes much, much more sense to attend a conference where your agent-of-choice will be, in order to pitch to her (and others as well).

Ways to Make Agents Request From a Query (despite not nailing the pitch paragraph)

Of course, you’ll notice that all of the items on the list above have a serious cost–money or time or connections, none of which are infinite.  So I also focused on ways to make an agent request my manuscript from a query, even if I never managed to nail that pitch paragraph.

• Contests, again. In my case, since there are a lot of RWA chapter contests, and it’s never clear to an agent or editor how competitive the individual chapter contests are, I thought it was important to have something Big in the bio paragraph.  For romance writers, there is one main Big contest:  The Golden Heart.  I read everything I could in preparation for the Golden Heart.  I stalked the Wet Noodle Posse‘s blog in November, when they talked about what to do.  I polished and polished my synopsis and pages for both my eligible manuscripts.  There are no guarantees, of course, and I was lucky that one of my two manuscripts finaled.  But it wasn’t just luck.  I had done enough research that I knew I should end on as strong a hook as possible, that I needed to have my best, cleanest pages there, and that the synopsis was far more important than I had originally thought.  I hoped that if I could say “I am a Golden Heart finalist,” that the agent reading the pages would give me bonus query points that would make up for a subpar pitch paragraph.
• Homework. I had a list of agents.  I did a scary amount of research on the agents on my list.  I don’t just mean looking up who their clients were.  I mean, googling them for any and all interviews about what they were looking for; reading numerous client books, to see if my voice/style seemed like something they would be interested in.  For every agent on my list, I had several bullet points, so that when I actually sent the query, it would start with something like this (but obviously targeted for the agent):  “Dear Agent Y, You’ve said before that you are looking for strong, smart heroines in historical fiction.  If your client X is any indication, you do a great job finding them.  I hope you’ll be interested in reading more about Jenny Keeble, an independent, intelligent woman who has made the best of a bad lot in Victorian Britain. . . .”

  To give you an idea, by the time I pitched Kristin, I had not read Ally Carter’s “Cheating at Solitaire” (I couldn’t find it), Becky Motew’s “Coupon Girl” (ditto), Cheryl Sawyer’s first two books (ditto), and Jenny O’Connell’s nonfiction.  Everything else that she’d sold, that had been released?  I’d read it.  And Kristin wasn’t the only one whose client list I went through so voraciously.  I love reading, and I figured that the more I liked someone’s client list, the more likely it was that they’d like me.  There was not an agent in my top ten list where I hadn’t read books by at least three clients, if not more.  (Besides, I really do love reading, and an agent’s list is like a list of recommendations.)  I wanted to be able to truthfully and clearly convey that I thought I was a good fit for her list.  So I did my homework.  I did a lot of homework.

• Voodoo. I have to admit, I had a very firm idea in my mind who I wanted to represent me.  I was also terrified of jinxing it, and so I didn’t tell anyone what my list was.  Seriously.  My critique partners asked me when we were in Vegas, and I think I gave them some really vague ridiculous answer that wasn’t even true.  Was it because I didn’t trust them?  No.  It was because I didn’t want the universe to overhear and decide to taunt me Odysseus-style.  I was sure that it would, given half a chance.

  I am not normally a superstitious person.  In fact, I probably lean toward hyper-rational.  But occasionally (and I blame you for this, Mom) I indulge in ridiculously superstitious impulses.  This was one of them.

• The bio paragraph. I’ve done a few things that are different and interesting, perhaps even among writers.  I wanted to make sure my bio paragraph captured that without going over the line into boring the agent with credentials.  That being said, given a choice between saying “I am a personal assistant,” and saying, “I am Oprah Winfrey’s personal assistant,” you always want to say the latter.  (But given a choice between saying “I am a personal assistant,” and “I am Joe Blow Off The Street’s personal assistant,” you are just a personal assistant.)

So there you have it.  If you’re bad at querying and you didn’t win a critique from Sherry Thomas, you still have a lot of options.  Don’t let a little thing like being bad at querying stop you from getting your manuscript read.

Oh, and one final thing?  If you are bad at querying, you’ll probably get fewer requests for pages.  That means that every request you get must count.  Seriously count.  And that means, especially if you are bad at querying, your pages have to be damned, damned good in bed.

Over on Nathan Bransford’s blog, there’s a lengthy (and really interesting) discussion about whether it’s okay to write your own query letters.  Some people say that a query letter is your own work and anything else is dishonest.  Other people say, whatever works, works.  Jennifer Jackson says, unequivocally, no, you should write your own query letter.

I do want to point out one thing, which I hope doesn’t piss off anybody.  On this point, the interests of agents and writers do not align 100%.  As a writer, you want someone to pay maximum attention to your pages.  But an agent wants to focus her very valuable time only on the projects that are most likely to pay dividends.  If I were an agent, I think I would shiver in fear at the thought of everyone being able to produce really awesome queries–because then how do you allocate your valuable time?  How do you filter out manuscripts?  As an unagented writer, I didn’t care about any of those concerns.  I just wanted to hop the filter.

But I do have to say that I think it worked in my case for two reasons.  First, the query letter that Sherry wrote was one that I rewrote until it was in my voice.  Sherry did an awesome job of highlighting the conflict.  And because she doesn’t do this regularly, and wasn’t getting paid for it, and read the pages and got the manuscript, she really understood the crux of the conflict in my book and to help me get it right in the query letter.  I doubt you could pay someone to do what Sherry did for me, and I seriously doubt that someone could start a query service that would make money on such an endeavor.  And when Sherry sent me the version with the conflict highlighted, she specifically did not edit it–so that I would be forced to go and write it in my voice.

I wanted to hop the filter, but I also knew I wanted to hop the filter with the right agents.  And so I knew it was my responsibility to take what Sherry had given me and both make it representative of my voice, and make sure that it captured the heart of my book.  I wanted an agent to read it and think, “how cool”–and then read my pages and think, “yep, that’s what this query told me.”

In some sense, a query letter is like giving an agent a sniff of your book before they take a bite.  Have you ever bitten into something expecting raspberry, and gotten ketchup instead?  Even if you like ketchup, the difference between expectation and actual delivery will make you recoil.  I knew that if the query did not represent my book on all levels, it wouldn’t be a good tool for me in the long run.  So I didn’t send it out until I was sure that it represented my book.  More importantly, I also felt like the query letters I tried to write myself did not represent my book, either–they weren’t good enough for it–and so I wasn’t going to send them, either.

I think you should do as an author whatever works.  I don’t think it would work to have someone else write your query, and not have it represent your book, both in terms of plot summary, quality of writing, and voice.  And I think that if you don’t know what represents your voice and quality of writing and the plot of your book, you have bigger problems then a mere query letter.

This might give you the impression that I am actually capable of writing a good query letter.  That impression would be . . . insanely offbase.  If you’ve been following me, you know that Sherry Thomas wrote my query letter.

My own query letters for the book…. they sucked.  So I’m posting the outtakes on this blog.

Query Letter number one:

The last person a scientifically-minded lord wants to consult is a fortune-teller. And yet Gareth Carhart, marquess of Blakely, finds himself doing exactly that in order to prove to his
gullible cousin that “Madame Esmerelda” cannot see the future.

Madame Esmerelda—otherwise known as Jenny Keeble—doesn’t need special powers to know scientific tests are bad for business. But just because Jenny’s a fraud doesn’t mean she’ll surrender. She decides to subject Gareth’s scientific mind to more illogic than it can bear. And so she predicts that the marquess will marry another woman, but only if he completes tasks.  Humiliating tasks. He’ll have to hand-make gifts. Sing in public. The only way he can disprove her predictions is to perform at her command, and she’s sure he’ll give up first.

Tasks or no tasks, Gareth won’t capitulate. There’s another way he can demonstrate Madame Esmerelda isn’t an otherworldly, metaphysical oracle. He’ll show she’s more than susceptible to his very worldly, very physical charms. But neither science nor séance can foretell the risk seduction poses to Gareth’s heart.

Sherry’s comment on this query letter was something like, gee, I see no internal conflict here.

So here’s my second attempt at a query letter, which also sucks:

Propriety usually consigns well-educated women who lack family and fortune to the depths of governessing.  But Jenny Keeble has never let a little thing like the crushing weight of society’s expectations stop her.  Instead, she earns a living pretending to consult spirits.  Business flourishes until Gareth Carhart, the scientifically-minded Marquess of Blakely, vows to prove she’s faking.

Just because Jenny’s a fraud doesn’t mean she’ll give up without a fight.  And so she tailors her predictions to challenge Gareth’s insular nature.  She expects he’ll retreat rather than give up his isolation.  When she discovers his cold, logical attitude is as much a facade as her gypsy clothing, though, victory slips from her grasp.  Because neither science nor séance has prepared her to grasp the intimacy she craves while holding onto the independence she’s earned.

My critique partner was like, “what are the depths of governessing, and what do they have to do with your book?”  My response:  They are like the depths of hell, except deeper.  When you are trying to explain the jokes in your query letter to your own critique partner, it’s probably a sign that it is not a funny joke.

Sherry said to this one:  You know, this isn’t very deep conflict.  Can you tell me more about what’s emotionally at stake?

I think I sent her about five pages of rambling, and then tried to sum up with this query paragraph:

Jenny Keeble’s talents as a fortune teller have brought her the respect and financial independence she craves.  The only problem is, she knows that respect is as false as her fraudulent prophesies.  And so when the coldly logical Marquess of Blakely confronts her with scientific proof of her fraud, she must choose between losing the social position she’s fought for, and earning the esteem of the one man who sees who she really is.

I think this is about the point where my critique partner said, “There is nothing about love in your query letter.  Where’s the romance?  You’re supposed to be writing a romance novel.”  At this point, I may have turned into a raging lunatic.  Query letters do that to me.  Sherry was also not really into this and asked me a number of questions about my secondary character, about Gareth.  And then she asked me the kicker:  “So, where’s the hot?”

That prompted me to write this:

Baseborn Jenny Keeble has won a measure of independence by pretending to tell the future.  So when Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely, threatens to prove she is a fraud, she won’t surrender.  Instead, she foretells that the coldly logical Marquess will fall prey to the emotions he scorns.  Gareth responds with a prediction of his own:  She’ll bed him before the month is up.  To her dismay, she finds herself increasingly attracted to the only man that can see through the web of lies she’s built.  But no matter how compelling Gareth’s counter-hypothesis is, Jenny’s not about to give up her hard-won independence for a man who is unable to postulate love.

At this point, Sherry gave up on my being able to construct a viable query on my own with help from her, so she read my pags and threw together in what seemed like a few minutes something that looks substantially like what Kristin posted on her blog.  So there you are–I suck at queries.  Yay for me!

Out of the whole query process though, I did get three good words.  As I was struggling to be clever in a very small amount of space, I kept trying to work in phrases.  You can see the “science or seance” thing earlier on, which eventually got ditched because it just didn’t work (and besides, the word “seance” had not entered the English language at the time when my book is set, so it is anachronistic).  As I was struggling the fifth time around, the phrase I kept trying to work in was “seduction by induction”–another one of those jokes that I think is funny and everyone else says, “WTF?”  At some point, I realized that this shortened very nicely into “Proof by Seduction.”  That is the title I used to pitch, and the title of the book when it went on submission.  It might even be the title of the book when it goes on the shelves–we shall see!