#Querying #Publishers in the US

Here’s an update to the post below by Allison Williams:

I’ll add something for authors who wish to query in the USA – literary agent Janet Reid‘s blog is terrifically helpful with query and process guidance (it’s not quite as scary as ‘they’ll trash you if your title isn’t in italics 🙂 ) and the Query Shark blog is great for exactly how to write a query and where authors go wrong.

Also, the practice I’ve followed and that has helped many writers I know – send queries in batches, not all at once. Query 10 agents. If they all say no, something’s wrong with the query, so revise it before sending to the next ten. If agents request pages and then say no, revise the pages before sending to the next ten.

In the USA it’s important to send a personal query (Dear Agent X, I appreciate your focus on books like this, and here’s how I fit into your list). It’s hard to get personal if querying too many at once. Plus, the advice I’ve found useful is that you don’t want any agent, you want the one who is a good match for you and your book, and that’s also where small-batch querying helps: you have time to carefully vet the agents and see who you really want to query.