Query Prep

Hey guys! Hope you're busy rocking January. :)

I'm a huge fan of planning. (Like, as in Andrea's organization posts make me green with envy and also really impressed, kind of in love with planning.) So today I'm collecting up some of my favorite tips for planning out querying and managing where and how you go through submitting a project.

I've read submissions for a literary agent and currently read for Entangled, and after seeing two of my CPs successfully query projects and land agents, I've put together a list. Disclaimer: these are suggestions-- obviously, different strategies work for different people on some of these, some are just good sense, and others I've cited agent/editor opinion where I can. Ultimately, you're the best judge of what works for you. 

Revisions.

Yeah, okay. You've heard this before, probably lots of times. Agents and editors only want your polished manuscripts, and polishing may mean tacking on a few more months or weeks to your querying schedule. Are revisions worth it? YES. In querying, you're auditioning to work with someone for possibly the rest of your writing career, or at least a large chunk of it, ideally. NaNoWriMo's even got a Now What? section dedicated to revising.

Part of showing an agent that you'd be a good client (or an editor that you'd be a good author to work with and publish) is showing them that you take the time to revise and develop your work on your own before passing it off to them. When I read a sub, it's pretty clear how much effort a writer put into it. If it reads like a bonsai (as in, it is sculpted and the branches are all nicely accounted for), then the more likely I am to love it. 

Is this going to take more time? Yes. Is it going to be worth it? Take it away, Epictetus. 

Gather CPs and betas, bring them into the manuscript party.

Sometimes to create your great thing, you need some help from other people. And it's cool. If you have CPs already, then get them to read your manuscript and give you some feedback. If you're looking for a fresh eyes on a project your CPs have already been through the ringer with, consider reaching out on twitter for betas. 

Don't have a CP yet, but interested in finding one? 

How About We CP is probably my fave resource for this (beyond our own kickass Buddies Project, obviously), because it's how I found one of my good friends. There's some awesome people out there and it's got helpful tags for easy genre-matching. Go forth and make friends! 

Draft a synopsis and query letter while you revise.

I love Query Shark. Honestly, one of the things that got me more comfortable writing queries was being exposed to a LOT of them. When I was interning with Mary Kole, I read a ton of queries and that was really helpful for seeing what worked and what didn't. Read lots of them, either on QS or register for Write On Con, and check out the query forums there.

The reason I suggest drafting these up while you revise is that it a) gives you a break from revising, which is nice b) has you write about what's going on in the story while it's fresh in your mind and you're excited about it and c) affords you enough time to put the query/synopsis down and pick it up again to see if it's as good and accurate as it can be.  

Research agents or editors, and choose which you'll query/submit to.

Research is pretty obvious-- you need to know who represents what genres, who wants your query, synopsis, and first five, ten, fifteen, chapter, three chapters, etc. I don't mean query an agent or an editor exclusively (exclusivity is rarely a good idea), but do choose whether you want to query agents or submit to editors. Dahlia Alder has a fantastic post on the subject for an idea how agents and editors feel when you query them simultaneously.

Again, ultimately it's your manuscript and I, as this tiny internet person, can do little to stay your clicky inbox hand. To me, though, these are different goals-- finding an agent for your career (who may not be able to sell the manuscript you signed with her) versus finding an editor for a specific manuscript (who may be less interested in your next story). Ask: am I trying to get agent representation for my whole career with this manuscript, or is this project something I feel would do best at a smaller publisher? Both are equally legitimate and make awesome books.

Have your CPs/betas read your query.

Maybe this seems obvious, but in case not: the people who've read your story are the ones you want to read your query. Are you focusing on the main conflict? Are you bringing enough of the voice in, are you setting the stakes? Your CPs and betas are awesome for help with this.

Send yourself a test email. Does it all look okay?

Paste your query and first whatever many pages into an email and send it to yourself. You'll see what agents and editors will see (if they use email submissions). Make sure that it formats nicely, and enjoy that peace of mind when it does. 

Make it easy for people with e-readers. 

This is one that I didn't know since I read submissions on my laptop. But, as more and more agents are using e-readers to read work, consider doing this to help them out:

Also, change the title/author of your manuscript in "Properties" in Word -- that's what I see as title/author on my ereader. #pubtip
— Hannah Bowman (@hannahnpbowman) July 22, 2013

It's also helpful to paste your query on the first page of the manuscript, too, so it's easy for an agent to remember which manuscript they're reading.

Collect up some inspiration, and prepare to move onto your next project. 
Start thinking up what you want to work on next! This can be super exciting, spending time cultivating your TBR (who am I kidding everyone's TBRs are probably massive) or researching for your next writing project. Whether you plan, pants, or something in between, this is the time to start your creative mojo. 

Remember: querying/subbing isn't the final say on everything, but the draft honeymoon should be over. 

Not getting any bites on a manuscript doesn't mean that it's the end of the line for it-- however, this is the point where the honeymoon should be over. (Revisions were the honeymoon, as awkward and perfect as that sounds.) You know the weaknesses and the strengths of this piece, you recognize that you have written a full and complete story, and you're ready to settle into moving onto the next phase of your writing life post-wedding/creating and forging manuscript. It doesn't mean that you never think about it, but more that the major creative showdown is done (until edit letters), you've taken it as far as you can go, and you're moving towards the next big challenge in your writing life.

Separate email accounts, social media as needed. 
This is two-in-one. Your query email needs to be professional-looking. That means your.name@whatevermail or soandsowrites@ or your.name.writer@ if your name is already taken. It looks scads less professional if you're sending queries from queenofinfinity@gmail.com or fourfangirl4444@hotmail.com.

How much separation you want between your email is up to you. I have all my writing mail forward to one place, but I can also understand (for stress/anxiety reducing purposes) wanting to have a "safe" email where you don't have to see rejections until you're ready. (I have a separate account for school-related email because sometimes I just want to be a cool writer person without worrying about who's asking me to extend their homeworks or whatever for a few hours.) Whatever works for you.

You've already heard that you have to be careful about social media-- if your CPs use gchat or text, I recommend saving the rants and sadfacing for those outlets. If you must use twitter or something to vent, either do it over DMs, or make another account for venting and protect your tweets so that only your friends/CPs can see them. Agents will check.

Batches, and the one rejection enters, another query leaves system.
Again, this is one of those your-mileage-may-vary dealios, but I feel like it keeps morale up to send out one more query whenever a rejection comes in. 

The "Badass" label, aka, keeping up your self-esteem.

Hopping on the ego train again, because querying is Rough on self-worth-- prepare for it beforehand. My trick (and you're totally welcome to laugh at/with me in the comments about this) is to label emails that make me feel awesome-- from CPs or people telling me how awesome my writing is, to cool art that people send me, or even just emails that say that someone I admire is following me on Twitter (yes, I am that vain)-- with this label that says "badass" on it. So, when I'm feeling like I suck, I can just click the badass label and remember that hey, I am kind of cool after all.

Spreadsheets! Or, keeping track of your stats.
Okay, so no one is going to hold a gun to your head and force you to keep track of these suckers. But you should have some means/method of making sure that you didn't send a query to an agent who's already rejected the manuscript you're querying. I personally recommend a spreadsheet (because I am mathy and excitable), but for the excel-phobic there's also QueryTracker.

Any more suggestions or awesome stuff I missed? Share it in the comments!

When Alex Yuschik isn't writing her next YA novel, she's working on someone else's as an intern at Entangled Publishing. She writes about lock picks, ghosts, the abandoned places in cities, and how not to strike bargains with stars. Between sneaking in time to game and rocking out to indie music, Alex spends the rest of her free time working towards her PhD in mathematics. You know, as one does.

You can find her on Twitter @: https://twitter.com/alexyuschik

Or drop her an email at: alex.yuschik@gmail.com

And also visit her website @: alexyuschik.blogspot.com 

Writing a Successful Query: A Special "SeCrit" Feature

Hi lovelies!

Today's SeCrit is going to be a little different. Instead of critiquing a user-submitted query, we're going to break apart one of our own successful queries and attempt to help you see how and why it worked. Below is Stefanie Gaither's original query, which had about a 2/3 request rate and resulted in multiple offers.

Okay, here we go!

Dear Agent,

I’m currently seeking representation for my YA novel, FALLS THE SHADOW. Given your interest in science fiction, I thought it might be something you’d enjoy reading. Here’s a quick look at the plot:

 [This first paragraph was pretty standard across all the queries Stef sent. Short, sweet, and to the point. A lot of people will make a big deal about bending over backwards to get really specific in the personalization and show that you've spent hours and hours stalking researching the agent. Which you should research, definitely. But if you've targeted your queries well enough (that is, you know it's definitely something the agent will want to read) then it should speak for itself--no elaborate declarations of love or personalizations necessary. In short: stop stressing over this. Story is most important.]

When Cate Benson was twelve, her sister died. Two hours after the funeral, they picked up Violet’s replacement, and the family made it home in time for dinner and a game of cards.

[This is the "hook" paragraph. Its purpose is to make the agent/editor sit up and pay attention, the same way the first line in the manuscript should do. Notice all of the things just these two sentences establish: character(s), the fact that this is sci-fi (as implied by the "replacement" bit), world-building and voice-- the non-nonchalant bit about the cards was a way of using voice to show that, in Cate and Violet's world, this "replacing" is commonplace. You have only so many words to work with in a query, so they should ALL count, and pull double-duty whenever possible. Actually, that's just a good rule of well-paced writing in general.]    

It's the year 2055, and Cate's parents are among the wealthy elite who can afford to give their children a sort of immortality—by cloning them at birth. So this new Violet has the same smile. The same laugh. That same perfect face. Thanks to advancements in mind-uploading technology, she even has all the same memories as the girl she replaced.  

[This paragraph builds on the intrigue established in the hook. At this point, you've (hopefully) already caught the reader's attention, so you can afford to elaborate a bit without worrying about losing them. If Stef had started with this paragraph, it probably would not have been as effective. This paragraph is important in its own right, though, because in sci-fi, worldbuilding is incredibly important-- so your query should demonstrate some level of it. Notice that it stays central to the characters, though, and includes only the worldbuilding necessary for developing the hook. There is a ton of other cool sci-fish stuff in the book, of course, but the query isn't the place to discuss that.]

She also might have murdered the most popular girl in school.

[And now we have our Story Worthy Problem-- our MC has a murder mystery to solve] 

Or at least, that’s what the paparazzi and the crazy anti-cloning protesters want everyone to think: that clones are violent, unpredictable monsters. Cate is used to hearing all that, though. She’s used to standing up for her sister too, and she’s determined to do it now—even if proving Violet’s innocence means taking on those protesters and anyone else attacking her family. But when her own life is threatened—not by protesters, but by the very scientists who created her sister’s clone—Cate starts questioning everything she thought she knew about the cloning movement. About herself. About her sister.

[Again, we've dropped a bomb of a hook about a possibly murderous sister, so now we have the reader's attention and can feed them a bit more information. This paragraph does two things at once: establishes more about the world of the book, and also about Cate's character by showing the way she deals with that world. It is all tightly intertwined to make the query feel more cohesive.]          

And the answers she finds reveal a more sinister purpose for her sister’s copy—and her own replacement—than she ever could have imagined.

[This last paragraph is purposefully vague, hinting at a bigger story and more complications to come.]

FALLS THE SHADOW is an accessible, character-driven sci-fi thriller of 81,000 words. The completed manuscript is available, in part or full, at your request. As per your agency’s guidelines, I’ve enclosed a SASE for your reply. Thanks for your time and consideration!

[Like the opening, the closing is short and sweet and to the point. Including "As per your agency's guidelines..." and whatever they ask for is just a quick and easy way to show you read said guidelines.]

A few random thoughts on query writing:

-Almost as important as what's in this query is what is not in it. There is no mention of subplots--nothing about the romance or the love interest (though there definitely is one of those), nothing about any other characters except for Cate and Violet. The reason? Because they are the crux of this particular story-- the characters that this story wouldn't exist without. Of course there are more characters, and they all complicate this story in their own way, but tangled and complicated is not what you're going for in a query. You don't want your query to seem muddled, because you don't want an agent/editor to think your book is just as muddled.

-Sometimes it's easier to write the query before you write the book (which is what Stef did with this query-- it changed very little through the process of writing the actual book). Because you don't get caught up in the aforementioned subplots and such, since you don't know about a lot of those subplots and intricacies and complications. Which is not helpful to those of you with completed books, but something to think about for future projects, maybe?

-Pay attention to white space. Break up your paragraphs. Set apart more dramatic lines (hooks), because it makes them feel more dramatic. Is it a cheap trick to manipulate reader's emotions? Of course it is. The same way using shorter sentences for dramatic effect and emphasis is. Writing is full of cheap tricks.

-You've probably heard this before, but a good way to think about queries is to think of them as cover copy on published books. That copy is intended to make a reader buy a book, and you're essentially doing the same thing here--trying to sell your pitch to agents/editors

-There is no completely wrong or right way to write a query, just like there's no wrong or right way to write a book. This query worked for Stefanie, and for her book, but all writing is subjective. Bottom line? You just need to make people want to read the thing, however possible. So take everything in this post with a grain of salt. Hopefully it helps in some way!

Feel free to post your query writing tips and tricks in the comments, or if anyone knows any great resources for query writing, share away!

Also, quick housekeeping note: 

The winner for our GAME OF SECRETS event will be announced tomorrow! And be sure to come back Thursday for an awesome author interview as well :)

Andrea's SeCrit: A YA Fantasy Query

[NOTE: I have no idea why some of the font below is gray, and some is black. So sorry. I tried to fix it forever and gave up.] 

Hey, everyone! 

I'll be heading up this round of SeCrits, and I've decided to critique a query this week. I actually like query writing (please don't murder me) so I'd thought I'd help out a reader in this department.

A couple of reasons why I chose the query below: 

• It's structurally sound overall, but it still needs a bit of work. 
Basically, I felt like I could help really tighten this up and polish it with word choice and fluency, which is my strength as a writer, I think.
• It's not a genre I usually read. I don't read a lot of fantasy, but in this case, that's good! Since I'm not really familiar with the nuances of the genre, I think I'm more likely to point out areas that don't make sense to us fantasy noobs, which I think will help the whole thing get clearer.
• I immediately had ideas how to fix it. This one's pretty self-explanatory. 

[But here's the thing: If you submitted a query to me, I read through them all. I'll also be emailing you all back about your queries and offering love/compliments/maybe a few simple suggestions to help you out. WOOT.] 

So now, on to the query + crit!

Dear Super Fantastic Agent, 

Sera is the heiress to the throne in a different dimension, but no one told her.  Consequently, she’s living a normal—albeit, boring—life, and then she’s whisked away by a (very rich and very attractive) guy, who then turns out to be an incubus, working for an evil queen, who is also Sera’s mother. 

Sera’s ‘parents’ also forgot to mention they’re actually rebels from Naian—the dimension Sera should be ruling—who stole her when she was an infant.  Oh, and there’s this ‘Foretelling,’ something Lucifer made up giving Sera the sole power to decide the outcome of Naian’s civil war.  Too bad everyone believes it’s true and is therefore trying to either kiss her ass or kill her. 

While she’s on this self-discovery kick, she also learns that she has an alien guy fetish.  First the incubus, then her rebel friend, Lux, who she meets on an interdimensional race against the regime for an explanation of the Foretelling.  Between solving riddles, facing monsters, traipsing all over hell, and surviving the attacks of Queen Anicetus’ vicious incubus, Sera and Lux get pretty hot for each other.
But, that’s the other problem.  The incubus.  The dark, sarcastic, damn-near-invincible incubus who oozes sex appeal and never loses.  His name is Lord Caden, and he has a thing for Sera. 

Though she’d rather not, Sera does have to choose between them—between Lux and Lord Caden, between the rebellion and the crown.  To some, it’d be obvious: monstrous regime = no go.  But Sera’s still a little annoyed with the people who lied to her for eighteen years, and there’s also the Lux/Lord Caden thing, which she would love to write off as an unimportant factor in deciding the fate of an entire world, but she can’t.  Her morality, her friendships, her future, and the liberation of a dimension may be at stake here, but Sera doesn’t know if she can resist Lord Caden. 

SHADOW is a YA fantasy complete at 97K, and it is the first in a planned series.
I am a black belt and a barista.  I also write stories for local papers in western Montana, and I attended the Backspace Writers Conference last year.  The first XX pages of my manuscript are pasted below. 

Okay, and now here are my thoughts after a few read-throughs:

Dear Super Fantastic Agent, 

Sera is the [If this is YA, we need an age here] heiress to the throne in a different dimension, but no one told her.  Consequently, she’s living a normal—albeit, boring—life, and then she’s whisked away by a (very rich and very attractive) guy, who then turns out to be an incubus, working for an evil queen, who is also Sera’s mother. [This is a lot of information in a kind of long sentence. I'd like to see the first sentence, which is just a little confusing and not as big of a hook as I think you'll need, combine with some information in the other sentences. I'm a big fan of the "When X happens, Y happens" format for the first line in queries. Here's an example: "When eighteen-year-old Sera, heiress to the throne of a different dimension, is whisked away from her home by a very hot guy, she thinks she's hit the royal jackpot. But when he turns out to be an incubus (maybe a different word for this, unless it's relevant to the story. I have no idea what it is or if it's good or bad?) working for an evil queen—who just happens to be Sera's mother—she must choose between blah blah blah and blah blah blah. Anyway, that's just a suggestion :)]

Sera’s ‘parents’ also forgot to mention they’re actually rebels from Naian—the dimension Sera should be ruling—who stole her when she was an infant  [Something about this is a little confusing. I thought Sera's mother was the evil queen? So the evil queen is her real mother and the people that have been raising her are the rebels? I think this could be clearer. Maybe this: "Sera discovers the people she thought were her parents are actually rebels from Naian, the dimension Sera was born to rule, and they've stolen her right out from under the queen's claws...etc.] .  Oh, and there’s this ‘Foretelling,’ [colon here instead of a comma, I think. It'll give it more punch.] something Lucifer [Who's Lucifer? Is it literally the devil in your story, or just someone named that? A little clarification here, even something like "something the devil himself made up...]  made up giving Sera the sole power to decide the outcome of Naian’s civil war.  Too bad everyone believes it’s true and is therefore trying to either kiss her ass or kill her. [Is Sera discovering this stuff about herself as she figures out she's realizing she should be ruling Naian? Otherwise, how would she know she's supposed to decide the outcome of the civil war, or how would people know she has this ability? I think just a simple "When Sera goes back to her home dimension, she finds that she has the sole power to decide the outcome... blah blah.]

While she’s on this self-discovery kick [Love this!], she also learns that she has an alien guy fetish.  First the incubus, then her rebel friend, Lux, who she meets on an interdimensional race against the regime for an explanation of the Foretelling.  Between solving riddles, facing monsters, traipsing all over hell [Oh, okay, so we're probably talking about the original Lucifer then. Can you let stupid people like me know that? :)], and surviving the attacks of Queen Anicetus’ [You didn't use her name above, so I wouldn't use it now. "The queen's attacks" would do just fine.] vicious incubus, Sera and Lux get pretty hot for each other.

But, that’s the other problem.  The incubus.  The dark, sarcastic, damn-near-invincible incubus who oozes sex appeal and never loses.  His name is Lord Caden, and he has a thing for Sera. u[I think this paragraph and the one above can be stitched together. A simple line at the end of the paragraph above will help connect the love triangle all in one paragraph: Maybe something like, "But even so, Sera still can't shake the dark and dangerous sex appeal of the incubus who stole her, and as she grows closer to Lux, the incubus never strays far from her thoughts.]

Though she’d rather not, Sera does have [must] to choose between them [not necessary]—between Lux and Lord Caden, between the rebellion and the crown.  To some, it’d be obvious: monstrous regime = no go.  But Sera’s still a little annoyed [I think she'd have to be more than a little annoyed. I know you put that in there for the "voice" factor, and it would have worked, I think, if an entire dimension wasn't at stake here, haha. I think she needs to be more than a little annoyed to sacrifice an entire world, right? So you can still do the voice thing, but maybe change it to something like "super pissed" etc.] with the people who lied to her for eighteen years, and there’s also the Lux/Lord Caden thing, which she would love to write off as an unimportant factor in deciding the fate of an entire world, but she can’t.  Her morality, her friendships, her future, and the liberation of a dimension may be at stake here, but Sera doesn’t know if she can resist Lord Caden. u[I need a bit of a stronger reason to believe that Sera would eff up a whole dimension for Lord Caden. Something like "...if she can resist Lord Caden and the promises he holds." would sufffice.] 

SHADOW is a YA fantasy complete at 97K, and it is the first in a planned series.
I am a black belt and a barista.  I also write stories for local papers in western Montana, and I attended the Backspace Writers Conference last year.  The first XX pages of my manuscript are pasted below. 

And that's it! Sorry for the obnoxious orange above; I don't like to critique a piece without giving a reason why it doesn't work and also a suggestion for what might work better. Hence the word overflow above. And remember, these are just my opinions. Obviously, keep what works for you and change what doesn't. I'm not the end-all, be-all of query writing!

Alright Secret Lifers, can you help this awesome writer out? Any suggestions for how to make this query shine even more? Are there things that I missed? 

On the Verge of Puking Before and During THE CALL: That One Time Heather Marie Stared at Her Phone for Two Hours

Isn't that the classiest title ever? I kind of like it. It says it all.

I'm one of those people who get extremely nauseated when overly excited. So imagine how excited I was when I received an email from Michelle Witte on a Sunday. That's right, I said Sunday. One thing I'd gotten accustom to while querying is how everything in the writing world seems to stop from Friday-Sunday. You know how it is. Emails are flooding in, rejection after rejection, Monday through Thursday. But once the weekend arrives it's like everything goes radio silent. You pretty much tell yourself that there's no way you're gonna hear from anyone until that following Monday.

Well, I'm pretty sure I woke my husband up with my squeals when I checked my email that Sunday morning. I couldn't believe it. Of course, I was super nervous at first. I almost didn't want to open it because I didn't want a rejection from THE AGENT I wanted the most to ruin my Sunday. But the way Gmail is set up on the iPhone, you get a sneak peek of the first sentence in the email and I knew immediately I had to open it. The first thing it said was: Do you have time this week to chat? My palms got all sweaty and my stomach did a somersault. I was thinking: No way. No way did this just happen.

Within 24 hours, I pretty much talked to everyone I knew who was a writer. I didn't know what to do or what to ask. Everyone was excited for me, of course, but then they started telling me not to get too excited because sometimes it could be about revisions and possibly no offer at all. I started thinking they could be right and attempted to talk myself down, but it only made me hundred times more nervous.

I hardly slept that night and my phone never left my side. I just stared at it and stared at it like my life depended on it. I'm not even gonna tell you how many times I almost puked because I was so anxious. (Sidenote: It was a lot.) But when the phone started ringing, all the questions I had written down were out the window. Michelle was incredibly kind and so easy to talk to. We chatted about her thoughts on DROWNING BAILEY, and after a while I tried to ask a few questions without it sounding forced, and even though I failed at being nonchalant she was sure to answer all of them.

I think the best thing to do in this situation is to go with your gut. Listen to yourself and ask what YOU want to ask and not what everyone says you should ask. Try not to think so much about it because someone will say one thing and someone else with say another, it leaves you second guessing yourself. I was so completely unsure of myself, afraid of what it would all mean. But in the end you just have to go with it. The best thing to remember is: An agent wouldn't ask to schedule a phone call if they weren't interested. There's a very small percentage that call to talk about R&Rs or even to reject you (though that's rare), but overall they care about your manuscript. And when is that ever a bad thing?

Heather Marie is a YA writer represented by Michelle Witte from Mansion Street Literary. She enjoys writing horror/supernatural stories that make you question that feeling of someone watching over your shoulder. Heather spends most of her days reading and writing and plotting her next idea. When she's not in her writing cave, she enjoys watching creepy TV shows with her husband and picking apart plot holes in movies.

You can find her on Twitter @: http://twitter.com/xheatherxmariex
And visit her website @: http://heatherxmarie.blogspot.com/

An Awkward Hug from Andrea Hannah: The World Traveler Who Became a Writer

Hi, sweet readers!

First of all, let's get that awkward hug out of the way. 

Okay, so now that that's taken care of, let's get to the story of how I went from globe trotter to word monger, shall we?

I won't start off this tale with how I've always wanted to write, or how I used to craft stories from crayons and construction paper. Instead I'll tell you how I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of Michigan. And how I did it. 

Well, at least for a little while. 

I started globe hopping in college, after I got my first taste of a different state. That's right, I said state, not country. Truth is, we didn't have a ton of money for vacations when I was younger, and I'd been to Florida and Ohio... and that's about it. But I went on my first trip to California, and I fell in love with the idea of being anywhere but home.

So after Cali came a dozen other states, and then a summer trip bouncing around Spain, France and Italy. I came home from that trip and spent the next couple of years racking up frequent flyer miles like a boss; every vacation, every long week, I scraped pennies together and went somewhere. Later came Mexico, the Caribbean, and Hawaii. But in between those places came Africa. Twice. 

I lived and taught English in South Africa for a few months, and fell in love so hard that I refused to leave that continent alone. I returned the next year to donate school supplies and travel around Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

Yep, that's me. In Africa. And that kid in the front looks super angry.

What's funny about all this globe trotting is that I never once thought about being a writer. Not once. I thought about starting a nonprofit (and did), teaching in public schools (and did), and selling my art (and did). Never writing. Sure, I kept journals. I wrote snippets of poetry and short stories during my travels. But I never imagined anything would come of that. 

It wasn't until a family emergency forced me to move out of my condo in Savannah, GA and into an apartment five miles from where I grew up in order to take care of my mother that I started seriously thinking about writing. 

Circumstance shoved me back into my hometown, in a dank little apartment, dealing with the my mother's failing health and my teenage brother's grief. I had to hit pause on my life. So I opened up a fresh Word doc and started typing. 

And I fell in love with writing. Slowly, gently. And then all at once. 

I wrote mostly about my travel experiences at first, and then began to play with stories set in different worlds entirely. Writing became the only escape I had from a life that was somehow mine, even though it felt itchy and uncomfortable, like a sweater that just didn't quite fit. Then I attempted my first novel, at the very end of 2010. Like my fellow Secret Lifer Leah Miller, I also wrote about dreams. And my main character woke up from a dream in the first chapter. Guuuhhh. *Insert shudder here*

But despite all that, I entered that thing in some contests and won third place in the WriteOnCon YA contest. (Keep in mind, this is based on the first 500 words. I've always been good at pretty pose. Plot? Not so much.) 

I got rejected after that. A lot. Obviously. 

A year later, for NaNoWriMo 2011, I wrote my second novel, THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM. But this time I attempted the task with a boatload of knowledge of both technique and industry. I'd read over a hundred recently released YA books in that year. I'd stalked the crap out of blogs, forums, and Twitter. And then I wrote. And rewrote. And revised. 

I queried in February 2012 and immediately had infinite more success than I'd had the first go around. In the end, I sent out only 14 queries. I had done extensive research on agents before I queried, so I was very specific in who I targeted. If those 14 wouldn't have gone well, I would have sent out a second round, but I didn't have to. Out of those 14 queries, I had 9 requests for fulls/partials. I ended up with 3 offers of representation in the end, but I went with Victoria Marini of Gelfman Schneider. (Fun fact: I gave birth to my son the same day Victoria offered rep. She called me on my hospital phone!) 

So, this is the part where your eyes have begun to glaze over. Which is great, because it's also the part where I give you what you're actually here for: query letter + giveaway. So here it is:

Dear Ms. Marini, 

I read in an interview that you seek edgy stories with an unexpected twist. As such, I thought you might enjoy my 70,000 word magical realism young adult novel, THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM.  

After her little sister mysteriously vanishes, seventeen-year-old Claire Graham has a choice to make: stay snug in her little corner of Manhattan with her dropout boyfriend, or go back to Ohio to face the hometown tragedy she's been dying to leave behind. 

But the memories of that night still haunt her in the city, and as hard as she tries to forget the wolf's eyes or the blood-speckled snow, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she's ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep the wolves at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella's trail grows fainter, the wolves are growing impatient.  

Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister's disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella's past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.  

Though the novel has been written with potential for a sequel, it can stand alone. I believe it will appeal to fans of Nova Ren Suma's IMAGINARY GIRLS and Michelle Hodkin's THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER. My previous manuscript was a finalist in The Reading Room/WriteOnCon's 2011 Young Adult Fiction contest. I live in Michigan and am currently working on my next YA novels. 

Thank you for your time, 

Andrea Hannah

 So, there you have it. It's funny because there are several errors in that query letter, the biggest being genre. THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM is most definitely not magical realism; it's a psychological thriller. I just wasn't quite sure at the time. BUT, it's totally cool, because if you write a solid query letter, are professional, and create an interesting premise, agents will request regardless of that. So chin up! It doesn't have to be perfection.

AND NOW THE GIVEAWAY. (DUN DUN DUN.)

I'm giving away copies of THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM's comp titles, plus a query critique/brainstorm session.

SO, if you win this baby you get:

• IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma
• THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin
• Query critique (or if you don't have one yet, a brainstorm session to make the best one ever

Contests ends Friday at 11:59pm EST! 

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Howdy From Leah Rae Miller: The Writer Who's Doing It Differently

I just want to start off by saying thanks to all you for the great response we've gotten so far on the blog! As you can imagine, we were a little nervous (or at least I was, lol) about doing another writing blog, but we thought we had an original concept. Having you all be so excited and following SLOW (I cracked up when Stefanie brought our acronym to my attention) here and on Twitter has been ah-mazing! Now, on to some writing talk!

I've had a love of reading for as long as I can remember. I was that kid in high school who picked the longest book out of the selection to do a report on. But, I'd never thought of being a writer. That just seemed like one of the careers that only special people got to do, kind of like being an actor or a musician. It took a lot of floundering through life (two failed attempts at college, jobs at lame places like Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, a failed website design business, becoming a wife, mother, and homeowner) for me to figure out that I could be a writer.

The idea started to percolate when I discovered romance novels. I've talked about my love for the genre before over on the Entangled Teen blog. I fell in love with them and started to formulate my own stories. After a couple of unfinished manuscripts, more life stuff happened and writing got put on the back-burner. A couple of years later I read Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. I was so enchanted by the story that I checked out Stephanie's blog and was in awe of how cool it must be to be an author.

I mean, you get to do something you love, share that something with people and maybe have them love it too, AND you can work from home (which really means you don't have to change out of your pajamas if you don't want to)! After digging a little deeper into the online book community, I wanted to commit. I wanted to see if I could do it. So, in December 2010 I started a blog to record the adventure of writing my first novel. It was a YA fantasy story about dreams and teenagers who are part gods who can jump in and out of people's dreams... And it was a train wreck, of course. Seriously, I started the book with a dream, had my main character wake up from the dream, and then go to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

*SHIVER* Yeah, it was that bad.

(Don't get me wrong, that kind of opening can be done, but it has to be done super well to work. I had not done it super well O_O)

It took me 6 or 7 months to finish. After editing it, I sent out a grand total of *drum roll* ONE query. Now that I look back on it, it was the hardest query to send out. I was a nervous wreck as my mouse pointer hovered over the send button. But I did it. And got no response. After realizing the book needed a complete rewrite, I tucked it away telling myself I'd revisit it one day which I still plan to do.

Then the idea for The Summer I Became a Nerd hit me. I threw the idea out to Stefanie and she said, "Go with it!"

TSIBaN took much less time to write, about 3 or 4 months. I got some interest from an agent before it was even done due to me putting a description up on my blog. When it was ready, I sent out more than one query, lol. I think it was more like 11.

So, December and January of 2012 went by. I got rejections. I'd only heard back from maybe 5 of the 11 I'd sent. The only request from an agent I received was from the one who stumbled upon it on my blog. I was starting to feel a little down on the querying process. I believed I had a great story and didn't understand why no one wanted to look at it. That's when I looked into Entangled Publishing in February. The difference between the way I felt when I sent that first query not even a year before and in sending this query was night and day.

First query feels

My feels after having done it more than a few times.

Here's the query that got the book noticed:

Dear Ms. Howland,

On your February wish list, you mentioned LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR which I found to be full of heart and quirky characters. So, I thought you might be interested in my manuscript. Here's a little about it:

Seventeen-year-old Emma Jean Summers may look like just another dumb, blond cheerleader as she strolls through the halls with her quarterback boyfriend, but on the inside, she wonders about what will happen in the next issue of her favorite comic book or if that sci-fi show she's obsessed with will be canceled. The fact that she is a huge nerd hiding in a popular girl's body is not just unknown, it's ANTI-known, and she wants to keep it that way.

Now that school is out for the summer, Emma can finally spend some alone time with who she really is. That is, until Alan finds out about her secret. He's the adorkable guy behind the counter at the local comic shop, and pretty soon, she starts to give in to being a true geek with him as her mentor. During the next few weeks, he introduces her to a world of comic conventions, live-action role playing, and first-person-shooter video games.

It's when she lies to her parents, using her best friend as an excuse to go on these nerdy excursions, that things start to get sketchy. Not to mention, Emma's boyfriend, who's on vacation, would probably be kind of upset to find out she's falling for another guy. It's only a matter of time before everything blows up in her face, and she learns what people actually think about who she truly is.

THE SUMMER I BECAME A NERD is my 62,000 word YA romantic comedy inspired by John Hughes' classic eighties films and my lifetime love of comic books. Below are the first 5 pages. I've been blogging for over a year here: leahraemillerblog.blogspot.com. I can also be found on Twitter (@LeahR_Miller). Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best Wishes,

Leah Miller

Twenty minutes later I got a response from Heather asking for the full! A week later I was talking to her on the phone! A couple of days after that I was signing the contract! That's how crazy the publishing industry can be, folks.

I'm still not agented, which I hope to fix in the coming year. Maybe having already been published will give me a leg up, maybe not. I hope to share that journey with you all, as well. At the moment, I'm working on edits, trying to make this book shine per the suggestions of my editor.

And there you have it! I'm extremely looking forward to discussing writing and publishing and all that goodness with all of you!

Once again, it's contest time!!!! I'm giving away a whopping $10 gift certificate to Amazon, just enough for a new book. I won't say that you HAVE to pre-order my book, but I thought I'd let you know that it is up for pre-order... Just saying ;)

I'll also be giving away a query critique. Same rules apply. If you don't need it or want it, you can pass it on to a friend or whatever :)

Contest ends Wednesday so get to entering!

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A Big Wave Hello from Heather Marie: The Writer Who Wouldn't Give Up

When Stefanie and Leah invited me to be a part of The Secret Life, I didn't think twice. If there's one thing I love as much as writing, it's the chance to encourage other writers to keep going. Getting an agent is not easy, which was something I learned pretty quick. But thankfully, I had some amazing friends, both published and unpublished, who gave me all sorts of great advice and even took the time to read my work.

When I first started writing YA, which was around July of 2011, I didn't even know about the writing community on Twitter. I had an account, of course, but I didn't start following any agents or authors until well after I finished my first manuscript. Writing has always been a big part of my life, and as a kid I swore one day I'd become a published author. That dream dwindled after a while, because I knew that college wasn't for me and assumed I wouldn't get a chance if I didn't take classes. Silly, I know. It wasn't until one night last year that I decided it was now or never.

I wrote my first YA Fantasy titled In the Light of Anastasia. It revolved around a girl who discovered she was a Healer whose power came from the stars. Believe it or not, I later found out that there was a self published book with an identical premise that had almost every single thing similar to what happened in my book. I swear I'd never read it before. So anyway. It was complete at 43K and I was like, "I'm amazing! This is the best thing ever! I should query this." *shaking my head* Wow. What a newb! Needless to say, I got nearly a hundred rejections. However, I did get a request from a publishing company that was a complete joke. Though at the time I didn't know it. Nothing came of it, but even that little bit of hope (even if it was for nothing) gave me what I needed to continue.

I wrote a vampire novel titled Crimson shortly after. I mean, we all write a vampire book at some point right? Right. As you could imagine it got major rejections. No one even wanted to look at it. Now I get why, but at the time I was crushed. Let's not forget to mention that I knew nothing about critique partners or beta readers. This was all strictly me reading through my manuscript two or three times and thinking it was good to go. *le sigh*

My third book was titled Revival. It was a YA Urban Fantasy about yet another girl who had powers. I thought bringing a Paladin into the YA world would be original. Side note: One thing you learn along the way is that no idea is completely original. That's just cold hard facts. There's always gonna be something similar to your manuscript, whether it's big or small, it's there. With that, I collected yet another round of about seventy rejections.

Did that stop me? Nope.

My fourth book was THE one. It had to be. I remember telling my husband about it and he said, "This is it." I doubted him, because I didn't want to get my hopes up. He still says, "I told you so." HA!

So here's my query for the book that got me an agent.

Dear Michelle, 

Darkness surrounds sixteen-year-old Bailey Green when ghostly Hannah Melbrooke seeks to consume Bailey’s life––a life she believes should be her own. 

Having a ghost attached to you isn’t exactly what Bailey would call ideal. The victim of a drowning––an unknown force locks Hannah within the confines of Bailey’s bedroom for years. When Hannah escapes into the outside world, Bailey’s haunting burden becomes an impossible secret to keep. Bailey soon begins to see Hannah for who she really is––a spiteful soul looking for vengeance. 

When Hannah threatens the life of Bailey’s best friend, Eric Montgomery, she demands Bailey’s cooperation in her resurrection. Realizing her love for Eric is more than friendship, Bailey is willing to give whatever it takes to save him. But Bailey doesn’t know that the more she believes in Hannah, the stronger she becomes, granting her freedom from her prison. Bailey must find a way to defeat Hannah before she kills Eric and destroys Bailey’s life and soul.  

DROWNING BAILEY is a YA Horror with romantic elements complete at 56,000 words. It will interest fans of Anna Dressed in Blood and The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I can be contacted at: heathermwrites@gmail.com and xxx-xxx-xxxx. 
I can also be found on Twitter at: xheatherxmariex
Thank you for considering my manuscript. 
Sincerely, 
Heather Marie

This goes to show that having a friend critique your query is a MUST. My original query was so long that my friend Jessica Taylor had to cut it down for me. She used everything I said, but helped me refine it so that it would capture an agent's attention, not put them to sleep. I was also very picky about who I queried this time around, making sure to pick the agents who really wanted horror/supernatural manuscripts.

In the end, I only sent out forty queries. Within two in a half months, I got seven requests. I've only ever received that one request from a not-so-reliable publishing company. So those seven requests were huge for me. I was ecstatic. I had originally stopped at thirty nine queries, but when Michelle Witte announced she had begun working with Mansion Street, I knew I had to query her. We had been corresponding through Twitter for sometime, and I knew she was interested in ghost stories and the like. DROWNING BAILEY showed me that writing horror/supernatural was my element and she was perfect for it.

When I got her request for a full, I flipped! She was who I wanted from the get go and I knew it in my heart. You can only imagine how I felt six weeks later when she asked to schedule a phone call. I had no doubts that Michelle and I would be perfect together and I know that even more so now. When she offered to represent me, a huge sense of accomplishment hit me. All of that hard work amounted to something and I have all my friends, betas, and critique partners to thank.

Well, this post got a little out of hand. I didn't realize I would write this much. Why don't we get to the giveaway, shall we? You have until Monday, December 3rd to enter to have the first 25 pages of your manuscript critiqued. Good luck!

Winner will be announced shortly! 

A Greeting from Kelsey Sutton: The Writer Who Kept Going

Hi, everyone! I am so excited to get the ball rolling for Secret Life, and to meet new readers, and to help and be helped as we all struggle along on this journey. So, that said, here we go. A post that will tell you way too much about me.

My name is Kelsey Sutton. I am a writer. (I know. I've shocked you, haven't I?) There has never been a time when I was not writing. As a child I would come home from school, pull out my plastic bin full of markers and paper, and arrange everything around me in a circle. I would then fold some paper in half, staple the side three times, and proceed to fill the white spaces with words and pictures.

Since a main focus of this blog is transparency - revealing parts of our journey that aren't usually shared - I'll go all the way back. The first novel I ever finished was so thick it could have served as a doorstop. It was about Victorian vampires. It was 2008, and I was sixteen years old. I've always been a huge fan of Libba Bray's, so I decided I wanted to follow in her footsteps in every way. Logical, right? So I did research on how to get a book published. I discovered what a literary agent was. And I promptly wrote a query to send to Barry Goldblatt, Libba's agent.

Understandably, that awkward, snail-mail query received no reply. As the days turned into weeks I reconsidered my approach. I concluded that maybe this manuscript wasn't the one I wanted to show the world. So I took another year and wrote a completely new novel, a contemporary-suspense kind of story. It was 2009 and I was seventeen.

By this time I had realized that agents accepted e-mail queries, and Barry Goldblatt wasn't the only one in the world, so I sent off a new query to a list of them. Beth was among that list. After a long, enlightening journey, I again shelved a manuscript. Time passed. I graduated high school in 2010, and immediately afterwards ran off to California and wrote another novel. Then I came back to my beloved Minnesota and got responsible, enrolling in college and finding a job. I would dive back into querying soon after this.

Unfortunately, I didn't know enough about the process when I first started to keep track of the numbers. I do know the lists of agents were long, and the rejections piled up. I queried for over two years and shelved two manuscripts. Which, yes, seems easier than what others have gone through. What most of the world doesn't know is that during this time - okay, something I've never put online before - is that I was very much a teenage nomad. I was moving from place to place, trying to work two jobs and pass my classes, basically just focusing on getting by. Surviving. Though I love my mom and we still talk often, she wasn't in the picture much. So, in many ways, writing saved me. In circumstances that could have driven me to a much darker place, I put all my efforts into the stories. Into publishing.

I hesitate to put this out into the world, because I don't want it to seem like I had it all bad. I have fabulous friends, and a great family, and everything has turned out okay. The reason I share this now is for those writers - as young as I was or older - who are dealing with difficulties that make dreams like writing feel impossible. Whether you come from a solid home or you're spending some nights in your car, don't give up. It may take months, or years. But sometimes having that goal, that thing to work towards... that can make all those hardships endurable.

Anyway! Enough with the seriousness. Violin player, you may cease.

It was in the beginning of 2011 - soon after I got back from California - that I queried Beth again. I was eighteen years old, with a story that was new and strange and exciting. I had written it during a time when I was living with people I didn't know that well, in a place that was a little frightening, during a time when absolutely nothing was certain. That third query I sent out - the one that ended with me signing a contract - looked something like this:

Dear Beth, 

I am seeking representation for SOME QUIET PLACE, a young adult paranormal romance. The novel is complete at 88,000 words.  

The very definition of humanity is the quality to be humane. Ironic, since Elizabeth Caldwell appears every bit human, yet sorely lacks in the latter. As a child she somehow lost the ability to feel any emotion. While her best friend slowly dies of cancer and her father comes home in drunken rages, Elizabeth searches for the truth.  

Among her other abnormalities, Elizabeth has the ability to see the unseen. Emotions are personified beings. They’ve all stopped seeking her out, save one: beautiful, stubborn, adoring Fear. Fear wants the truth just as much as she does. There’s a stranger in town that might know something. 

It soon becomes evident, however, that there’s something more pressing out there besides the mysterious stranger and the haziness of Elizabeth’s history. Creatures are fleeing Edson in terror, and people have begun to discern that something is amiss with Elizabeth. Will she have enough time to put the pieces together? What’s coming for her? And is finding out the truth really the key to survival? Secrets are buried for a reason… 

I can be reached at 000-000-0000, and my e-mail address is kelseyjsutton@gmail.com. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you. 

Best, 

Kelsey

Beth quickly got back to me. The subject of her e-mail read, RE: Query: SOME QUIET PLACE. The rest, as they say, is history.

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A Hello From Stefanie Gaither: The Writer Who Almost Wasn't

Pssssst. I have a secret. Which seems an apt way to start off this blog, doesn't it? Right. So, here it is. Don't tell anybody, though, okay?

I, Stefanie Gaither, was not always going to be a writer.

I know, right?

In fact, I basically came into this career kicking and screaming. Of course, now the thought of doing anything else for a living makes me want to kick and scream even harder, but I'll get to that in a minute. 

First, let's talk about that moment when you decide - really decide - that you're going to do something incredibly difficult. Impossible, almost. But more importantly, something worthwhile (if only because it makes you so very, very happy).That decision is not always easy. But you know how sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same?

Yeah. That.

Okay, flashback time. Picture me: young, adorable (of course) kid. Like most writers, I constantly had my face stuck in a book. And around age nine-ish, I got the crazy idea that, "Hey, this whole book business doesn't seem so hard!" (Ha. Ha. Ha). I added a notebook to the pile of books I always carried around with me.

Pen in hand, I was unstoppable. I filled my own books with gibberish and bad poetry, elaborate maps and magic systems and details on fictional races. On school writing assignments, I was that obnoxious kid who wrote three times the required word count on anything. Teachers started noticing the wildly creative (and let's be honest, the wildly weird) stuff I would write in my journals. They told my parents. They told the other teachers. It was the first time in my life that I remembered actually being good at something. Better than most people were at something (I'm allowed to brag about this because I failed really hard at math... like oh-my-god-does-she-really-have-a-functioning-IQ? hard).

So I had the support of my teachers, my family, and a fresh pen and a fresh pad of paper... and I lived happily ever after, writing best-sellers until the end of my days, right?

Please. That would make a terrible story.

Don't worry though - my story found its conflict, and thus became a lot more riveting (and by riveting, I of course mean painful, gut-wrenching, frustrating, etc, etc, etc... all the things good stories are, basically).

See, the older I got, the more people I met. The more books I read. The harder I looked at the publishing industry and the more I started to think to myself: "Hey, maybe this isn't as easy as it looked at first" and then "Hey, pretty much everyone chasing this publishing dream is their own special breed of crazy, and maybe I should just go to clown college or something" (although I'm sure clown college has its difficulties, too. Also, clowns are frickin' creepy).

Because for all their wonderful variations of crazy, I couldn't help but notice a few recurring experiences of every writer: 

Failure. Rejection. Big-Ugly-Tear-Crying.

These things absolutely terrified me. Another secret of mine: I don't like to lose. I never have. I'm very competitive; I still race my husband to the car, and a part of me dies inside whenever I lose. Plus, I was comfortable with the way things were, still secure in the praise that all my grade school teachers had given my writing all my life... so why mess that up? Why pursue a career in writing when there was such a small chance of ever succeeding, and if even then, it would only mean that criticism was going to start flowing in along with that praise?

There are a million reasons why, as I eventually discovered, but at the time all I could think about was the possibility of failure. I was so afraid of failing at something I'd always felt like I was good at, that I just started avoiding putting my writing to the test anymore. I stopped working on stories, stopped reading books. I started hating words, as though it was all their fault. I changed my major in college six times, trying desperately to avoid the English/Creative Writing major. 

And I was very, very depressed for what seemed like a long time.

Then I realized I was being very, very stupid.

I realized that if you're going to be successful, it starts with giving as much energy to your goals and dreams - however crazy impossible they are - as you do to your fears. And believe me, I was feeding my fears LOTS of energy. An embarrassing amount of energy. Sometimes I still do.

But at the end of my sophomore year of college, I switched to an English major and I haven't looked back since. That was the same year I decided I was going to write a book. From start to finish. I was going to write a book, and not care if it was awful or wonderful or "good, but not good enough" or if I failed and got rejected a million times by every agent under the sun. I would write because I loved writing, because of all the times words had pulled me out of the dark and made me feel something again. And as for the business part of things? As for making this a career? Well, I could learn to lose gracefully, if that's what being a writer meant (and a lot of times it does). I could learn to take criticism. I could learn to fail. And I could - and did -  learn to keep going, in spite of it all.

I FREAKING LOVE WRITING....AGAIN!

And oh yes, I failed.

In the interest of transparency (one of our goals with this blog), how about some stats? I loved stats when I was querying, and I stalked the crap out of authors to get them. But I'm going to make it easy for you guys:

First Book: 90k YA Paranormal Romance (yes, there were werewolves)

Time Spent Writing/Revising: 8 months

Queries Sent: 35ish

Requests: A whopping three. (8.5% request rate)

Second Book: Another YA Paranormal Romance, with grim reapers this time

Time Spent Writing/Revising: 3 months

Queries Sent: 25ish

Requests: Five, plus three more from contests. Getting better, but still mostly form rejections in the end. (32% request rate)

Third Book: 95k YA Sci-Fi-that-I-think-might-have-unintentionally-been-part-fantasy

Time Spent Writing/Revising: 5 months

Queries Sent: 25ish

Requests: nine, and also a revise and resubmit (36% request rate)

I know a lot of people query way more people than I did before moving on, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are certainly more than 25-35ish awesome agents out there. I write fairly quickly though, and so by the time all the rejections rolled in from the first batches of a manuscript's queries, I generally had a newer, better project ready to go and so I just moved on.

And now, the stats I don't mind posting at all:

Fourth Book: 80k YA Sci-Fi with clones and murder mysteries and fun stuff like that

Time Spent Writing/Revising: 2 1/2 months

Queries sent: 20

Requests: 12  (60% request rate)

Offers of representation: 4

And I'm now represented by the very first agent who ever rejected me, Sara Megibow of Nelson Literary, who I adore. I feel like I should put an inspiring quote about persistence here, but all I've got is this gif:

Just imagine "Eye of the Tiger" is playing in the background,  alright?

So there you have it - a little bit of my background, a few of my secrets given away. And just so you have the whole story, I'll post my query that "landed my agent" (I really hate that phrasing, by the way, because then it makes it sound like Sara's a fish, and I don't think she's very fishy at all; but I'm writing this at two a.m. and sentences are hard). Anyway, here you go:

Dear Ms. Megibow, 

I’m currently seeking representation for my YA novel, FALLS THE SHADOW. Given your interest in science fiction, I thought it might be a good fit for your list. Here’s a quick look at the plot:

When Cate Benson was twelve, her sister died. Two hours after the funeral, they picked up Violet’s replacement, and the family made it home in time for dinner and a game of cards.

It's the year 2055, and Cate's parents are among the wealthy elite who can afford to give their children a sort of immortality—by cloning them at birth. So this new Violet has the same smile. The same laugh. That same perfect face. Thanks to advancements in mind-uploading technology, she even has all the same memories as the girl she replaced.   

She also might have murdered the most popular girl in school.

Or at least, that’s what the paparazzi and the crazy anti-cloning protestors want everyone to think: that clones are violent, unpredictable monsters. Cate is used to hearing all that, though. She’s used to standing up for her sister too, and she’s determined to do it now—even if proving Violet’s innocence means taking on those protestors and anyone else attacking her family. But when her own life is threatened—not by protestors, but by the very scientists who created her sister’s clone—Cate starts questioning everything she thought she knew about the cloning movement. About herself. About her sister.

And the answers she finds reveal a more sinister purpose for her sister’s copy—and her own replacement—than she ever could have imagined.

FALLS THE SHADOW is complete at 80,000 words, and is the first in a planned series. The manuscript is available, in part or full, upon request. Thanks for your time and consideration! 

Best,

Stefanie Gaither

Ta-da! My full holy-crap-I-have-an-agent post is also right here on my website, if you'd like to read more. Thanks for reading, and for checking out our new blog! We'll be back on Wednesday with another Secret Lifer's story and giveaway, so be sure to come back and see us!

Happy writing!

-Stef

And now the fun part: IT'S GIVEAWAY TIME! Because free stuff is fun. Okay, so here's the deal, I'm really getting the warm-writerly-community fuzzies with the launch of the blog and all, so that's got me feeling generous. My giveaway is a package deal, and this is what it includes:

• A book and a cup of coffee on me-- which means a $10 Barnes and Noble gift card and a $5 Starbucks gift card heading your way.
• A line-by-line critique of your query
• A line-by-line critique of your manuscript's first ten pages. 

The critiques DO NOT have to be for finished manuscripts. They DO NOT have to be claimed right away, either. They're also transferable, so if you've got a friend who might benefit more from them, but still want to the giveaway for the sake of getting the giftcards for yourself, then by all means go for it! There are multiple ways to enter, and you'll have until midnight, EST, tomorrow to enter. The winner will be announced on Wednesday's post, when ANOTHER secret lifer's giveaway will begin! Wheeeee!  

The Giveaway has ended! Check back first thing tomorrow for the winner!