Welcome to The Querying Show’s Final Episode (until later)!

For the last 3 months we’ve witnessed every juicy (and completely stagnant) detail of our SP Staff Member’s querying life in the SLUSH PILE!

(Check out our rules and reasons in our intro post here!)

So the question is, DID CR’s/Write_Or_Left achieve AGENT success? Or DID HE result with a querying and MS reboot?

Today is the final week of CR’s journey (at least online!).

First, as always, let’s check in our with brave querying fellow and see how things have finished. (Click here for Episode 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5.)

SP: Happy New Year, CR/Write_Or_Left! For our final week, we will ask you for the last time about your STATS. 

Any new queries? Rejections? Requests? Tell us!

CR/Write_Or_Left:  Short answer: Nope, nothing to report! Short reason: I made the mistake of querying too early.

I realized pretty early on in the process that my book was not quite where it needed to be for querying. It all boiled down to my characters just not feeling real/relatable enough. Because of this, I’ve been focusing a lot more on rewriting than on actual querying.

SP: So, after four months of querying in the slush pile during the querying show you did not get an agent. (Boo!)

What is your take away and what have you learned? What will you do differently next time?

CR/Write_Or_Left: Trust my gut regarding the content of the story. I never felt like I got to know my characters all that well, but I thought my plot would be strong enough to carry the book. Obviously, that’s not a good mindset. I’m going to make sure my book is exactly where I want it to be before I jump back into this process.

SP: Now that you have this experience under your belt, which steps will you take on your next attempt to query? When do you think you will query again? 

CR/Write_Or_Left: I’ll try to query again as soon as my story is ready. I spent much of my Christmas break rewriting. Not just editing, but really reworking most the story. Once I feel that everything has come together, I’m going to be more consistent about sending queries on a schedule. The more the better!

SP: Thank you for being courageous and willing for us to WATCH as you dove into the slush pile. Was it worth it?

CR/Write_Or_Left:  Absolutely. I learned how to write (and rewrite) a query, research agents and find the qualities and agencies I liked. I also learned how to remain patient and recognize the talent in the slush (which is amazing), and my understanding of the industry in general really grew in. I’ll definitely be more prepared next time.

SP: We wish you the greatest luck next time, confident that you will walk away with an agent soon!

Final question: We are happy to see your Instagram account is steadily growing, now up to 28k from 25,000 followers since the last Querying show! We look forward to your coming post on the Spinning Pen talking about growing your social media!

You also recently started posting on WattPad – Can you tell us about that? Can you give us the link?

CR/Write_Or_Left: 

IG: My account has been getting a lot of traffic recently, and it’s been really cool to see! We actually just hit 29k yesterday. The secret is pretty simple, and I’m sure I’ll be back to talk about it eventually 😉 (see a tip here from last episode!)

Wattpad: Yeah, so I wrote my first novel when I was in my teens. I decided I would post that story each week just for fun! You can read it here. Keep in mind I wrote most of this from ages 16-19, so you should go into it with a mindset of, “This guy has improved a lot since then, but it’s cool to see his early efforts” and not, “This should be as good as a published novel.”

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SP Querying & Pub TIP of the week:

1. Read the back cover of ten stories that are in your genre. Then read the first chapter on Amazon, if available. Did the voice, feeling, hook, capture you in both?
2.  Read summarizes both long and short of books online, distinguish which ones capture you and why.
3. Practice your craft & Never give up!

Good luck!

 

CR & Nova Signing off!