Query letters

Before I decided that self-publishing was the route for me, I tried to find an agent. I made a lot of mistakes looking for an agent, mainly trying to find an agent before my work was finished. I don't think I ever told any of the agents I emailed that my work wasn't complete, I just figured having a deadline would help me rush the story. I was so poor at the time that I saw the idea of an advance as a tiny miracle, so I guess that's part of the reason I was so eager to get my work out there. I probably ended up in a few slush piles by sending out my unedited mess of a project. I remember querying Nancy Yost twice. She was the agent that I really wanted. She represented some of the authors I liked reading and I thought that my work fit the same catagory. She said that my query letter was nice, but my project wasn't for her. I was crushed, but now I know what a mess my work was. I got some other responses from other agents, but most of them didn't stick with me. There was one agency that responded and adressed me by my character's name! I thought that was disrespectful, and that's when I gave up querying. I haven't sent a query since 2009. I don't know if I kept any of the responses, but I probably didn't. I felt so disappointed each time I got a response and it was negative, but in all honesty, my work was nowhere near ready. I needed to grow as a writer before putting my work out there for the universe to see. I still need to grow as a writer and will always need to grow. Anyway, I found one of the old queries that I wrote and decided to share it here.


In the short time that I’ve been querying literary agents, I’ve learned a little about sending query letters. Query letters are a lot like job interviews, while I’m not going to get every job I apply for, I have to prepare myself as much I can, in hopes that each letter I send might be the one that gets me “hired“. I’ve gotten form rejection letters before, but I writing is a lot like trying on clothes, if the story isn‘t a good fit for the author it‘ll show in their writing, and honestly what I previously queried probably wasn’t a right fit for me yet. I needed time to grow as a writer and find a story that was right for me. I think I’ve finally found my right fit, a story I couldn’t get out of my head until I sat down at my computer and wrote it. The title is the story is Angel’s Blood, and it’s about a half-vampire, half-angel, who struggles to maintain control as she seeks revenge for her sister’s death. I think the reason this character was so interesting to me is that she’s always having an inner struggle, since, despite being half-angel she has to earn her place in Heaven, of course, she’s already dead, but she can’t pass on until it’s her time. Here’s my synopsis, told from my main character’s point of view.