The Slow Path of Querying

I have been querying agents since the end of October. It has been, and still is, a long, slow journey.

I read up on how to write a query letter. Then I wrote one, got some excellent feedback from fellow writers, and revised it. After I sent out some queries with no positive response, I revised it again. I am now happy with my query. I feel confident that it portrays my book well and I believe that any rejection emails I get come from a mismatch between my book and the agent, and not the query itself.

And I have gotten a LOT of rejection emails. In total, I have looked into one hundred and eighteen different agencies. Twenty-seven of those have been agencies that do not publish adult fantasy, so were not queried. Of those ninety-one agencies I have queried, I have received twenty-six "no"s. That is not including those agencies who only reply to you if you are interested. I haven't updated my spreadsheet recently to add those unspoken rejections. But I have gotten twenty-six polite, professional rejection emails.

I have also gotten two requests for the full manuscript of my book. I haven't heard back from either of them yet, although the first agent said he'd reply in January or February, so that could happen anytime now. The other agent did not send a time frame to expect a response by.

I am content.

When I first started querying, every "no" would send me into a sad, grumpy mood for a few hours, and those days where I got multiple "no"s were not good days.

But it doesn't bother me anymore. I like my book. I am proud of it, and I will continue to send out queries to agents each week. Maybe one of them will see in it what I do. And maybe they won't. It is very possible my book will not get published. But I will keep writing other books, and someday I am confident I will become a published author.

I have hope for this book, and for my future books. And my advice for anyone else out there who is querying right now is to just keep going. If you want to read about famous authors who were also rejected many times over, check out this website.

It is a great feat to have written a book. While you are working on getting it published, write another one. Have faith in your work and your abilities as a writer. And the more you write, the better your writing becomes.

I will continue the slow path of querying my novel. And I hope you will do the same with yours.