letters from the query wars 5.3.2013

Catching up the query stats…

# of queries responded to week ending 3.15.2013: 104
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 3.22.2013: 141
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: fantasy

# of queries responded to week ending 3.29.2013: 112
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 4.5.2013: 153
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 4.12.2013: 102
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 4.19.2013: 0
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a
[Attended the London Book Fair this week and did not respond to any queries.]

# of queries responded to week ending 4.26.2013: 203
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 2
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA speculative fiction, YA fantasy

# of queries responded to week ending 5.3.2013: 144
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA speculative fiction

oldest query in the queue: April 29th (note: this only applies to those sent to the specified query email address query.jjackson@maassagency.com )

Of the last 10 queries I reviewed:

2 were in a genre I don’t represent

1 of them didn’t include the name of the author anywhere in the submission

1 was for a collaborative novel in which the querying author never mentioned the name of their co-author

1 was a re-query dated only 5 days after my response to the initial query

1 didn’t follow my guidelines despite specifically mentioning a site that clearly lists those same guidelines

3 had sample pages but no synopsis

4 followed the guidelines including a query letter, the first five pages, and a synopsis and were in a genre I represent

letters from the query wars 3.8.2013

# of queries responded to week ending 2.15.2013: 171
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 2
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA fantasy; YA contemporary

# of queries responded to week ending 2.22.2013: 143
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 3.1.2013: 164
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: speculative thriller

# of queries responded to week ending 3.8.2013: 118
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: fantasy

oldest query in the queue: March 1st (note: this only applies to those sent to the specified query email address query.jjackson@maassagency.com)

Of the last 10 queries I reviewed:

3 of them did not include the first five sample pages requested in my submission guidelines

1 was a sample only but included no letter or synopsis

1 of them was nonfiction, which I do not represent

1 of them was a repeat query that was declined a few weeks ago

1 was via a business emailer distribution list

1 had a full manuscript attached (query guidelines specify no attachments)

3 followed guidelines and were for a genre I represent

Just a quick look into some first impressions of queries….

letters from the query wars 2.8.2013

# of queries responded to week ending 2.8.2013: 174
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

A couple random tips from this side….

* Got an email asking if I was open to queries. In case anyone wasn’t sure, the answer is yes. Though if that person was reading this blog they may have already surmised that from previous posts about queries. Pre-queries just add to response time. And make it clear that the writer hasn’t done much research at all.

* Getting a noticeable number of queries for things with too small of a word count. With regard to adult fiction, I’d prefer at least 80,000 words and preferably around 100,000 words or more (especially if it’s epic fantasy). YMMV with specific subgenres such as cozy mysteries and category romance. In YA, Jennifer Laughran posted this great guide a while back and I still refer to it. Of course, these are just guidelines and there’s always something out there to disprove the rules. But evenso, 26K probably won’t qualify as a novel-length work. Related note — 350,000 words is probably more of a trilogy than “the first novel in a series.”

letters from the query wars 2.1.2013

I was a little surprised to realize just how long it had been since I did a query post. So I’m going to just take this opportunity to post the stats so far for this year and then hope to keep up with them going forward. I’ll also try to include some more tips and insights from the query review experience. In any case…. for now….

# of queries responded to week ending 1.4.2013: 136
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA historical fantasy
(First week back from the holidays and much catching up to be done!)

# of queries responded to week ending 1.11.2013: 173
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA science fiction
(Gained ground on the query backlog this week…)

# of queries responded to week ending 1.18.2013: 158
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 1.25.2013: 127
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 2.1.2013: 84
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 2
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA general fiction; YA fantasy
(And I lost a little ground on response time. Things were a bit thrown off by a high wind storm that caused a power outage leading to less time to address queries, among other things. Here’s hoping next week goes more smoothly…)

letters from the query wars 11.30.2012

# of queries responded to week ending 10.19.2012: 126
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: fantasy

# of queries responded to week ending 10.26.2012: 79
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a

# of queries responded to week ending 11.02.2012: 91
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: fantasy

# of queries responded to week ending 11.09.2012: 124
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 3
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: urban fantasy (2); steampunk (1)

# of queries responded to week ending 11.16.2012: 156
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA science fiction

# of queries responded to week ending 11.23.2012: 101
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: science fiction

# of queries responded to week ending 11.30.2012: 127
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 1
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: YA urban fantasy

Just catching up my stats.

The oldest unanswered query in the queue is November 12th.