Query Letter Hell: When Agents Contradict Each Other.

[Randy]

At a writer's conference, I pay an extra $140 to see an agent. Her advice contradicts advice from a previous agent whose advice contradicted a previous agent, whose advice contradicted a previous agent. Anyone else had this problem? Here's how I'm dealing with it. (post from my blog)

href=" http://tinyurl.com/7hm4tmh
">the rest of the story

[Patricia]

Randy, I got sick of trying to please agents and publishers and published all my children's books myself. I'm happy with the results as I kept them just the way I wanted them. My fans seem happy too. LOL.

Those dogs are so cute. I've added your YouTube channel to mine. :)

[Randy]

Good comments.
Thanks, Patricia!

[Patricia]

You're welcome, Randy, and those dogs are awesome.

[[deleted user]]

I can't imagine why anyone, in this new era of e-books and self-publishing, would waste their time, and money, trying to please an agent. When I wrote my first book I wasted over a year, and many dollars in postage, sending out query letters. I love self-publishing. To me, trying to design a query letter is much harder than writing a book. I now have nine books published and they're doing well.

[Randy]

Thanks for comments, Peggy! Nine books doing well is excellent.

[Ken]

I recall sending out query letters with a sample 50 pages. I would get the SASE back sometimes within just a few days. Obvious, the agency was just stuffing the envelopes with the good luck letters.

I had two NYC agents of good repute request the entire manuscript. After two months I e-mailed requesting an update and got an e-mail back. 'Not for us." If I hadn't followed up, I'd still be checking my mailbox each day.

A girl at work knew I had written a book and gave me an article from somewhere about e-publishing. I thank her periodically for pointing me in the right direction.

[Randy]

Two requests for a full manuscript is big deal, right?

I was a magazine editor for 15 years and would sometimes ignore PR people pitching stories -- I'm getting my come-uppance!

[Ken]

Randy wrote: "Two requests for a full manuscript is big deal, right?"

It was a big deal when requested. All I ended up with is a delayed reject letter. Kind of knocked the wheels off the wagon. I wasn't surprised as one of the agent houses specialized in 'chic-lit'. I had a major female character and enough sizzle but the genre is historical fiction.

In same vein, I requested some info from a local sheriff's office where my next story is located. After a couple weeks I got a phone call from the PIO and said they were going to assign someone to answer my queries for background info. Two weeks later a follow up but no action. It would have been nice but I ended up relying on a deputy I knew who gave me the unofficial versions. I was simply looking for a couple office visits to get the 'scenery' right. Well, that's why they call it fiction, right?

[Sherri]

That's why I went the e-publishing route. Going through agents and trying to break into the "big six" publishers is a headache. Here's hoping ebooks rise and give us a better way to publish!

[[deleted user]]

Yea, boy, e-books are the best inventions ever. Everyone wins with e-books. Why do anything the hardest way possible? As we educate more and more writers and readers, agents will be out of jobs. I'm finding so many fresh new authors out there that I wouldn't have found except for e-books, goodreads, twitter, etc.

[Darlene]

My writing partner and I had identical rejection letters from an agent we had pitched to at a conference for our books (different genres and different writing styles. That's when we decided to self publish less than a year ago and we both now have two books out there.

[Kasi]

Even when you get an agent, the publishers do the same thing to you. After years of working hard I finally got an agent. She sent me the rejections as she got them so that maybe they would help me, but every publisher had a different opinion on why they didn't want to publish the book. One didn't like the main girl. Another loved the main girl but didn't like the boy. One loved the romance but not the mystery. Another thought the mystery was good but wasn't happy with the romance. Then one publisher said they would have published my book if they had gotten it the year before, only I hadn't written it the year before. It's enough to make you crazy.

So I published them myself on Amazon.

[Kasi]

I even had a couple previously published books and thought that would help me get an agent. It didn't. I must have gone through over a hundred before I got one. Then I thought I had it made. She worked at Trident Media Group, one of the biggest agencies out there. Then she walked away from the agency without telling me. And I thought I'll have an easy time getting another agent because I already had one with a big time agency. Wrong again. I was back to square one. That's when I finally decided to get off the merry-go-round.