Thursday, April 23, 2009

Query Confession

Right on the heels of yesterday's post about accepting criticism, I get a healthy dose of it via a blog written by Jessica Faust, a literary agent I much admire.

Here's the deal. I've been sending out a query letter, trying to generate interest in a novel of mine. The response has been... well, let's just say tepid. I've been through this query process before and I got more requests from agents for partial or full manuscripts than I'm getting for this particular manuscript.

I have suspected all along that the problem is my query letter. Yet I put so much work into it... I've revised it so many times... I'm so gosh-darned impressed with it... that I have continued to send it without doing what Jessica in her post today is telling me I need to do: Take a deep breath, open the mind, quash that Montana-sized ego, and overhaul the damned thing!

Of course, Ms. Faust didn't write that post specifically about me or my query. But as with all good writing, I was able to relate to its message. Immediately.

Here's the link. Read and absorb.

And remember: The reader is in the driver's seat, not the writer.