10 Query Mistakes You're NOT Making (if You Watch our Channel!)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ค. 2024
- If you're an avid watcher of the BookEnds channel, you likely know all of our best query advice. But let's recap! Literary Agents Jessica Faust and James McGowan are talking about the 10 query mistakes you're NOT making, if you've been watching.
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Jessica Faust’s love for books is what first brought her to open BookEnds Literary Agency. It is her desire to be an advocate for all authors that pushed her to create her blog, the BookEnds TH-cam channel and to maintain a vibrant presence on Twitter.
Jessica is proud to have grown BookEnds to an agency that represents authors of all genres for children and adults, allowing her to reach more readers and help more authors and illustrators achieve their dreams.
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Since interning at BookEnds as an undergrad in the summer of 2015, James has (basically) never left. He's just continuously level-up-ed inside of BookEnds. Now he is the Literary Assistant and Social Media Manager for the team. He’s been a reader since his mom gave him the first A Series of Unfortunate Events book and ordered the sequels regularly through Scholastic book orders.
James is currently growing his own list and is actively seeking submissions in adult literary and upmarket fiction, mystery, thrillers, and suspense. He is also actively building his picture book list.
Connect with BookEnds!
Twitter: bookendslit
Instagram: bookends_literary
Website: www.bookendsliterary.com
Connect with Jessica: bookendsjessica
Connect with James: jmcgowanbks
The advice to use the agent's first name is a new one for those of us who were taught to address people by courtesy title until invited to do otherwise. I'm glad they told us this, or we would not have known. In fact, I was slammed on an online writing group for putting "Query for Nicole" in the subject line ("it's a business letter, not a text to your bestie"). Nice to see that I was correct. :)
Thanks for this succinct list of mistakes to avoid in a Query Letter. The humor makes your videos fun to watch.
Love the tips! Thank you!!!!
I wonder how many authors querying really miss their opportunities and get rejected solely due to these mistakes and not doing research 😫
but the arrogance and being mean to agents made my jaw drop 😳
You two are my favourite procrastination partners! ‘It’s hard to count and rant at the same time!’ 🤣🤣 ML in Qld, Australia
I had "literary agent" TH-cam videos running in the background of my life for hours before my ears tuned in to this one. Super fun, funny, sassy, kinda mean, very informative. Thank you :)
I’m approaching query time for my first novel and watching your videos is such a balm to my stressing, overthinking brain! Thank you so much!
I'm working on my first novel, and you guys are helping so much with learning about the publishing industry!
So glad to hear it.
I imagine this doesn't come up a lot, but I would love to hear about how you work with teams of authors where there is more that one author credited on a work. The examples that come to mind are Christina Lauren and Ilona Andrews who are both author dous under one pen name. I think this would make a cool video discussion.
Thanks for the awesome content!
My dog is Jim but we call him James sometimes. (Smile). These are basic points, but not really. It surprises me how many people do not understand the query purpose or process. I guess I'm ahead of the game...maybe? Thanks, guys!
Thank you for demystifying this process. When I first starting writing 10 years ago, I had no idea what I would do if I ever wanted to publish. Now I have a solid plan of what to do after I finish revisions on the 6th draft of my book, as suggested by my Beta readers. Thanks to your videos and those from other authors, I've got a much better idea of how to structure my blurb, what to expect from querying, what to ask on the offer call, etc. I feel prepared and I am looking forward to querying agents and see where this goes.
I won't be querying Jessica or James as they don't represent my genre, but I am tempted to reference them in my query letter to another BookEnds Agent because they make me laugh!
Cheers!
Always look forward to your sage advice amidst the delightful chemistry!
You guys are so fun to watch and informative. Thank you!
Thanks for the info, and it was nice to laugh today ☺
I am HERE for your video about why we should get rid of MRS!
As a foreign speaker who was taught in school that "Mrs" is the polite address that we should always use for married women ... I totally want to hear what Jessica's gripes with the word are.
Me, too. 'Mrs.' is so outdated. It shouldn't matter whether the recipient is married or not; it's no one else's business.
Loved this-thanks!
Very helpful, thank you so much!
Thank you always for your videos. You two also always make me laugh! Thanks for your serious suggestions but also silliness!
I laughed and laughed ... that was a _great_ video. 😊👍
*You two rock!*
This solid advice.
Love this. Maybe when I query I’ll start with “you’re gonna love this book” instead of “you probably won’t like this anyway.” :) haha
I really enjoyed your video today. You are teaching me a lot about agents and publishing. Thank you! If we don't listen then we don't learn. I've added an African American to my historical book ;) I always look forward to your videos popping up. I've grown an extra layer of skin and rejection is part of your personal growth. I think I'm a better writer on account of having lived a colourful life, and also because I was thrust into a situation, where I wasn't entirely comfortable or happy with the narrative. I'm just an ordinary writer with super focusing abilities. Even though we speak and read the same language, I still think there is definitely cultural differences between the UK and the US.
Never heard of tip number 10. Interesting. Feel the query is very personal and has to be a solo endeavor.
Dear Bookends: can you make a video about manuscript format? I would like to hear about preferred fonts, font size, pagination, and if the author name needs to be at the heading of each page, and so on. I watch all your videos!
You can never go wrong with standard margins, Times New Roman, Size 12, Double Spaced. Have a cover page with title, name, and contact information. New chapters begin on new pages! Good luck
And set your margin to first line indent at about .25 to avoid using the tab key
This was a good video thank you
Jessica and James, I was once again glad to see your latest video, and once again glommed some very useful information from it. Hate to keep repeating myself here, but you guys are the best at what you do, in my humble opinion, and I love and am grateful to have subscribed to-plus have the option of watching your videos WHENEVER I need to.
One little quick question, if you two wouldn't mind: most of the main characters in my story (which, as I'm sure I mentioned before, is entitled, "The Competitions," a title I chose because I think it is SO simple, yet effective; some, "shameless self-promotion," on MY part as well) are 24-years-old; from your personal opinion, plus experience, does that make my story Y.A., or just plain adult?
When you two get a chance, would you please let me know? Trust me, I would be certainly grateful for your honest feedback.
Take care, guys, and have a very nice and safe day.
Thank you for taking the time to do these informative videos. Would love to hear more about Picture Books Genres beyond fiction/ non-fiction/ humorous/ biographies. Tell me more.
I have purchased a lot of really great books recently. But I do have a question that you as agents may be able to answer. I have found several books on the shelves in books stores (that I will not name because that would be rude) that have editing mistakes that were really obvious and carried through the entire book. Is something happening in the publishing companies that has led to this problem happening more and more often. It was just something I noticed and was wondering about. Maybe it is my OCD acting up but it seems to be happening a lot over the past few years. Is this something a writer should watch out for.
I loved this. Because of this video, I’ve changed my book title, I’m going to go back through my book to try to remove Mrs. from one character, and I need to get over my fear of liking myself to published writers. This isn’t because I think I’m better. It’s more a “how dare I”. Thanks for your help.
In the bio, should I mention I’m disabled? I’m a wheelchair user, and along with that comes a lot of fatigue at times. So I might not be as quick as non disabled at doing editing, or if I go to events then they need to be accessible. But I don’t want to start a query on a negative note.
Thank you for this. Usefull tips like always. But here I sit now and struggle with the blurp, newbie that I am. What do you think of this:
Syrah's world is burning! The inquisition pursues her. Fleeing into the Woods, she runs for her Life. And winter is comming. Who will help her? Who will hide her? Where will she make a new life?
Follows Syrah's adventures through a mediaval world.
Get to know Ondar, a loyal veteran saddled with an arrogant, fanatic mage as a commander and find out how he deals with the Problem. How will the soldiers survive the harsh northern winter?
Their journey is just beginning.
Would you want to read the book from this?
It's so difficult to get it right.
I'm sure this is all good advice for someone writing a prose novel, but as someone who's been querying a graphic novel, none of these things apply. The obstacles I've been facing is that the agents just aren't don't have a strong background in comics and don't have a reference pool beyond the same 3-4 authors in traditional publishing and as my comic isn't anything like those, they don't know what to do with it or how to sell it. The "what you're doing is not different enough" really struck a nerve as I've gotten that reason for rejection, but they're only familiar with prose books in my genre, and aren't at all familiar with the comics and graphic novel market.
8:40 pet porcupine? Well I have a pet hedgehog, does that count? 😆 Thank you for these videos - I'm on the verge of an offer of rep so I'm rewatching as many as I can to make sure I'm NOT making these mistakes 🤓😆!
I followed your sage advice for length of Historical Fiction Novels and know the 1,000 word advice for Summaries: however, is my genre a special case for summaries? Many thx, Graham
The tenth point: what are your thoughts on AI? Great video, thank you.
Thankyou for this useful video. If I'm writing a YA high Fantasy, would 99k be pushing the limit? I know YA tends to be 80k but high fantasy I heard it's ok to be 110k.
Do you recommend having a manuscript professionally proofread for grammar, spelling and punctuation before querying?
We think this can be expensive, and in most cases, not necessary. If you feel it is necessary, feel free!
Question (RE: submitting the right genres/not sneaking a manuscript in under another genre): If an agent lists a genre on their MSWL, or via an MSWL tweet, but I don't see that genre listed on their Query Manager form, how should I proceed? Should I just reach out to that agent?
First determine if the MSWL is recent, or if there have been updates. If the MSWL is recent, you can send along if you think it's a match. Worst thing that happens is a no!
You guys make the querying process and the publishing industry so much less daunting.
Hi Jessica and James, I've read that agents prefer queries written in present tense. Can you speak to this? Is it just another one of those repeated myths? Thanks very much!
Seems like a publishing myth
If the authors book isn’t cool why don’t agents tell the author, rather than saying nothing, or say your
book doesn’t fit with what I’m looking for. When an author puts so much time into writing, revising and revising again, and again, only to be rejected with no valued critique. As an author I’d rather be told honestly, rather than be rejected without an honest reason.
So just about every civilisation around the world for thousands of years use some type of title to indicate a woman is married but Jessica knows better than all of them does she?
Mrs and all the other cultures that use a similar linguistic device wasn't created to oppress and 'pigeon hole' women. It was created to protect women from unwanted enquiry by men once she has made her choice of partner.
The reason cultures never developed a term for married men was that the first move was overwhelmingly made by men in terms of pairing so it wasn't necessary. It would be assumed that if a man is making a movie to enquire about a possible romantic connection then he is single.
Societies and cultures aren't perfect, but neither are absolutely all their conventions sinister.