Well, it has begun. Like Mortal Kombat without a Player 2, I have entered into the realm of doing from the realm of talking about doing. I submitted a handful of query letters today and I swallowed very hard on each SEND as if I was choking down a little prayer to go with them.
First tip to anyone submitting a query, since most agencies are going green and value time, they are mostly through email. Test your message first. If you are like me, you type out your thoughts in an Word program first, then copy & paste into an email. I was baffled when it removed spacing between paragraphs. Well, that is apparently a formatting issue.
So, of course you want your first letter to go to the Agency you want the most. I bcc’d myself on my letters and I was mortified on the first one I sent. Well, they will be getting a triple-spaced version of my query letter thanks to what I thought was a revised copy. F-N great! Well, hopefully they can look past my initial blunder and still like the message. If not, I may have to try again later. LOL, technology.
Anywho, test out your letter on someone else before you try an agency. If they don’t like it or can’t understand it, guess what? Research the website and submission guidelines for any agency. They are all different and most do not want attachments (virus potential).
I started a tally, so feel free to check in on it in the next month or so and see how it goes. It’ll be located under the 1000 Miles tab or HERE. Until then, I am going to bury my head like a Popple and keep trying.
Jonas Lee 