Firebrand Literary's Query Holiday

Firebrand Literary, an agency known for doing things differently, is having a query holiday. For one month they are not accepting query letters, but rather first chapters (as Word attachments, no less!).

I'm kind of excited about this because I queried them in my first transport, which means (1) I thought they looked like a really good fit for me and (2) they received my crappiest query letter and sample pages. So I'm glad for this second chance with them.

If you also want to get on this, do it fast. I only just found out about it, and the month-long query holiday ends January 15th. So get there fast!

UPDATE: I just noticed their website calls this their "first annual" query holiday. So I guess this is going to be a recurring thing, which makes it even cooler.

My First Published Words

A couple of weeks ago, I announced my debut on Thaumatrope. Multiple people informed me that this makes me a professional writer, but I just remembered that a small piece of my writing has already been published for payment long ago.

In a past life, I was a scripter for the role-playing game, Planescape: Torment. A scripter is like a programmer, except instead of writing complicated graphical algorithms, I wrote simple scripts that told each character and creature what to do. Perhaps the simplest example being:

IF See( PC )
THEN
Attack( PC )
END

I was also responsible for putting the levels together. Designers designed them and wrote the dialogue, artists drew everything, and I put the pieces together so it worked. On one level, I required a piece of dialogue to inform the player that he'd have to leave his party behind before entering the Immortal's Tomb. The designer told me to write it myself. I present to you the first 72 words of my publishing career (click to enlarge):

It's wordy, I know. I mean, I wrote it ten years ago. And anyway, in a game that contains an estimated 800,000 words, seventy-two is negligible. But these are my first words written and published for money.

So I guess I've been professional for a decade now and didn't know it.

Air Pirates Query on Evil Editor

Evil Editor has done a critique (slash-parody) of my latest query letter for Air Pirates. No, the novel isn't finished, but I followed my own suggestion and wrote the query early to help me focus the novel. Evil Editor mentioned being nearly out of queries a little while ago, so I figured I'd see what he and his minions thought. What the heck, you know?

Some notes on how Evil Editor works. At the beginning of the post, he does a "Guess the Plot" feature, where various minions (i.e. blog readers) send in fake plots based solely on the title. Evil Editor then puts his critiques (and sometimes pictures) in the query letter in a different color so you can see them. These are mainly just to be funny. The really useful information comes in Evil Editor's notes at the end and the minions' comments afterwards.

Anyway, go ahead and read it. Let me know what you think, either there or here.

Bad for Borders

Depending on what cross-section of the internet you pay attention to, you may or may not know that things are bad for Borders. Really bad. Like, there-might-not-be-any-Borders-in-a-couple-of-months bad.

It's scaring some people in the publishing world. The blogging agents I read keep saying don't worry about it, people will still read books. I tend to agree with them, and as an as-yet-unpublished author, I'm not worried. Not yet. I can't find the link, but one blogging agent said that unpublished authors should push harder than ever, because by the time their books are selling (i.e. in a year or two) the economy will have turned back again and people will want things to read.

Anyway, here's a couple of other recent links on this topic. Agent Joshua Bilmes points out a few stores that are closing post-Christmas (the beginning of the end or not?), and Agent Jenny Rappaport talks about what "the end" may or may not look like if Borders does go under.

Querying Travelers, Postmortem

My previous postmortem was for the process of writing Travelers. It occurred to me there were lessons I learned in querying it as well. Although technically I'm not finished with the querying process, I'm close enough that I think I can examine it.

What Went Right

1. Querying statistics - As I've said before, I like statistics. Keeping track of who I've queried, what batch they were in, what I sent them, and if/when they responded not only helped me to stay organized, but also kept me going. I don't like rejections, but at least when they come I get to update my Excel sheet.
   
2. Queried in batches - A lot of people recommended sending queries in batches of 5-10. This is extremely good advice. It gives you a chance to evaluate your query package based on the responses you're getting. It is much easier to stay organized and make sure you send the right things to the right people. And it gives you a more-or-less steady flow of incoming responses.
   
3. Enlisted help with snail mail - I have queried something like 60 agents, half of which prefer or require snail mail. I live in Thailand, making this an expensive venture (plus we only have A4 paper out here, and I'd hate to get rejected because my paper was the wrong size). Fortunately, I had my friend MattyDub to help me with that. I couldn't have done this without him.
   

What Went Wrong

1. Queried all the best agents first - As you research agents, you'll find that some of them look like perfect fits for you and what you like to write. You should be able to separate the agents you query into an A list and a B list. Then in each batch you send out, you should have a mix of agents from both lists, so that when you get to your third or fourth batch, you still have some A list agents to query with your new, improved query letter. I didn't do this. So when my query letter was finally good enough to grab someone's attention, all my A list agents were used up.
   
2. Not enough research - I did a lot of research before writing my query letter, but I could have done more. Not just research on agents, but mostly research on writing query letters. If you're thinking about sending out that query letter, here's what I recommend you do first:
• On Nathan Bransford's blog, read every post listed under "The Essentials" on the sidebar.
• Read at least 100 posts on Query Shark and Miss Snark and the "Face-Lifts" on Evil Editor. When you start to see patterns, don't stop. When you are able to predict patterns, then try fixing your own letter.
  
3. Not enough critiques - Before I sent out my first query letter, I had some of my friends read it. As much as I love them, this wasn't very useful (except for one friend who had taken a class related to the business of writing). What I needed was a serious critique group. There are lots of these online, but here's a couple that I've found useful. These are places you can throw your query at again and again until you get it right (and you should):
   
   • The forums on AQConnect, specifically the Query Critique Corner.
   • Evil Editor (again). The turnaround time is pretty quick here. Query Shark is another good one, but she's way backed up at the moment, and you probably won't see your letter anytime soon.
     

Published on Thaumatrope

I just got a story accepted on Thaumatrope, to be published April 12th. Yeah, Easter. I'm pretty excited about that, and I got paid a whole $1.20 for it. You can subscribe to the e-zine here.

So does this make me a professional writer now?

Dealing With Critiques

Over at SFNovelists.com, Kelly McCullough suggested the attitude that "whatever book or story you are revising or getting critiqued at this very moment, is a solid piece of work that can and will be improved if you work at it and learn from comments."

That's the ideal, and I hope to have that attitude one day. Unfortunately, my attitude towards critiques tends to mirror the stages of grief:

1. Denial: "I don't need anyone's help critiquing my story. Heck, I could probably sell it right now."
2. Anger: "The story's perfect! They just don't get it!"
3. Bargaining: "Do I really need to make that fix? Maybe a smaller fix will be good enough."
4. Depression: "This story's terrible. I'll never get it right. I might as well throw it away and write something else."
5. Acceptance: "I can do this. I can make it better, I just need to work through the critiques one comment at a time."

Actually, it's a little unnerving how closely this mirrors my actual reactions - like getting critiqued is some kind of life tragedy. That's totally the wrong attitude to have, I know, but I haven't yet had enough practice with it to get better.