Query shark

I have decided to again test the waters of the Query Shark.

I know I have blogged about literary agent Janet Reid before. She has a very popular following on her blog, Query Shark. On that site, aspiring authors like me send her their query letters for critique. Some of the letters she publishes -- names and identifying characteristics removed -- are reasonably good but most as bad, for a variety of reasons. Often she asks for the author to re-write the query and re-submit. Occasionally, she publishes a letter and a request for additional material.

The site is a great learning tool.

Getting on her site is harder than getting an agent through a query letter. She has said she only picks about one in 100 to critique, which is only 1 percent. (Nationally, agents reject all but about 2 percent of queries.) But I thinks she must have been getting lots of poor queries this year because her stats are way down.

I submitted to Query Shark some time ago. I haven't looked but it was probably the query for An Untidy Affair. And while she sent an e-mail acknowledging that she got the query, in the end it was neither good enough nor bad enough for her to publish with a critique.

So, I will try again, this time with The Last Tontine Survivor, though probably not until next week. Before I do submit, I plan to read through all her requirements and blog posts again. If I'm going to be rejected, I don't want it to be because of mistakes others have previously made -- and on things the Query Shark has already chomped on. After I read through the blog again, I'll make one last re-write of my query and ship it on.

Given the work I need to finish first and the amount of Shark prep I need to do, I probably won't submit until some time next week, undoubtedly just before I head out for a vacation.

Reid's comments are helpful but she still breaks some of her own rules. But her main rule is that the query be well-written, readable and interesting. All the other rules are subject to breakage.

Therefore, I will do the best I can and let it fly, and not worry about the rest.

Thanks for reading and don't give up.