📖 First Readers: Keep Calm & Query On

Patience & persistence in reaching out to agents — and in so many other things

This is a First Readers post, an update twice a month on the book I’m writing about the human experience of illness. If you aren’t interested in the behind-the-scenes book updates, here’s how to turn off First Readers emails but keep all the other Odyssey of the Body emails.

Hello, dear friends! Thanks for your many suggestions on the title of the book in progress, which I tentatively called Navigating the Journey You Never Wanted: The Intimate Experience of Illness. I loved reading your many excellent ideas of alternative titles and will likely tweak the title again.

Today, let’s talk about query letters, the current stage I’m in. This involves writing a cold (or warm, if you are lucky) email to an agent who is currently open to new writers in your genre.

Here’s how Jane Friedman, a publishing expert with fantastic resources on her website, puts it:

“The query letter has one purpose, and one purpose only: to seduce the agent or editor into reading or requesting your work.”

If the agent is intrigued, they will request to read the full proposal (or in the case of fiction, the manuscript itself).

How did I find agents to send query letter?

1. I’ve been reading the back matter of books, where authors thank everyone involved, and looking specifically for agents who garner raves. Then I look them up online and see if they are open to queries.

2. Publishers Marketplace lists agents and their recent deals, which is a great place to find out who is selling books in any genre. Agent Lisa DiMona, for example, represented Atomic Habits, and her Publishers Marketplace profile says: “I also represent practical nonfiction, advice and how-to, especially in business, entrepreneurship, creativity, productivity and leadership categories. I love working with authors who are on a mission, authors who have irresistible ideas and stories.”

3. Sometimes I run across an agent on social media, or a Q&A online, and they sound lovely and encouraging. If they are open to queries in my genre, I add them to the list. (Lots of cool agents are not open to nonfiction or health-related books; they might want YA or thrillers or cookbooks.)

Jane recommends send off query letters in batches, to 3-5 agents at a time. This is notoriously a long process. (Agent Kate McKean, who writes the stellar newsletter Agents and Books, set up Fifty Queries Club, in which any paid newsletter subscriber who has queried 50 agents and not received an offer of representation can request Kate read their query and weigh in what the issues might be. In other words, querying, say, 36 agents is not abnormal!)

I have so far sent off 3 query letters. No replies so far. I have more to send this week!

Patience and persistence

A lot about this process reminds me of other challenges.

Like having a chronic illness. You want the timeline to go faster. You want to feel better. You want to get through the 6 weeks of radiation or the tapering of prednisone now. You want the new medication to work instantly.

Sometimes, you simply have to do your part and wait.

Thankfully, there are almost always other things you can do as you are waiting for the process to work to help keep you from feeling restless or hopeless.

One thing I’ve been thinking is writing essays for other publications, pieces in the same vein as the book I’m imagining. That would be helpful to mention in the query letter. I could also be setting up an author website. And so on.

Also like being seriously sick and following a treatment plan, there’s no guarantee this querying process will work in the way I want it to. I hope it does. It has for other people. It also has not worked for other people. So, we will see. Books take years to come into being, so I’m working on being patient and sticking with the plan.

To our journeys,
Brianne