Chapter Eleven: Catching Up

I sent out my first small batch of queries including the previously mentioned one that escaped before I added the agent's name and agency. Not surprising, I didn't receive any acknowledgment from them. I did receive a couple automatic rejections from other agents in short order - so short, in fact, I doubt even a speed reading specialist could've read the first sentence of my letter.

I made a real effort to carefully research agencies, seeking to identify agents who were accepting queries and were interested in my Young Adult genre. I read and reread thru the bios of multiple agents and settled on several who seemed most promising for my novel. I sent my query to those agents' personalized email addresses. In one case, a submissions clerk sent the speedy auto rejection. I have no reason to believe the agent I emailed ever saw my query. Frankly, it seems to negate that across-the-board advice to research agents and send material to the right one. Does the "right one" even get it?

Several visitors to the blog suggested I try small presses, many of which will accept queries sans agent. Some small presses seem to be quite specialized so it takes research to find likely matches. So far, I've found a dozen or so that may be possibilities. So, the quest to get published continues.

On a different subject, I bought the Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus (2008) several months ago and find it the best and fastest to use thesaurus I've tried. It's available on Amazon.com for about $25. If you're in the market for a new thesaurus, check it out. I keep it within hand's reach when I'm working.

I'll continue researching agents and small presses and sending out more queries. As a diversion, I'm working on a new novel. I've written a good bit of it but my notion about how it should go keeps changing. I guess the characters are beginning to take over the story and telling me what they really want to say. I much prefer the fantasy end of the publishing-stick to the business end!

Let's get published!