I’ve been in the query trenches for about a month now. Here’s how I am doing it.
Step one: play on querytracker.net, making little piles of people to query later and people to never query until I stumble across a profile of an agent that really gets my attention.
Step two: spend several days obsessing over said agent. Find all of their online interviews and social media platforms and get to know them while putting together a query package catered specifically to them.
Step three: send off the hyper personalized package to the agent I am currently in love with and then sit back and wait for them to be swooned by my effort and my story.
I have not made it to a step four yet. While I do think that my strategy is nothing less than genius, it’s a little tough on the heart because it’s sort of feels like developing a huge crush on somebody, writing them a detailed love letter, and then getting completely ghosted… Over and over again.
Although it isn’t fair to myself to consider it being ghosted, as I have not allotted the proper amount of time to not get a response. In the world of writing, one day is like four weeks.
I’m also trying to remember that Sheet Laundry is not for everybody. I know there is an agent out there that is as cool as I am and would want to represent such a fun book to read. But not everybody is going to want to represent a book that uses the words erection, fuck, and ass-shield 112 times collectively.
Where are you cool agent? Make yourself findable so we can sell a bunch of books together!