Querying 101

Hi Everyone! It's been a while since my last post, but these past two months have been insane both personally and for the entire country. I've been thankful to have something occupying my mind during this time....QUERIES!

After writing and extensively revising A VEILED AND DARK DESCENT. It was time to query. I began querying in late March of this year and I am currently still querying (in July). This is an average time frame. Querying has been illuminating. Everyone cautions against querying before the manuscript is 100% ready. But how do you know if it's ready? You honestly don't. I had two developmental edits, a copyedit, and beta reads before sending out my first batch of queries and it turns out, the manuscript wasn't ready. I got lots of rejections and only one read request. If this happens, it's time to regroup. I began looking for authors and editors who could critique my query and opening pages. Eventually, I found two! Both were published authors who offered editorial services. Both had similar comments. I was starting my book in the wrong place! Should I have figured this out earlier? Probably. I "wasted" about 30 queries on a manuscript with a weak opening chapter. However, there are hundreds of agents out there and I knew I had to keep going. So with my revised query and first chapter, I sent out a second batch of queries. From this batch, I received 13 requests for the full manuscript! Some have been rejected, which may mean another revision is in store, but the moral of the story is this: when in the querying trenches without any requests, it's time to Stop, Assess, Revise, and Resubmit!