I mentioned earlier that last year I finished my first novel. It was a pretty big accomplishment for me. Although I’d written books before, this was the first time I created a long fictional piece. Overall the story is solid, the characters are good, and I’m very pleased with it. Recently I’ve let a group of writers’ critique it and astonishingly they all have positive things to say about it. There are little things I need to fix but overall the response has been very positive. Unfortunately, one place where the response has not been positive is in my quest to find an agent. It’s been about 8 months since I started and I’ve not moved forward an inch.

So the way it works is an author finds an agent and then the agent takes the work and shops it around to publishers. They help negotiate the deal and represent the author to the publisher. Now it is not 100% necessary to have an agent, but pretty much all the larger publishers won’t look at work that does not come from an agent. So I’ve decided that getting an agent is probably my best first move. I actually contacted William Bernhardt, the best-selling author for his advice. He graciously talked with me over the phone for twenty minutes and confirmed that an agent is the way to go.

Like I normally do, I checked out a bunch of books from the library on how to get an agent. I read what kind of query letters to send, how to address them, what the agents are looking for, etc. Conveniently, at the same time as I was embarking on this quest a new book listing agents was updated so all of the information I had was timely and accurate. From that point I created a list of agents that sold the type of novel that mine was and then I ranked them in order of desirability from my view point. I also found a great website, AbsoluteWrite, that reviews agents.

So armed with all of this information, I crafted my query letter and sent off my first batch of requests. As I received rejection notices, I moved down my list to the next one. The process continued for about four months. At that point I had either heard nothing back or received form rejections. I then analyzed my query letter and tried to tweak it for a better response. There was not much to change but I polished it and sent out more requests. Again nothing but form rejection notices.

It is definitely disappointing to receive your self-addressed stamped envelope back in the mail. It is thin and creased from where you folded it up in the letter your sent. You know without even opening it up that it is a form rejection letter. Typically, I’d mark on my spreadsheet when I received the note and then just toss it in the trash. I used to keep them, but one day I realized, why?

So the question is, is my writing/novel not good enough to be looked at, is my query letter not that enticing, or am I just not hitting the right person at the right time. I’m confident the novel is good enough. My query letter is exactly what all of the books say you should send. Maybe that is the problem. Perhaps my query letter is too similar or maybe what agents say they want and what they actually want are two different things. I’m afraid to alter the query too much for fear of being rejected outright. Too many years of looking through resumes to find candidates to interview taught me that veering off the beaten path is a quick way to never being contacted.

So I’m left with the thought that I’m just not hitting the right people at the right time. I think there are some legs to this theory because agents receive an amazing number of queries a day. I find it hard to believe there are that many writers out there, but hey the opportunity cost to become a writer is $0 so why not. So how do I hit the right person at the right time?

Unfortunately, unlike other posts, this one has no suggestion. I keep analyzing the problem and am looking into maybe networking my way to an agent, but overall I’m just puzzled. Have you encountered something like this that seemed almost impossible to break into? If so, how did you do it? I’d love to know.