Our story begins the first week in May of this year. At that point in time, I had created a query letter for my most recent manuscript. I mailed that query to an agent who will remain anonymous. Within two days, I received a form rejection. Nothing too unusual about that, and I appreciate it when agents are quick to reply, even if it's a negative response.
The plot thickens now. (Eerie music builds in the background.) I rewrote the query a few times. I think it was in its fourth of fifth iteration when I sent it out again the first week in June. Now, I was either having a senior moment, or I temporarily and totally lost what's left of my mind, because I sent this new query to the same agent that had rejected my original query. And a strange thing happened a week later. The only thing I can deduce is that the new query was so unlike the original that it didn't sound even vaguely familiar to the agent. She requested a partial.
So, I guess the point of this narrative is that, if you get rejected with your original query, you might want to consider rewriting it and sending it out again, even to the same recipients. It was a complete accident on my part, but it had a surprising result. I hope that's a good sign.
That's it. Feel free to leave your comments.
Congrats! I'll be doing the same thing soon. I've rewritten my query so it looks nothing like the orginal. Neither does the first chapter. Plus, it's been months since I last queried the novel. :D
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your partial request.
Congrats! That's wonderful news.
ReplyDeleteAnd yea for amnesia!
Just lucky they get so many :) I'll be doing that in a couple of months time because the re-write is so major and the new query so much better! Will be fun to keep score *grin*
ReplyDeleteThat is hilarious. Congrats and good luck!
ReplyDeleteThat's a good thing to learn. I'll keep it in mind, especially if it happens to be an agent of which I'm unusually fond. :-)
ReplyDelete