Joyce Elaine

For those of you that have been following along, I started sending query letters to literary agents. Query letters are basically letters that give a description of your  novel and gives a little bit about yourself. Depending on the agent, they may also want a synopsis and a certain amount of your  novel (first five pages, etc.). The goal is for the agent to ask for the entire novel. That hasn’t happened to me yet.

I’ve sent out 19 queries so far and have gotten 8 rejections. Someone asked me if I’m getting discouraged and the answer to that is “no!” I’ve read that all authors will get multiple rejections…maybe even hundreds. It’s all about finding the right agent for you. So, I plan to keep on pushing forward until I’ve ran out of agents to query. Self publishing will be my very last resort. I’d much rather pay someone else to clean up my novel and do all the advertising. I’d rather just spend my time writing. It’s time consuming to query an agent and I don’t even want to do that!

I did realize, though, while sending out all these queries that my novel is too long! Originally I had read that a thriller for a new writer should not be more than 120,000 words. So…I cut a lot out of my novel to get it down to over 119,000 words. Then I started reading the literary agents websites and soon discovered that thrillers should not have more than 90,000 words. I tried really hard to chop off between 29,000 – 30,000 words but it just wasn’t possible.

Soooo…I ended up going back to my original ending (just made it a bit better) and took out the third part of my book. The third part will now be book number 2. I just have to add a lot more to it to make it an actual novel. So that’s what I’m working on now…plus still sending out queries. I’m trying to send out 3 queries a day. I’ve only sent out one so far with the new word count. I’m hoping it makes a difference…we’ll see.

What’s really cool about making the third part into a second book is that I also came up with another idea to have a book three. In fact, book two will end with a hint of a follow-up. So, yes, it’s going to be trilogy! What’s cool about that, you ask? Weeeeellll….you may think I’m nuts but I went to see a physic a few weeks back. She’s legit, the real deal. She told me that my book is going to get picked up by an agent, it’s going to be trilogy (which I didn’t think so when she told me) and there will be talks of turning it into a movie! How cool would that be? That’s not my goal. My goal is to get an agent and get published. If it turns into a move, then so be it. I’ll take it!

I’ve also joined the Maryland Writers Association. Being a member will give me access to free workshops and I will be able to meet other people just like me and author’s who can give me pointers. They have their annual conference in March. There will be literary agents there. Being a member, I will be allowed to do an in-person query with one agent for free. I will have to pay if I want to query more than one but I have to say that being able to pitch my book to an agent in person will be AWESOME! I just have to find confidence in myself because like most authors, I put myself down as a writer sometimes.

We will see what happens next. I’ll keep you updated!

Thanks for reading!