r/Querying

Hello r/TradPublish!

Who else can’t believe it’s May already?

Welcome to our Seventh monthly check-in thread!

Here’s this month’s prompt: How do you cope with waiting for anything in the querying process, whether that’s feedback or agent responses?

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This monthly pinned post aims to help the writing community connect with other writers interested in traditional publishing!

Share how your WIP draft is going, or how your current querying is doing, or other relatable traditional publishing topics in this thread!

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Hi, all! First time posting over here. Thank you for taking a look at this. The previous query I was working with wasn't getting the response rate I was looking for, so hopefully a completely new version is the move.

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Dear (agent),

WORDBOUND is a 112,000-word adult high fantasy novel inspired by the Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus. Standalone with series potential, WORDBOUND blends the normalized queerness of Martha Wells’ Witch King with the competition structure of James Islington’s The Will of the Many and the emotional heart of Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor.

Prophecy creates reality, and Kiris is the Prophet. He’s also a con-artist. When he foresees the death of Thaav, his parent-figure, he’ll do anything to beg forgiveness before his prophecy kills them. Thaav is located across a dozen squabbling principalities and an invading empire, but disguised as a minor prince, Kiris hopes to traverse the region unchallenged.

Kiris’ royal disguise works great: he’s blackmailed, adopted, and sacrificed to the invading empire’s court as a childless prince’s heir. The empire has declared a competition to determine which of the princes will collect the empress’ taxes; the empress has vowed automatic victory to whoever bows Prophet Kiris before her.

If the empress discovers Kiris, she’ll use his prophecies to make her colonization inevitable. Kiris should flee. But Thaav—Prince Thaav—is competing, and Kiris now has weeks instead of days before they die. By allying with the cutthroat princes, suppressing his volatile prophecies long enough to fake normal, and bartering for the empire’s demon-summoning resurrection magic, he’ll be able to fix his prophecy. He won’t need Thaav’s forgiveness.

Thaav will never need to know he killed them.

I am a (bio).

Thank you for your consideration,

Hello! I tried to address the comments from last time and am feeling hopeful about this version except that I feel the fourth paragraph could read better but don't know how to improve it. I also added a third comp on the advice of a beta reader. Thanks in advance!!

Dear <agent’s name>,

I’m thrilled to share HIMALAYA, a contemporary romance novel complete at 78,000 words. It will appeal to fans of the coming-of-age arc of Much Ado about Nada by Uzma Jalaluddin, the nature-based romance in Something Wilder by Christina Lauren and the childhood history in Every Summer After by Carley Fortune.

Meera Kelkar manages her traditional-minded father’s sports stores in Mumbai by day, retreating into her comfort zone of home by night. All she needs is a happily-ever-after with her childhood best friend, Ravi, who has feelings for her but can’t see her fitting into his life of travel and activity-hopping. Intent on winning him over, Meera joins him on a mission to escort a seven-year-old orphan, Khushi, to her adoptive parents in the Himalayas.

Meera decides to explore a cave with the help of her tour guide, Fahad, to prove her bravery to Ravi. All is well–until a landslide traps them both in the cave. With Fahad’s moral support, Meera engineers an escape and realizes she may not need to change to find love. Despite Fahad’s incomplete healing from a bad break-up, they find a safe space with each other, and a chemistry hotter than a Mumbai summer. 

Reaching Khushi’s adoptive parents, Meera suspects they are hiding ulterior motives and while Ravi shies away, Meera and Fahad team up to get Khushi back to safety. Back home in Mumbai, Meera’s father, who only approves of Ravi, forces her to choose between family loyalty and her new love with Fahad. Meera must confront if she’s willing to lose out on her beloved sports business and family home to stay true to herself and pursue her happily ever after.

I am a writer and [job and location]. My short fiction has appeared in magazines including xyz. This book was inspired by the Himalayan mountains, where my family and I have trekked over decades.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Warmest regards,

Name

Dear [AGENT]

I am pleased to present ECHOES OF THE IRON HEART, a dual POV romance with an action twist set in the Victorian Era, complete at 100k words. It is a standalone novel with sequel potential and it will appeal to readers who liked the intrigue and romance of Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman as well as the strong, independent feminine character and adventure  in What The River Knows by Isabel Ibañez.

After her influential father’s death, Gwaelyn Ellis should have been given a hefty inheritance. She would have used it to travel the world, put her proficiency in ancient languages to good use, and follow the dreams she has always envisioned for herself. Instead, the inheritance went to the library where she is now stuck working, her dreams confined to books of far off places and lost treasures. In a society that undervalues women, she knows her chances of getting out of that dusty library and out into the real world are very slim. That is, until a notoriously curt Croatian archeologist walks through the library doors.

Miško Jurić has dedicated his life to uncovering a lost city off the coast of Pag. He has no patience for distractions, no interest in proving himself to anyone, and absolutely no use for an ambitious librarian who thinks she belongs on his dig. Especially when she uses her connections to get there. (I looked into it, and it seems like Victorian archeologists were more enthusiasts than specialists, but I can still try to change this around if it’s a problem)  So he hands her off to Ivan Babić, his best friend and the dig’s foreman. Ivan is everything Miško isn't, and where Miško sees a liability, Ivan sees potential. He becomes Gwaelyn's unlikely ally on the dig. 

When mysterious tablets with Latin inscriptions are found, Gwaelyn pushes Miško to let her translate them, allowing her to use her ancient language skills, convinced it will allow her a way into the life she has always longed for. In working with Miško, she reveals a new side of herself to him and feelings surface that Miško is unequipped to handle. However, when they return to London and he appropriates her translations without acknowledgement, Gwaelyn decides to act alone, following clues to a legendary treasure hidden in the tablets writings.
Realizing she's gone, Miško chases her, but not before Gwaelyn falls into the hands of the ruthless Randall Bowman. Also in search of the treasure, Bowman turns to physical violence to try and get the information he wants. After saving Gwaelyn from Bowman’s clutches, Miško, Gwaelyn and Ivan reunite in Athens until Bowman’s men force them to flee. Hatching a plan to get the men off their trail, Miško sends Ivan back to London while he escapes to Rome with Gwaelyn. 

With the treasure finally within reach, an intimacy has quietly grown into something neither Gwaelyn nor Miško can ignore. Miško, who has always found his feelings easier to bury than to face, is finally succumbing to his emotions. Then Bowman pushes too far and forces their hand. Now burdened by the guilt over what his choices have cost Ivan, will Miško let guilt and what he believes are unrequited feelings push him away, or will he find the courage to admit what he feels? Gwaelyn must decide if Miško is worth giving up the dream she's chased her whole life. Will loving him finally mean being seen? Or will it be the end of the hard-won independence she’s fought so fiercely to attain?

[AUTHOR BIO]
Thank you for your time and consideration.
All the best,
[NAME], writing as [PEN NAME]

Hey everyone. My manuscript was originally titled THE TRESPASSER, but after some feedback I have decided to change it to WHAT SHE DID INSIDE. Pasted below is my revised query. I have made several changes since my original post here on reddit.

I have queried a total of 74 agents with 15 rejections. However, that includes rejections from earlier versions of my query letter that I now realize were not the best. So far, I have queried 19 agents with this letter with 4 rejections. Two of those rejections included helpful feedback, such as they enjoyed the premise, but didn't feel they knew the right publishers for it. One rejection was the second agent from the same agency as another rejection, and it came quick, so I'm thinking that might have been a waste of an attempt. If true, that would bring me to 3 authentic rejections out of 19. Either way, I don't think 3 or 4 rejections out of 15 attempts is enough to necessarily conclude that my query letter is the problem, but it might be, so that's why I'm here.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Dear [insert name],

WHAT SHE DID INSIDE (70,000 words) is an adult psychological thriller about a woman who breaks into strangers’ homes and may be responsible for murders she doesn’t remember committing. It will appeal to fans of Riley Sager’s The Only One Left and Lisa Jewell’s None of This Is True. 

When Jade’s abandoned childhood home is bought by Kieran, a widowed father, she is forced to confront the past she’s spent years avoiding. Her mother’s murder—committed by her father—has become local folklore, now echoed by a killer targeting unfaithful husbands and staging each death the same way. 

Convinced Kieran is connected, Jade becomes obsessed. She uses her habit of breaking into strangers’ homes to slip into his life unnoticed and makes an unsettling discovery: he knows more about her past than he should. 

To get closer, Jade begins dating Kieran. When she learns he’s seeing a therapist, she inserts herself there too, but her session raises more questions than answers. The therapist’s interest in her mother’s murder feels less professional than personal. Both men are hiding something.

Lacking sufficient evidence, Jade feels less in control. When the pressure mounts, she drinks heavily, waking up disoriented, battered and bruised. She wants to blame the alcohol but can’t understand why the bottles appear untouched.

The pattern becomes hard to ignore: her blackouts occur all too close to when another murder takes place. With each new death, Jade is forced to confront a frightening possibility: she may be the killer she’s been hunting.

I publish fiction under the pen name Owen Smith, with work appearing in Black Warrior Review, Cosumnes River Journal, Iris Literary Journal, and Free Spirit Publishing’s “Games”-themed collection. I am also the author of the self-published novel The Canal: A Suspenseful Thriller.

Thank you for your consideration.