Pieces

One thing I learned during my research on finding an agent was that I’d need a number of pieces ready to submit.

The first was a cover letter. I probably obsessed over that part more than anything else on the list. I edited it, did it again, and continued doing it all through the time I submitted queries. It’s tough to write a hook to grab the attention of the person reading your letter, introduce yourself, and give the agent an idea of your book. Did I ever get it right? I don’t know. The end results don’t bear out that it was one of the greatest query letters ever written, but I don’t think it was the worst.

I also needed a synopsis of my book. Talk about more tough work. Distilling my book down to a page or two was an interesting exercise. I think I did just fine on this one. It seemed counter-intuitive to include the twists and the ending in the synopsis, but my research showed this was necessary. Agents want to know you can carry a book through to a satisfying conclusion, and that said conclusion is a logical ending to what came before. If something seems out of whack with the synopsis then they haven’t wasted time reading an entire manuscrip.

The other thing I needed was the first chapter or chapters, first 30 pages, first 50 pages, etc., ready to submit as a sample of my writing. This was the easy part, although it seemed each agent wanted something different. More on that later.

Looking back, it seems like it took a long time to research and prepare what I needed. Maybe it did, since it was late May before I sent off my first query.