Top 10 Reasons Your Query Isn't Working

[@katiefjelstad]

From someone in the querying trenches, know that you can do everything "right," have a stellar book (that very few agents will read), and still get rejected quickly and often. Also, to know you will be rejected and to actually feel it are two different things. That was something I didn't realize. It took me to my sixth rejection to actually cry... now I'm not crying but I'm also no longer that hopeful. I have ideas for my next book. I wish everyone here the very best! Please know that your book is good and I would read it (whoever you are!). Like you, I love stories and that will keep us going!

[@ksenijapopovic]

I'm in there, too. It's horrible. I'm an experienced writer, published in my country, double majored in literature, and I know when a book does or doesn't work. I know mine works. But the statistics on Query Manager are terrifying (1.5% of positive responses), and a small set of rejections came in within the first week, so now it's all about waiting and waiting and not knowing if anyone will ever request a full ms. I'm also working on the next book, but this one came after years of huge personal struggles. I really want it to succeed beyond my little country. So, the doubts have started to creep in: Did I not make the book sound interesting enough in my query letter? Is my writing in English not good enough? Are agents not looking beyond the word count? (it's not 200.000 words, but it's a bit on the longer side) Do people simply not care about reading a book set in my country? Did I miss the moment for this type of story? Sorry for the long-winded comment. My point is: I know where you're coming from, Katie. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for us both ♥

[@katiefjelstad]

@ksenijapopovic I feel blessed by your comment this morning... all the "advice" says to "move on." But no one can know how much the novel I wrote means to me. I conceived of the idea for the novel when my son was a newborn ten years ago. I've been hoping, wishing, and dreaming about having the time to write the novel almost all that time.... I would lay on the floor next to my kids at bedtime (trying to get them to get to sleep) and think about it. I live in a small town in Montana. And, like you, I know for a solid fact that my book "works" ... it's not going to win a major prize but the characters are fantastic and the plot is well done...I am proud of myself for writing it and proud of myself for finishing it. It may just be that I have to accept leaving it at that. Thank you for your reply, it makes me feel less alone. Good luck on your journey!

[@shelbymaalouf4261]

@@katiefjelstad Self publish it . I'll read it

[@katiefjelstad]

@@shelbymaalouf4261 I just might do that, thank you!

[@michaelschulman5848]

Great vid. Likewise, how about next topic: "Top 10 Reasons Your Full Request Was Turned Down" ??

[@bangaloreshydrohome5863]

These days , I just hit like and then watch your videos...I know what to expect...😊

[@annworthington7253]

Great advice, as always. I’m so glad you are back!

[@nickiwyldesart]

Thanks for another helpful video. You mentioned that picture books aren’t getting picked up as quickly…would you consider doing a video on the state of the market across genres?? Thanks for all you do!

[@gerriannbrower2121]

Great video - thank you. Would love to see the top 10 reasons nonfiction proposals are rejected.

[@MelWinters88]

Thank you Jessica and James for making this video. It really put things in perspective after receiving a rejection from Jessica just a few weeks ago. Now I know for sure it wasn't anything I did wrong (since I didn't make any of the mistakes listed 1-9) and I received nothing but honesty in the rejection stating it was a pass due to a full client list. Thank you so much to the both of you for what you do, I'll continue watching your videos in hopes to hone my craft as a writer!😊

[@christiep04]

You know this is super helpful! Thank you to you both yet again 💕 I was actually gonna ask here “so what do you do when your query is only _kinda_ working?” lol. Basically I have 2 full requests within 39 total responses so far (which I’m grateful for ofc and another 25 responses pending, but I kept reading that you should strive for a minimum of a 10% request rate. Author Alexa Donne has a video here that I think mentions 30% I think? so it just feels low) and it feels a little like what am I doing wrong, but I feel like number 10 (the spark missing) was really helpful and feels like at least a part of what’s going on for me. Thank you again!

[@MeredithPhillipsWrites]

You're doing better than me with that request rate! I remember the video of Alexa's you're talking about, but keep in mind that video is from quite a few years ago and the querying landscape has changed a lot in that time. A 30% request rate sounds wildly high to me. You're doing so good!! Keep going 😊

[@christiep04]

@@MeredithPhillipsWritesyou’re so kind! And I did forget it was made a while ago. I think I keep thinking about all those Cinderella 50% request rate and a month of querying stories lol. Thank you so much for being so nice. I needed that 💕💕💕

[@shelbymaalouf4261]

Thank you James and Jessica! I wish that when querying , we, as writers got a little more information than a form rejection (I understand Why FRs exist) but, I just feel it would better guide us , collectively as writers to write the next book that is tailored more to what the market is looking for. As much as it would hurt for 5minutes , I would love to know if my query was ie) not unique enough, or too similar to other books on the market. Anyways , thank you for continuing to post these ❤!

[@sarahhodge5738]

I've nearly gotten into fights on author socials about word count. There are die hard believers that word count doesn't matter, and writing a 300k novel is okay. I read and write fantasy, but that's...too much for me unless I know and trust the author to use those 300k words efficiently.

[@TheEccentricRaven]

Well said! Thank you for the insight!

[@matthewhanson3902]

Love all your videos. I'd love to hear your thoughts on generative AI, especially given the recent Harper Collins announcement.

[@nathiagrey4475]

Amazing information, as always! I took Jessica's Speakeasy workshop on how to rejection-proof your query a couple years back, and it was both brutal and incredibly helpful. I realized that, while I knew all the rules of querying (in theory), I hadn't quite figured out how to implement them into my query letter. That workshop, along with watching this channel like a hawk, have really changed the game for me, so BIG THANKS TO YOU BOTH!!! Question: I queried Jessica a month or two ago but withdrew my query when I received an offer of publication from a small press only a few short days later. (They were the only press I queried because I am familiar with the senior editor.) However, upon further reflection, I realized I'd been hasty in my decision and wasn't giving my book its best chance at success. Would it be okay for me to query again? 😬🙏

[@IlseMulAuthor]

11:53 I don't know how it is in the USA, but here in the Netherlands I go to bookstores and I find NO information about the story, not even about the theme. There's only praises from famous readers and such. I'm not interested in that. I want a blurb, a short summary. I want to know what the book is about. I don't want to know what someone else, who doesn't even know me, is thinking about the book. If I want to know what someone else thinks about the book, I'll ask a friend. This is so annoying. If all I can find is the "reviews"/praises on the cover of the book, I won't even consider buying it, exactly because of this reason. Thanks for an insightful video again!

[@etherscholar]

Hey guys. I'm super frustrated and discouraged. I've finished 3 novels and am starting a 4th. I've queried enough to get good at it. But I can't get an agent. So I figure it's my craft, so I've been aggressively trying to improve. But here's the thing: there's no way to know if it's my craft or any of the other 3 dozen reasons agents reject you. It takes me a year to write a novel. It just seems totally unfair that I have to spend another year to submit again and be mysteriously rejected. If I knew my craft was acceptable and that I just wasn't a good fit for that agent then fine, I would happily labor away, hoping to write something that can sell better on the next one. But I can't know that. I hate this system, truly hate it. I am on the verge of just writing a dozen first chapters for different stories and query-storming those, which is a big no-no, I know, but hey, if even one of them gets through the sieve I get that feedback, right? That's someone saying my writing is acceptable. And I get it in a month, not a year. And I can just tell the agent sorry, it's not available, can't I? Writing a novel is a LOT of work. What is your suggestion?

[@VoidStone]

Hire a professional editor who has worked with traditionally published books. You don't need to have them edit your entire manuscript, but they can probably tell you if your work is not yet at tradpub quality. Or if you want to trust some internet rando who is extremely picky, send me a message to me with a link to a couple pages in a google doc or something. I can probably tell you if there are any glaring issues

[@etherscholar]

@@VoidStone That's good advice, I think that's the only real avenue open to me. Thanks

[@lynncarlson8529]

Sorry, but I think that baiting approach is disrespectful to agents and their time. I also can’t imagine that you could write a good query letter for a book you haven’t written yet. I’ll say this-it feels like your attitude toward the publishing process might be a problem (it is what it is) and that might be coming through in your query. Maybe you are a candidate for self publishing? Just a thought…

[@etherscholar]

@@lynncarlson8529 I keep my queries professional. But reading a query wastes what, 5 minutes of their time, instead of a YEAR of my time? How is that fair? Seriously I'm asking - is that really fair? I understand why it's the way it is, they need to be efficient, but it also seems very disrespectful to an author. I need to be efficient too. I get it, were not allowed to fix it. But wow it sucks.

[@Karl.Zimmerman]

I've been querying my debut (a 163,000-word fantasy novel) and got many "sorry, not for me" responses and a few non-responses which I'm guessing are rejections. I wonder if the issue comes down to length. I purposefully restricted myself to only two POV characters, and I wrote in a very terse prose style (eliminating excessive description, reducing adjectives and adverbs to the minimum needed to get the story to work, and even deleting a few chapters entirely) to reduce it this much. This was actually swimming against the advice of some of my betas, one of whom told me I needed 300,000 words so he could explore the characters and world more! I'm really kind of left at a loss here, because short of deleting whole characters/subplots from the book, I don't know how I'd cut say 40,000 words out. I've started the next book (which is in the same universe, but focuses on a different character) which I plan to be a much shorter, more straightforward book, and wonder if perhaps I should shelve this and query with that, in hopes to get my debut published as a second book?

[@lrez30]

Hi Jessica and James, I love your channel and appreciate everything you do to educate authors. I was intrigued by your reference to the cozy mystery market. Could you elaborate on that a little more? It seems to me that there are less cozies hitting the market (when it comes to the bigger publishing houses anyway) and that the cozy market took a real hit after the Penguin Random House merger

[@rowan7929]

I try to keep my word count between 80k to 90k. Since I've been told this is the acceptable count for agents and genre (I write fantasy). Also because it would cost me too much money for getting it beta read and basic editing to make it sound good enough. Mainly because I have mild dyslexia. I do hope that my latest YA high fantasy is still alright with 78k words. Sadly have been getting form rejections (sadly Emily rejected it too, but well, thankful enough she looked at it), but I've only queried a handful of agents at this stage as I still try to query an older work that went through a huge rewrite. Of course I try to get my letter and blurb as polished as it can be. Work with some great people who have helped me to make these better and hope that my stories will be appealing to an agent. Including one at BookEnds.

[@prashantkumar4217]

I've been querying my 77k MG fantasy, without any bites. I have sent out 84 queries so far. I believe it's because middle-grade is difficult right now, so that might be one of the reasons.

[@marmantole]

MG is almost impossible right now… 😢

[@prashantkumar4217]

@marmantole Yeah, feels like it. My friend is on sub, and her book is also getting rejected left and right.

[@TonieAnterwp]

If a debut novelist has many publication credits and other writing credits, can that actually turn off an agent? I'm wondering if my bio paragraph in my queries makes agents think I'm too "all over the place" in terms of my writing credentials. Please let me know what you think, Jessica and James. I value your feedback.

[@marcusbell9631]

Thank you again for another video helping authors. I'll finish watching it later, but I wanted to pause to say that, as a queer author who stands in solidarity with trans people, it's disappointing when Harry Potter is unnecessarily referenced about something like word count. I know it's an *easy* example, but it's an example with baggage. With everything JK Rowling has done to harm trans people, it's impossible to mention her without alienating some of your queer/LGBTQ+ audience and there are lots of authors out there who've written long books. Again, as an emerging writer, I truly appreciate the advice you give out so frequently for free. Thank you for that. I just wanted you to know that there might be better examples to bring up (and you might draw attention to a lesser-known writer in the process!)

[@giovannijacobs4496]

I wrote a 2 part historical m/m/f romance, even though I don't read romance. I read classics, but a lot of them just happen to be romances. So it's basically a historical saga. It feels disingenuous selling it as a romance when the characters are the way they are, which is often apart from each,. it's LGBTQ but in the first book there's not queer romance but the men only starts finding their bisexuality in Book 2 and I don't want to disappoint anybody by labelling it LGBTQ+ romance and it isn't that either in book 1. What do I do?

[@asharablack]

Sounds like you should market it as historical fiction, not romance. Romance as a genre follows very specific conventions, that you are definitely not meeting. Romance readers would end up being disappointed by your book if that's how it's marketed, and the people who'll enjoy your book are probably not looking in the romance section. Also, make sure that the first book deals with some queer themes, be that in the form of queer side characters or hints that the men aren't as straight as they seem. Probably best to do both. Then you can write some tagline like "the story explores gender norms in the 16th century" and you'll hopefully reach the right people. What you don't want is LGBT folks reading the first book and putting it down, thinking this isn't for them. What you also don't want is conservative people loving the first book and absolutely hating the second.

[@giovannijacobs4496]

@@asharablack thanks so much for this. In the first book there is actually a non POV character (Lisa, Jonathan and Casper are are the 3 POV characters) who is queer and struggling with his sexuality. It's a large section f=of the book where Casper tries to help him with it. Would that be enough? Very VERY close to the very beginning Jonathan discovers his bisexuality by hooking up with the ship's captain. But even so, historical fiction might be best. Or perhaps both romance and fiction because KDP has 3 categories.

[@asharablack]

@@giovannijacobs4496 Sounds like enough setup to me, though I can't give a final judgement without reading the story. Also, have you considered the Young Adult genre? This of course depends on some things I can't evaluate, like writing style and the characters' ages. I'm only bringing it up because I think the themes of self-discovery might appeal to a younger audience.

[@giovannijacobs4496]

@@asharablack it is DEFINITELY not a YA novel. I mean it's as far away from YA you can get haha. You can still discover yourself as an adult.

[@NovaKirsch]

Do agents sometimes get a query and see if they can get "buy in" from editors/publishers first, before sending a 'rejection' or 'send me the entire book' reply back to the author?

[@KathyJackson-m6u]

Would you please address AI at some point? I'm hearing more and more about folks using AI to write all or part of their manuscript with disastrous results. What impact, if any, do you believe AI will have on publishing in the future? Any chance the industry will leave writing to creative souls who bleed words onto pages while drinking copious amounts of coffee?

[@elissahunt]

I'm not going to tell you what books are over 200k words, but I have to say I personally LOVE books that long. I understand the reasons why it's a bad idea to query with that long a book, but as a reader, I love finding big fat books in the store. Note: It's always Fantasy that is this long and works for me.

[@brentreimer6411]

100%. I get so excited when there's a big fantasy/sci-fi book to read.

[@kmhumphreys1]

If I'm working on a cozy mystery, should I put the project on hold?

[@oldguyinstanton]

On wordcount: My progressing (and debut) SF novel is currently at 181,000 words and looks like it will top-out at around 220,000. That's just what the story (actually, stories*) wants to be. It's also "out-of-norm" in other ways. To save everyone lots of time, is there (aside from simply sending out a zillion queries specifying these qualities) any way to select agents who specialize in "out-of-norm" manuscripts? * The book uses a framing/framed structure, so there are actually two plots.

[@andrewfallman7542]

It also sounds like you're still writing it since you don't have a final word count. You may find you're able to trim some of it down in revision. I'd say check out MSWL to see if any agents you're interested in mention they're looking for longer books or wholly opposed to long books. And of course, there's always getting in with your next book and having this one in reserve if your querying journey doesn't work out this time

[@andrewfallman7542]

It also sounds like you're still writing it since you don't have a final word count. You may find you're able to trim some of it down in revision. I'd say check out MSWL to see if any agents you're interested in mention they're looking for longer books or wholly opposed to long books. And of course, there's always getting in with your next book and having this one in reserve if your querying journey doesn't work out this time

[@oldguyinstanton]

@@andrewfallman7542 >>>>"MSWL" Wonderful idea! Thank you!

[@asharablack]

This isn't what you were asking for, but keep in mind that you've got to edit your first draft before querrying agents. At this point of your writing process, you don't know the optimal length of your novel. Notice I said optimal, not full. Maybe that's indeed 220,000 words, or maybe it's just 150,000 words. And if it's the latter, there's really no need to look for agents who specialize in "out-of-norm" stuff. Right now you believe that your novel just "wants to be" this long. But once you're done with your first draft, set yourself a challenge: Try to cut the novel by as many scenes as possible, without breaking the plot. It doesn't matter how much you loved these scenes, get rid of them just for this exercise. And afterwards, do the same for paragraphs. Sentences. Words. And then compare this trimmed version of your story to the original. Normally, people find that the succinct version is better. Maybe you'll find that the story was truly better with some of the scenes/descriptions you cut. Put them back in. But don't assume that your optimal word count is the same as the word count of the first draft. It's (almost certainly) not.

[@lisakaufman3029]

I'll be pitching my women's fiction, featuring subgenre magical realism, to Jessica this weekend or early next week! I'm kind of a mess because I've been thinking more and more she's going to want to rep this one! She's going to think I've written this one for her when the pieces have just come together! I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm querying other strong agents per her advice! Mom says y'all will all have different contacts! You deserve to see this one and rep the book! This one's written to market, and I'm more than willing to work with you to get it sold! Ohh, heck! I'm handing it to you, but you've got to love it! It's not good business! It's great business because I need an agent who's smarter than me! I missed the part about this coming together and that I'd think about publishing like you! You and Jane Friedman have taught me everything I know about the industry! Thank you for walking on those continuous egg shells! It's looking like it's paid off!❤

[@silencedogood2.0]

How do ya'll feel about a querying author, with no publications yet, having a website (such as a Squarespace) that's password-protected, just a skeleton of what it would turn into if they got a deal, and providing you, the potential agents, the password so that you can see that they're serious and prepared to "launch" a platform? Weird, or okay?

[@hiplessboy]

Dont do it. That sort of thing is unimportant. Agents wont jump through those hoops. Your excellent query letter and your compelling story is the password to an agent. That sort of gimmick tells the agent you dont know how the business works.

[@lynncarlson8529]

I am not yet publishing (querying soon) and I launched a website over a year ago. I wonder why you think you have to wait on the website. I’ve heard from a lot of agents (including James and Jessica) that they look to see if querying authors have an online presence. So why not get that site up now? There’s a lot you can do with it before/aside from promoting a book. Start a blog, promote other authors, give future readers a sense of who you are as a person. Best of luck!

[@1ktales]

Was this a re-upload or were you just covering the same (or similar points) in a similar way? I know a few of the discussion points are bound to be the same, but the further I watched, the more my sense of deja vu grew.