Questions: on when to query

Barratt Miller asks:

1) Is there such a thing as querying too soon? 2) Although I expect that it’s something one just “knows” instinctively, are there a set of guidelines to follow? 3) When did you know you were ready to start querying? 4) What sort of writing had you done up until that point? I’m Sweating With Sven as well, and I’m wondering if I should even bother sending out queries for this project once it’s completed. I don’t think I’m ready, but I tend to be my harshest critic. While I want to trust my gut and wait until the next project, I don’t want to “wait until the next project” for the rest of my life.

Sometimes I’m really happy there’s a link to the blog. For instance, now I know how to pronounce “Barratt” — it’s not like “Barack.”

In this case, I wasn’t quite sure what the question meant, because the simple answer is to start querying when you’re done writing the book. Chapter One all the way through to The End, revise, get second reads, polish, then query.

But now that I’ve read your blog, I don’t think that’s what you’re asking. In this post, you talk about how you think this book isn’t ready for prime time. You know it even while you are writing it. You are clearly much better at seeing that sort of thing than I was. As I mentioned the other day, I didn’t know my “under the bed books” weren’t publishable when I was writing them. If I did, I probably wouldn’t have finished them. It doesn’t fit with my personality. But it was necessary for me to write “training” books, even if I didn’t know that was what I was doing. They taught me how to get to the point where I could write something publishable. Other people are fine with the idea of writing books just for practice.

Back to the questions:

1) Yes, there is such a thing as querying too soon. Querying projects before they’ve properly developed is way too soon. If you’re a new author, that means you don’t query until you have a complete book, polished, vetted/critiqued. However, I’d like to clarify that there’s only “too soon” on any given project. It’s not like you get one chance to be a writer and that’s it. If you feel like you have a good book, go ahead and query it. Or even if you want to see if what you’ve got is a good book. There’s no drawback. If you get a rejected everywhere, you can still query everywhere with your new book. Seriously, get used to the idea of rejections. I think a lot of the “we only get one chance” mindset is really fear of rejections in disguise.

The only time I think it’s too soon to query as a writer is when you’ve never finished a book. You need to have a product to sell, and that’s what a query letter is — a sales pitch. So yes, it’s too soon to query until you have a completed, polished book. (I wonder how many times I can use that phrase in one blog post.)

2) Guidelines vs. gut instinct. I think this varies from writer to writer. If you’re the kind of writer who is into entering contests, you might take your contest feedback as a good guideline. If you are getting great scores and/or finalling, you might be ready to submit. If you write short stories and have sold a lot of those, you might be ready to submit. If you have critique partners that you trust and they are all saying “get it out there, you silly girl!” (hint hint, person that reads this blog and has been sitting on her awesome book for weeks) then you might be ready to submit. And yes, listen to your gut, but don’t let the doubt demons keep you down.

3 and 4) I think I answered this above. When I wrote my first novel, I was doing it specifically for the purposes of publication. It wasn’t for practice. I knew I could write, I just didn’t know if I could write a whole novel. So when I finished it and polished it, I queried it. It wasn’t even a question for me. I’m not writing fiction for fun, so when I had something to submit, I submitted it. Since everyone’s process is different, it really is impossible for me to answer this question. Some folks write hundreds of short stories (some even publish them) before tackling a novel. Some just sit down one day and write a novel. There’s no way to compare.

Do you have a critique partner? I’m also my harshest critic (actually, no I’m not, the nice reviewers at Amazon are!) but having a critique partner is great — they have distance from your story, so they can see the things you’re missing, and help you get a more objective handle on your work.

But whether you are writing books “for practice” or “for publication” you need to HAVE a book before you can query it.

Hope that helps!