Querying is Hard Work

Okay, I began my marketing research by sending the short query letter to three agents today.

This is hard work. One wanted a letter only. One wanted a letter, a synopsis, and the first chapter, the synopsis and chapter as attachments. And the third used an e-form. Cut and paste chunks of the query letter into various boxes. Then add 50 pages in the final box. Only problem with the 50 pages is they had to be reformatted from Word into plain text.

I copied the material from Word and pasted it into Notepad. I added all the line breaks and then pasted it into the form, only to have odd lines added in mid-sentence. So, I had to rework the 50 pages into plain, plain text, checking each line break to be sure it fell in the right place. And since I couldn't send it to my other e-mail address first, I have no idea what the final will look like when it arrives.

Three agents for three said, "If you don't hear from us in X weeks, we aren't interested."