rejection letters - honesty?

Sounds very much like a form letter.

If you get personalised comments then that is a step forward - it shows that someone in the agency took a little extra time when they are very busy to make that comment.

The only thing to trust is when there is a specific comment about your work. Otherwise, chuck it in a pile with all the rest. The letter you've got is the same one you'd receive whether your MS was written in green crayon or whether it just wasn't right for the agent.

If you want to know if there are problems with your MS, get your 50 posts and try getting feedback in SYW.

Also: Obligatory link to Slushkiller for examples of people reading far too much into form rejections.

Yep, that's a form letter.

It's rare you'll get a personal response to a query letter. Keep sending them out. If you're not getting responses, it's time to revise the query.

... querytracker.com is a good place to check to see if a query is a form rejection. People often post the queries they get for individual agents in the "comments" section. G'luck.

heyjude said:

Yep, that's a form letter.

It's rare you'll get a personal response to a query letter. Keep sending them out. If you're not getting responses, it's time to revise the query.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what I was going to say.

Good luck!

A Napp: what you've posted isn't the kind of query that will work with American agents right now. When you're at 50 posts, you can post your query in SYW, but until then, I suggest you read as many threads there as you can, thoughtfully critique as many other queries as possible, the stickies, and work on a better query. Unfortunately, the one you're sending (particularly if you're querying agents in the US) is very unlikely to get any requests for your manuscript.

Good luck.

SYW = Share Your Work

Definitely agreeing with everyone - might be a good idea to head over the Query Letter Hell and take a gander at some of the queries posted there and the comments they get.

I agree that that query won't work. It really doesn't tell much about the MS. Join conversations and such around here and get to 50 posts. The squirrels will be happy to see you

Have a look at Queryshark too: queryshark.blogspot.com
Janet Reid - highly successful US agent crits selected queries that people have sent in and advies on how to make them more effective.

I agree with the others abut the query. Such a query works well if you already have an agent and a publisher, but not when you're searching.

When searching for an agent and/or a publisher, your query needs to show them how well you can write, not just tell them what you've written.

You may want to self-pub, and I'm not going to talk you out of it, but are you sure you've exhausted the incredibly long list of agents who rep romance?

I mean, maybe you have 200+ rejections, but with a little research and a lot of refining, you may still have a shot.

Honestly, I'd say with that particular query -- or nonquery -- you haven't burned through the agents. I'd recommend that you do as the people above recommend, and once you've written and HONED a query letter via Query Letter Hell, then resend to all of the agents you targeted. You didn't give them enough the first time to make a decision with.

To be absolutely honest with you, if you approach self-publishing without doing any research or setting goals or parameters for yourself -- just as you seemed to have approached querying -- you're not going to get the results you want. I'd advise working on that query in QLH, drawing up a list of agents to query, checking the agents' websites to make sure you're following their submission guidelines and keep moving forward.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Several people have mentioned SYW (Share Your Work) and especially QLH (Query Letter Hell). The password to get into SYW is vista. You need 50 posts elsewhere on the site to post your query in QLH or to post your first chapter in Romance. But go into QLH now and read the successful queries thread. Read some of the other threads to see how people critique queries. That will help you create a better one.

Who have you had help edit your work? Since you're a German writing in English, the probability is good that you need the help of a native English speaker, not a German who's literate in English.

Good luck as you continue!

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

A Napp, you might also want to look at the Evil Editor blog at http://evileditor.blogspot.com/

And please take some further tiresome advice. When you visit the Query Shark and the Evil Editor, read LOTS of posts. Spend hours -- days, even. It's evident from your query and your abrupt decision to self-publish that you haven't done nearly enough research on the business end of writing.

You can write a completely new query, polish it to a shine, and send it to agents who have already rejected your old query. They're not going to remember someone who flashed through their Inbox for a nanosecond before deletion -- assuming the same person will even be reading it.
http://evileditor.blogspot.com/

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

If you hate selling, you will be miserable self-publishing. You have to do ALL the sales yourself.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

A_Napp said:

Deep inside me, I don't think that a perfect polished query letter will get me anything. I really really don't know if it's worth the effort. I'm afraid another year will pass fruitlessly. ((

Click to expand...

I understand this probably comes from a place of fatigue and frustration, but you wrote a whole novel. Presumably you poured hours and hours and tons of emotional and mental head-slamming into writing and polishing it. What's a query letter more? Isn't your novel worth it? It *might* not get you anything, but if you don't believe in your novel enough to give it the absolute best shot you can, how can you expect someone else to?

Writing a query is horrible while you're in the thick of it, but it's an immensely shorter-lived pain than writing a book.

Take a quick break if you need to. Then tear into it again.