Sent out five query letters to literary agents this week in the latest round of “Represent My Novel, Why Don’t You?”  The first round involved 20 queries fired off in Tommy gun fashion at any agency that moved within my field of vision. Big surprise:  Not a one of them managed to bag the game.  This go-round, I took a breath and did significantly more research into which agents and agencies might be most interested in – and best suited for – my manuscript.

An agent put a call out for submissions? Great, but which writers does this agent already represent? Does any of their work fall within the same genre as my book? What about the agency as a whole?  A literary firm with a hundred clients but only one science-fiction writer among the bunch isn’t likely to jump at the next space opera that comes its way.  Instead of firing blindly, I zeroed my weapon, chose my targets carefully, and only then did I squeeze the trigger. OK, I may have driven this hunting metaphor into creepyland -- suffice it to say I did much more homework this time.  Whether that gets me anywhere, we shall see. 

I'm becoming something of an expert on the needs, desires, hopes, dreams, yearnings, fancies, aspirations, wants, hungers, tics, quirks, peccadilloes, hobbies, addictions, afflictions and affectations of the common North American literary agent. 

Sending out query letters to prospective literary agents as we speak. Every journey begins with a single step. This is my 50th or so step, after developing the concept for a novel, writing it, editing it, re-editing it, composing six separate query pitches and two separate synopses, etc. -- so I suppose I'm getting somewhere.