Sending out New Query Letters Today

So, today is the big day-- I'm launching my assault :) Query letters, round two!

This one is going to be a much smaller, more targeted group of agents and I'm going to use both email and snail mail. Last time I just used email, which I'll discuss in another post. I had a whole "theory" about that...let me save you the time if you're thinking along the same lines I was, not the most effective tactic!

If there is one thing that I did learn from my first round of querying, that was VERY useful, it was to keep track of who I queried, when, their response, etc. I am putting up a screenshot of how I kept track (I'm a bit of a computer nerd who spent too much time as an analyst, so I did mine in an excel spreadsheet, but however you want to do yours is great). I had a column header for Agent, Agency (both of which I set up ahead of time), then whether or not I had queried them yet (marked with just an "x" but then there is a little red flag in the corner, which indicates there is a comment and I have one of the comments expanded so you can see what I noted in there--for each agent, I tracked when I sent to them and exactly what I sent them on each date I corresponded with them), then the next column is their response (with another section for comments) and the final column is their website.

The whole process was a little tedious, but it came in very handy to refer back to, and helped me make sure I didn't contact the same person twice. Also, it helped me see how long, on average, it took most agents to respond and I personally liked knowing who had which pieces of my material at any given time.

If anyone wants to use this, just let me know and I'll email you the template I set up so you don't have to make it yourself, which will hopefully save you a lot of time!