Literary Agents who send personalized letters
I receieved three rejections for my current novel searching for a publishing home, The Way of Deception -- and two of them were form letters. One of the letters was personalized. The letter began, Dear Mr. Gibbs (and that happens sometimes even with a form style letter -- named my book, said it was interesting, but then it shocked me. The letter then spoke about the genre my book falls into -- thriller, specifically, a conspiracy thriller, and how it is a difficult genre because of how crowded it is now because of particular books (Dan Brown's comes to mind). Then they gave me the usual lip service about not being able to give the book the attention it deserved, and not to be discouraged because there may be an agent out there for my novel.
This is a lesson in reverse. We tend to send our query letters out in a big bundle, with this mass mailing where only the Dear whoever and address is different. But agents are like us, they get a thrill when they can tell a query letter has a personal touch, so don't we owe it to them, and our careers, to do so? Anything that increases my odds of getting noticed is good in my book. . . hence why I am also going to attend my first Writer's Conference in October.
This is a lesson in reverse. We tend to send our query letters out in a big bundle, with this mass mailing where only the Dear whoever and address is different. But agents are like us, they get a thrill when they can tell a query letter has a personal touch, so don't we owe it to them, and our careers, to do so? Anything that increases my odds of getting noticed is good in my book. . . hence why I am also going to attend my first Writer's Conference in October.
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