First Time in Years

For the first time in several years, as a necessarily interesting thing and as a requirement of book publishing, I have begun querying Literary Agents about my novel Lostine. My general 2024 querying experience is much facilitated by a submission format used by agents via a portal called Query Manager. QM’s format functions much the same as that provided previously through the Literary Magazine portal called Submittable.

There are some postable aspects to book querying in 2024:

1.     Nearly all literary agents are women. This encourages me, as my experience with many beta readers tells me the story appeals much more to women and girls than it does men.

2.     Most agents want to know if I have self-published Lostine and if so, how many copies did I sell in the first year.(I won’t follow this trend. Interest from a Literary Agent will confirm or not for me the hope that I have been objective about the quality of my work).

3.     Commonly, I am asked what are some of what in the business are called “Similars.” Beta readers have generously supplied me with a list: A Prayer for Owen Meany(Irving), The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(Dugoni), The Matchstick Castle and The Tiny Mansion, both by Kier Graff, plus Treasure Island(Stevenson) and Stand by Me.

4.     I have needed to state that No! Artificial Intelligence has not been involved in the writing of Lostine.

5.     The genres in which I have been querying so far are Action/Adventure and Quirky/Off-beat. Very possibly, because of its “one-off” nature, the genre in which Lostine belongs has been the most puzzling of all aspects of marketing the story. I have got where I am by finding out what Lostine is not – particularly not Romance, YA or Middle-Grade.