Last Query Letter

Clara Andersson always wanted to be a writer. As a teenager, she was a great reader and marveled over books and the sound of words. Her teachers complimented her creativity when she turned in essays and stories and encouraged her to write a book someday. Clara was thrilled with the idea, but it sounded like walking to the moon. How could she possibly translate the characters and plots in her head into sentences and then stretch those sentences into 300 pages?

           Clara did plenty of writing when she became a college student, but none of it felt very creative or fulfilling. She wrote to get grades in classes, which involved repeating other people’s ideas. Those assignments had nothing to do with describing new worlds or evoking emotion. When she graduated and got her first full-time job at an oil field supply company, her days quickly became grimly predictable and involved practically no writing whatsoever.

           The pessimist in Clara wondered if she was destined to look and sound like the work drones around her, all of whom endlessly complained about their jobs and home lives. Was her future now a long, irrelevant slog toward owning some property, commiserating with some friends, and then dying? She escaped to more optimistic thoughts that fed the stories still alive in her imagination. She dreamed of falling in love, stepping into the unknown, and winning a race as an underdog.

           Clara spent more and more time in her own head, and she remembered her teenage hope to write a long story down, maybe even in a book. If she did go to all that trouble, what would it be about? A fantasy in a brand-new world or something more down to earth? She played with sentences and characters. When she typed the words on her computer, the sentences she liked best were semi-autobiographical. She continued writing about her high school job at an electric go-kart track. She described the sensation of a max velocity turn and the meltdown reactions when she beat the lap times of boys trying to show off.

           Clara wrote her first chapter on a rainy September Saturday while procrastinating cleaning her apartment. She did not call it a chapter at the time because she did not dare admit she was writing a book. Those first ten pages were more like an experiment. She reimagined her high school job interview from the perspective of a much braver version of herself. She described her boss and weird coworkers and the smelly yellow jumpsuits she wore. Clara spent the week changing words and sentences around and then emailed the pages to her best friend and her mom.

           “This is the best thing I’ve ever read,” her best friend replied. “You have to keep going. I can’t wait to find out what happens next.”

           Clara’s mom was even more effusive. Clara responded to both with, “Ah, you’re just saying that to make me feel good.” They swore they were sincere and would have reacted the same way even if they did not know Clara.

           She kept writing and found the courage to call that first experiment Chapter 1. She dedicated every night and weekend to more chapters. At first, she called it a story but eventually used the word “book.” The new chapters showed a young protagonist learning to race a go-kart and competing at local tracks. The teenager falls in and out of love, fights being a misfit, and wins a national competition with the help of her racing mentor. Clara sent chapters to more distant friends and cousins.

           The universal response was, “I love it!” Some people offered improvement suggestions, but they all sounded enthusiastic.

           “You don’t think the story sounds cliché?” Clara asked.

           “Only in a good way,” one of her cousins responded. That same cousin said, “You should totally get this published.”

           Clara downplayed the suggestion, but of course she hoped for the same thing. She was sitting on 70,000 words in 30 chapters, and she let herself believe they were actually good. She fantasized about being a famous author and calculated how much money she would make if her book sold a million copies. And maybe that would only be a start. She might write a whole series. She could be the next J.K. Rowling. They would make movies and theme parks based on her books.

           The cousin who encouraged Clara to publish invited her to a backyard barbecue on a March weekend. Clara arrived to discover her cousin had also invited a woman named Molly Flanagan.

           “You and Clara should talk,” the cousin said as she introduced Molly. “Clara’s a fabulous writer and I thought you could tell her about publishing. You’re the only person I know who’s published a book.”

           Molly returned a friendly smile and spoke to both Clara and her cousin. “It was too long ago. But I can say holding the real thing in my hands was the biggest thrill of my life. I used to check libraries to make sure they had a copy.”

           “How’d you do it? You just sent in your manuscript to a publishing company?” Clara asked.

           “I wish it was that easy. The big publishers only work with literary agents. You first need to find an agent and they send it to a publisher. Unless you want to self-publish. But if you go that route, good luck getting people to buy and read it.”

           “Is it hard to find an agent?”

           “Not if you’re a celebrity. Almost impossible for everyone else.”

           “But I guess you found one. How many books have you published so far?”

           Molly’s face grew dark. “Exactly one. The New York publishers aren’t interested in anything else I write. I’ve tried and I’ve tried. Year after year. All the rejection ruins the one success. I’m bitter. If you want my honest advice, forget all about it.”

           The initial excitement in Clara’s eyes disappeared and she looked as bewildered as a lost child in a warehouse store. Molly realized she sounded too harsh and tried to soften the blow. “But you shouldn’t listen to me. Maybe you’ll have better luck. Give it a try and look for an agent.”

           Clara stayed hesitant for days after the barbecue. She tried not to think about her book, but it kept calling to her – at least that was what she told herself. She finally broke down and Googled “How to find a literary agent.” She learned there were around 2,000 of them in the United States and most lived around New York. Finding an agent meant sending them a query letter describing your book and asking them to read it. If they liked you and the book, they took you on as a client. They all seemed to use a website called QueryTracker to organize the letters.

           QueryTracker included convenient links to agent websites and Clara excitedly examined agent pictures and bios. Like her, they all loved books and reading. She gravitated toward younger agents whose tastes mirrored her own. She especially liked Jennifer Brown, who grew up in Texas but now lived in New York. Jennifer loved young-adult books about girls breaking barriers. She sounded like an ideal match for Clara’s book, which she now called, “The Perfect Lap.”

           Clara wrote her query letter as if it was addressed directly to Jennifer. The letter summarized the story and compared it to a couple of other popular books. Clara added biographical information, which unfortunately did not include previous publishing experience. She fussed with the letter for 24 hours before finally uploading it to Jennifer Brown’s QueryTracker page. Clara took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and clicked Submit.

           Anticipation for a response immediately gnawed at Clara. She checked her email two minutes later, hoping Jennifer had read her letter and replied. She checked 17 more times over the next hour but there was nothing in her inbox.

           “I might as well send off some more letters while I wait,” Clara said to herself. She began with her second favorite agent, Emily McCarthy, and submitted the query letter designed for Jennifer Brown. Then she submitted to eight more agents to bring her total to ten.

           Clara went to sleep asking herself what would happen when multiple agents asked to read and represent her book. How would she decide between them? Could she decide something that important without meeting them in person? Should she fly to New York? 

           Early the next morning, a message from Emily McCarthy appeared at the top of Clara’s email inbox. Her heart raced as she opened it.

           “Dear Clara. Thanks for the chance to consider your project. I am not connecting with it enough to offer representation. Publishing is subjective and others may feel more enthusiastic. Good luck with your endeavors. Regards, Emily.”

           Clara read the message twenty-two times, wondering over the meaning of each word. Why did she say “connecting” and “enthusiastic”? Was she close or very far from being interested? What was so wrong with Clara’s book? The response felt like getting rear-ended while driving. It was the first time Clara heard anything negative about her writing.

           For the rest of the day, Clara reminded herself of Molly’s words about finding an agent. It was difficult. She could not expect every agent to get excited about her book, but there were plenty of them out there and all she needed was one. No matter what she told herself, her depressed mood did not improve. It grew worse in the late afternoon when she got another agent response that used the same words and phrases as the first one.

           Clara moped for hours over the hopelessness of being published, but later that night she was drawn back to the QueryTracker website. Instead of retreating, she found six more agents and sent them query letters. She pictured them reading her book, laughing at the funny parts, and growing emotional at the triumphant conclusion. The daydreams gave Clara a burst of fresh hope and excitement that covered the sting of her two rejection messages.

           Over the next week, more agent responses arrived. No one was interested and each message left Clara despondent and scrambling to send off more query letters to offset the emotional pain. After Jennifer Brown’s rejection, Clara decided her query letter must be wrong. She changed the language and sent it out, but the rejection messages kept returning. She reached a point where she dreaded checking email. And yet she could not stop. The despair she felt over each new disappointment remained just as powerful as her first rejection. She told herself that her happiness and self-worth should not depend on the nearly impossible endeavor of finding an agent, but her conscious self could not control the sour mood that inevitably arrived with bad news.

           One agent wrote, “You should not take my decision personally.” Clara scoffed. There was nothing more personal than her writing. She had thrown her every emotion into it. It was all she thought about.

           In the two months after her first query letter, Clara reached out to 100 agents. Then she finally said aloud, “You’ve got to stop doing this to yourself. Every query letter is like an arrow that flies back and lands in your heart.”

           The arrows from slower responding agents continued returning. No one showed the least bit of interest. Many agents did not reply at all, but after 120 days, QueryTracker automatically assumed they were rejections. A box next to the agent’s name showed a red frowny face. Eventually, all the names on Clara’s prospective agents list had red frowny faces next to them.

           Near the end of the summer, without thinking, Clara agreed to attend another of her cousin’s barbecues. She tried not to be noticed so that no one would ask about her book. She sat holding a plate of food with little appetite. She looked up to find Molly Flanagan hovering over her.

           “Do you remember me from the last barbecue?” Molly asked in a friendly voice.

           “Of course I remember.”

           “How are things going?”

           “You were right about agents. None of them want me. There are not fairy tale endings in publishing.”

           “It’s very subjective.”

           “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”

           “Lots of luck involved. You just need to find the right person.”

           Molly noticed how the light had gone out in Clara’s eyes. In that moment, Molly relived all her own publishing disappointments, and her heart broke for Clara. She wanted to say anything to bring back the naïve and eager girl she once met.

           “You know, maybe you could send me your manuscript. If I thought my editor at Harper-Collins might like it, I could forward it to her. I haven’t talked to her in years. She might not even work there anymore. You never know.”

           Molly shrugged her shoulders and so did Clara. Both put on fake smiles to register the tiny ray of hope, but they knew inside they were mostly humoring each other. That night, Clara emailed the manuscript for “The Perfect Lap” without fussing over any of the content or format. She refused to let her thoughts shift down a path of hopeful possibilities. Two weeks later, she had truly forgotten about the email to Molly.

           And then she got a call from an unknown number.

           “My name is Ann Williams. I got your contact information from Molly Flanagan. Am I speaking with Clara Andersson who wrote ‘The Perfect Lap’?”

           “Yes, that’s me.”

           “I’m a senior editor with Harper-Collins. I haven’t had any contact with Molly for years, so I was a little surprised when she reached out. I rarely read anything sent to me like that, but yours caught my eye. I’ve passed it around to my colleagues. We’re interested in acquiring it.”

           “What does that mean?”

           Ann laughed. “We want to buy it and publish it.”

           Clara stopped breathing and her vision narrowed to a tiny spot of light in front of her eyes. “Is this a prank? I don’t have an agent.”

           Ann laughed again. “I assure you this is not a prank. And you don’t need an agent if you’re comfortable negotiating a selling price on your own.”

           The ecstasy swelling her heart seemed to push out all the little query letter arrows stuck there. “I don’t know what to say. I’d really love to work with you.”

           “Great. We think the world is going to love what you have to say in your book.”

           Clara took a few short breaths. She said silently to herself, “You’re no different than you were before this call. Your happiness should not depend on lucky success or unlucky failure.” But she could not restrain her reaction. She said aloud to Ann, “I’ll never forget this moment. Will you repeat what you said so I can record you? I need to listen to it 99 more times.”

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