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An Interview with Jessica Verday
(A QueryTracker Success Story)
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Jessica Verday recently signed with Rachel Vater of Folio Literary Management after receiving offers from four top agents. She has graciously agreed to be interviewed by QueryTracker in hopes of helping other writers fulfill the dream. And this just in. Exicting news about Jessica Verday's three book deal with S&S. Congratulations Jessica!!! From the Publisher's Weekly Deals section:
S&S Wins YA Auction Simon Pulse editor Anica Rissi won an auction for debut author Jessica Verday's The Hollow in a three-book, world English deal via Rachel Vater at Folio. This love/ghost story set in modern-day Sleepy Hollow opens with the disappearance and presumed death of a teenage girl's best friend, and is the first book in a planned trilogy. Simon Pulse made the acquisition in conjunction with S&S UK, and a fall 2009 world English launch is planned. QueryTracker: Thank you Jessica for taking the time to speak with us. Most writers would kill for an offer from any one of these agents, but you received four. That has got to fill you with confidence. How did the first offer make you feel, and did the excitement build or lessen as more offers came in? Jessica Verday:The first offer made me feel terribly excited...and then terribly conflicted. I was thrilled, of course, to be offered representation by the mythical creature called "agent," but conflicted because I didn't feel like my vision for the book was shared. This happened right before the Christmas/New Year holidays, and while I did have several other agents reading the full manuscript, I spent most of that time thinking my work was awful, and no one else would offer to represent me. Much angsting and long hours of watching 'The Twilight Zone' marathon ensued. When the first week of January finally rolled around and the publishing world returned to normal, I started getting positive emails that led to positive phone calls, and once again, I was terribly excited. QT: How long have you been writing? JV: The first attempt I made at writing a book was when I was 11 or 12. I wrote a children's book about a boy who plants bananas in his back yard and ends up with banana trees - called Bobby's Bazillion Bananas. I only had one copy of it and promptly lost it, but I've been trying for years to remember how it went. I wrote the beginnings of a lot of stories, but never really went anywhere with them. I was much more of a reader than a writer. The first time I tried to enter the publishing world was when I was 20, with another children's book, this time my longest work to date at 5,000 words. I knew nothing about agents, or editing, or even querying, and sent it off to one publisher directly. That got me my first rejection letter, and I didn't start writing again for another two or three years. The only other thing I've written is 40,000 words of a chick lit novel that I put on the back burner when the idea for The Hollow came along. From 2002-2005 I spent each holiday season writing 'Letters from Santa' for children and mailed them from the North Pole - so I guess that counts as a writing credit too! QT: How long have you been working on this book? JV: This book took me about a year and a half. Nine months to do the actual writing, and then another nine months to do the editing. The reason the editing took so long was because I hand wrote the entire story in notebooks first, then had to go back and type everything up. I think I went through something like 13 notebooks. (Thank you very much MS. MUSE!) QT: Do you have any formal writing training? JV: No. QT: Do you follow a writing "routine" or schedule? JV: When I started the chick lit book, I challenged myself to write every day for thirty days. That was surprisingly easy with that story. But when the idea for The Hollow hit me, I found that I couldn't follow that routine. I tried at first, but gave up when I had to scratch the first two chapters 3 times. From then on, it was mad bursts of frenzied writing sessions. Sometimes late at night, sometimes on the weekends, sometimes every day after work... QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your novel? JV: Four or five times. QT: Did you have beta readers for your novel? JV: When I was about five chapters from the end I sent the first couple of chapters to my teenage niece just to gauge her reaction. She loved it, and that really gave me the confidence to think "Hey, maybe this isn't just jibber jabber after all." My husband was the only "official" beta reader that read the entire book, and he was such a huge help during the editing rounds. I couldn't have done it without him. QT: Did you outline your novel, or do you write from the hip? JV: A little bit of both. At first, the scenes practically wrote themselves. I was just putting down on paper what was happening in my head. When I got closer to the end, I had to start paying more attention to what time frame I was covering in the book, what would be happening chronologically in my characters's lives, and what plot threads I wanted to tie up. So I wrote very basic notes for each chapter, and that helped me stay on track. QT: How many queries did you send before getting your first positive response? JV: I got a positive response from my first and second query. QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried? JV: QueryTracker.net was a fantastic resource to help me with this. First, I narrowed my criteria down to agents looking for the YA genre. Then I spent the time looking at all the info presented in the Agent Tracker section itself, particularly the comments section, and followed each link listed there to get a feel for what the agent's particular tastes were. Agents who specified that they were looking for elements I knew my book definitely covered, went on my list. On the flip side, anyone who specified they were NOT interested in the elements my book had were crossed off the list. QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how? JV: For the first 5 or so, I did. Mentioning specific client books, their blogs, some of their stated interests etc... But when I started spending 6-8 hours on each query, I tried just sending out the basic info (my query only). Surprisingly enough, I got more requests when I didn't take the time to tailor my query, than when I did. QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents? JV: Join QueryTracker.net! Seriously, what an amazing website. Not only for all the advice and information available (FOR FREE!) to everyone, but the forum community is really awesome as well. It's been amazing to find other people who cheer with you when you get a request, and pat you on the back when you get a rejection. I don't belong to any critique groups, but having a support group is wonderful. QT: Would you be willing to share your query with us? JV: Sure. It's already listed on the forum site under Query Review. |