New Query Method

[Slicksix]

In my year of querying, I've learned a lot, including that the current query process is outdated and ineffective.  I've proposed a new query method called "authors seeking agents wish list" (#ASAWL) and invite everyone to start using it.  Use it like a tweet for a pitch party.  Use hashtags, and go to raucouswriter dot com for rules and my rationale for starting a query revolution.  Let's do this!

[koji]

The problem with an approach like this (and it's been done before, usually on paid sites) is that there are many many more writers than there are agents or slots on agents' rosters. The supply vastly outweighs the demand. Honestly, I would much rather find agents who style I like and who are looking for what I want and put my work in front of them rather than put it out there and hope the agent I want stumbles across it.

Maybe this model would work if your thought process is "agent, any agent," rather than the best agent for my career.

I'm not against pitch parties. Sure, have a permanent hashtag to list available MS, but it doesn't beat the option to send an in-depth explanation of my work to an agent I want to work with. In other words, querying isn't as broken as you seem to think it is.

(Also, YA is a category, not a genre)

[Pineapplejuice]

I was thinking a similar thing. Like, why can't there be somewhere where agents interested can contact us, instead lol. Be a lot easier. I wonder how many good books are turned down because an agent is just feeling overwhelmed by inbox and hits delete out of exhaustion.

I do feel something like this is the way of the future, but I don't think it will catch on until writers have the upper hand....and I don't see how we can.

I really forget that it's us writing the books sometimes. We have the product.  I mean why do we have to feel so valueless and extraneous all the time lol.

So I'll take a look at the hasthtag but I don't think we have any power to initiate anything of this kind. I mean, it's easier for an agent to just look in their inbox instead of some other site, ( in an ideal world they would chase us ) but the thing is, if querying them didn't exist, and there was some big site on which agents approached writers based on their queries, they'd be competing with each other directly for the good ones  I think. And that wouldn't go down too well I imagine

[Munley]

It used to be common for agents to read literary magazines and contact authors whose published stories, poems, and memoirs they really liked. They would invite those authors to submit novels or chapbooks for possible representation.

This is still done, but to a much lesser degree, I think. I wonder if many of the intern-gatekeepers read literary magazines of other periodicals at all, much less regard them as venues for discovering writing talent.

As for a web page agents can look at to see queries or writing samples by authors looking for agents, my guess is that they already feel deluged by the many authors who have sought them it in a targeted way.

[Tabris]

The current equivalent to the "found you in a literary magazine" is when an indie-published writer who's frequently in the top 10 at Amazon gets approached by an agent.