I've gone back and re-written the opening pages, hoping to generate some interest. The query letter was not as successful as I liked, so I re-worked it. And then it went nowhere. Again, it was revised, taking a different approach. No responses.
There was a time when I could put together a decent query, one that would elicit a request from about 10% of the agents. Suddenly, I can't get an agent to ask for even one page. The touch is gone.
Too much advice, perhaps, or too many conflicting suggestions, but the last batch of queries I sent has not been well received. Margot Meyers at ICM does not even return the SASE with a form rejection, and I have tried her twice with the same lack of response. I thought that Craig Nelson might fire off a reply of some kind, based on the info he lists on his home page, but all he did was read the query in record time and then ignore the thing.
What are agents looking for, anyway? Mysteries and thrillers, it would seem, the sort of fluff that is eaten up like popcorn with the same lack of substance. Everywhere you turn, it's YA this and YA that, but that's not my niche at all. Not that my niche matters much, come to think of it, because I can't get past the query stage. Why do I feel like I'm back to the beginning after a long climb? Call me Sisyphus and stand back, I've got a boulder to push up that mountain.
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