While you're enjoying the Chicago ghost stories being posted in this run-up to Halloween, you don't want to lose sight of your querying business.
Everyone has their strategy, whether it's scraps of paper with scribbled notes or elaborate Excel spreadsheets brimming with data. Now someone's come along and offered up a free website that will help you track your endless supply of queries, along with enough data to keep you transfixed for hours on end.
Wander over to LitMatch and your craving for query obsession can at last be gratified. If you've ever tried Duotrope for tracking short story submissions, then you know how intriguing it can be to check whenever you please, any time of the day or night. How many days has that submission been out there? What kind of responses are others getting? How soon might I expect an answer? Mine's out longer than average, are they considering it?
LitMatch does the spreadsheet for you, all nice and well-ordered and shuffle-able. How many, to whom, how long, when sent, results, check out the agent, who wants what.....the list goes on. For now, the site owner makes money off of the ads that flash across and around, but who cares about advertisements when there's data to focus on? Numbers and statistics, how glorious to obsess more readily over even more obscure information.
If enough people make use of it, the site may eventually obtain the data needed to rate the literary agents by their response time...or lack thereof. But at least then you'd know, which is better than staring at a pile of notes and wondering if you'll ever hear back from that query you sweat blood over.
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