fear

What If You're Scared of Querying?

Hello friends,

When I was a freshman in high school, I wanted desperately to try out for the cheerleading team. Not in a bid to instantly become popular or anything, contrary to what the teen sitcoms would have you believe, but because I loved, and love, cheerleading. Longtime readers may have heard this one before.

I went through the week of clinics, where we learned the jumps, cheers, and dances we'd need to know to try out. I was intimidated, sure. I didn't have any gymnastics background and there were definitely other girls who could do standing back tucks and more. Luckily, tumbling was not required to make the team, and my jumps were improving.

Next thing I know, it's the end of the week and I'm in the wings of our school's auditorium, waiting to go on stage and audition, I think with a few other girls at the same time. It might have been solo but I've blocked it out. Or I don't remember because I didn't do it. I chickened out. I turned tail and ran because I was too scared to try. To even TRY. And I've regretted it ever since.

I tried out the next season for the basketball cheerleading squad and made it. And that made the regret sting even more.

This was literally thirty years ago and I can still feel the sweat at the nape of my neck and the fear in my stomach backstage. I can also feel the relief, but not sweet, of allowing myself to quit. Sometimes quitting is great and necessary. Sometimes it's based in fear. I forgive my 15 year old self. And I've carried her pain with me into other scary experiences as a litmus test. Is this as bad as trying out for the high school cheerleading team? Most things aren't and even then, I do it anyway.

This is what I say to writers when they tell me they're scared of sending their work out to agents. I try to put myself back in that place of fear, standing in the wings, waiting my turn, so I don't brush aside a writer's legitimate and understandable feelings about putting their work out there to be judged. I mean, I'm the one doing the judging. I can decide if you make the team or not. But I also know that I'm making those decisions not based on your looks or who you know or how I feel that day and instead am asking myself do I need a flyer or a base?

Writers fear querying for all kinds of justifiable reasons. Rejection stings! The query process is convoluted and time consuming, not to mention inexact and opaque. It feels like every little detail matters, when in fact you can still make the team if your toes weren't perfectly pointed on that last toe touch. It's terrifying that most of the process is completely out of your control. That writing a "good book" won't guarantee you success. Not to mention that querying is only the first round, and you still have to make it through submissions to editors and then actually releasing the book. Saying I would prefer not to makes logical sense.

But you might regret it for thirty years if you don't. You might really regret it for that whole first football season, playing flute in the marching band, watching the cheerleaders who didn't chicken out pal around and do the cheers you learned in tryouts. You might know, in your heart of hearts, that it was always possible you wouldn't make it. But there was that small possibility that you could have.

If you are afraid of querying, I understand. It's hard, tedious, stressful, and not guaranteed to get you closer to your goal. There's little you can do to make it not all of those things. But NOT querying is a guarantee you won't find an agent, that your book won't find a home. NOT querying is a guarantee that you won't learn anything from the process that will benefit for the next time you query. NOT querying means you're in the same place you were yesterday, at home with a full manuscript or book proposal and nothing to do with it. You could self-publish, of course. But that just skips the query stress and takes you right to the release stress, without the guidance of a literary agent. You 100% can self-publish, if you want to. But it's not the automatic default path if you opt out of querying.

I will always advocate for trying, for querying, over not. The worst that can happen is agents say no, and if you don't query, you're saying no for them! You're right back in the same place. Not querying might save you time and effort, but it costs you potential opportunity. It costs you carrying around the story of NOT querying for the rest of your life, in place of another story that might end I gave up on that book but I wrote another and that's when I got my agent. I didn't query the first novel I wrote because I knew it wasn't going to work, not because I was scared about what people would say. (Really. I tell the whole story in my book.) I queried the next one and the rest is history.

Agents will not laugh at you or your query. Agents will not write you back and say are you kidding me with this? They will not pass your query around and post it on a private look at this guy message board. They will not respond and say you are a bad writer and should quit. They will write back and say thank you for sharing this with me, but it doesn't fit my needs at this time. Or I enjoyed reading your novel but I'm afraid I am not the right agent for your work. Or I liked this but I didn't love it. This will frustrate you and that is normal and you will carry on.

And one day, maybe, you'll get a note that says I'd like to read your full manuscript. Then I loved your work and would like to set up a time to talk. And then I'm happy to offer you representation for your book Aren't You Glad You Sent That Email.

You might not make the team. But then again, you might. You don't know unless you try.

Speaking of querying and what might happen if you take a chance:

I'm hosting an exclusive zoom for those who preorder my debut picture book before May 5th, 2026 to ask me anything. Heck, you don't even have to ask me about picture books. Read more about it here! Want a signed copy? Order yours from The Strand.

Speaking of The Strand, I'll be there Saturday, May 9th at 11am to read PAY ATTENTION TO ME! for their morning storytime at the Union Square location (the big one). Come say hi!

Pubtip of the Day

Confused about what to use as comps (comparable titles) in your query letter? I maintain the comps in queries are for vibes, not sales. At the query stage, 99% of you have zero access to reliable sales data, so whatever you tell me is guesswork at best. When you have an agent, you'll work together on sales-based comps as necessary. But in your query, tell me what the reading experience is like, as compared to other books. Yes, that can focus on plot, setting, and character, but also....vibes. Is it like Jane Eyre meets Heathers? Great, that tells me so much about the vibes. Can you use movies and TV shows? Yes. Should you focus on books that have been published in the last five years or so? Largely, yes, even those I didn't do that above. Current comps are best for sales, but also a good demonstration that the vibes of your book are the same vibes readers are looking for. Does it have to be in a this meets that format? No. I don't pay huge attention to comps in queries, except when they make me go ohhhhhh, that sounds great!! and then the manuscript delivers on that promise. So put your energy there, and not in trying to convince me that because your book has a faerie in it, that it's going to sell as well as ACOTAR.