This agency’s query guidelines specifically request that you highlight your vision for marketing your book in your query. They also want your publication history, whether you’re querying other agents, the name and relationship of whoever referred you, in addition to your awesome hook, the genre, subject, and intended audience of the book, and a description of “its unique elements” – in one page or less.
You have to be a genius of compression, of making one word say three things, of conveying a whole lot in a few words, just to query this agency.
And unfortunately, I’m not. It takes me a lot of time to reign in my verbosity and “write tight” as the saying goes. I should have taken that time. I should have written less about my story (um, really?) and more about how I envision marketing this book (it’s a pretty awesome marketing plan, though it might kill me to implement it, introvert that I am).
Perhaps I should even have pointed out, “hey, in case you didn’t get it, weaving together two stories about saints and dragons is what makes my book unique!” But I thought that might be insulting their intelligence, so I left it out. I figured they’d get it without my telling them.
Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t. Either way, they rejected me – whoops! Freudian slip there, folks! I mean, they rejected my manuscript by non-response. The month it takes them to respond is more than up, and I’ve not heard. Honestly, I’d rather get a super formy rejection.