A Different Query Method
What I learned about myself when an agent didn't ask me for a query letter
Some of you know, others do not, that I’ve been back on the market looking for an agent after parting ways with my previous representation late last year. I have been doing the grind, as a writer is expected: I finished a new manuscript and, with a siege mentality and a great amount of fresh hope, began the Agent Query Process all over again.
Recently, one agent didn’t ask for a synopsis or query letter or pages from the manuscript. Their website simply stated: “Send an email as an introduction and I’ll let you know if it seems like I’d be a good fit.”
I found that deeply refreshing and, I thought, it would be valuable to post my email to that agent. Why? I don’t know. Probably because it felt so good to say out loud, “Here is who I am. Here is what I am about. Here is where I have been. Here is where I want to go.
I hope you enjoy it. I’ve removed the Agent’s name/email address, for obvious reasons. I have also removed certain industry information and names regarding certain folks showing interest in my work.
Dear Agent,
My guess is that you are not looking for some Tolkien-esque style history that fully summates the journey of my writing life, but rather, unlike most literary agents, you’re looking for a meaningful and transparent salutation which piques your interest. Not a templated query letter, but a message that stirs your inner voice to say, “This person sounds like they are worth meeting.”
What I would firstly want you to know about me as a writer is that I have been working in the independent publication arena for over a decade, finding some success among publishers like Dark Hart Books (now defunct), Cemetery Dance, and Shortwave Books (most recently). I’m primarily a writer who has by way of volume of work, rather than a single significant book, climbed my way from absolute nobody up into the lower-than-Heaven position of “Relatively Obscure Houstonian Author.”
To get a couple easy ones out of the way:
1. Yes, I have previously had a literary agent. We parted on amicable terms last year.
2. Yes, my work has been submitted and considered by members of the Big Five and by film production companies. Some submissions came close to being acquired by publishers, others did not. So I have found the vein many times, but have yet to find the silver lode itself when it comes to publication success.
3. Yes, I have a full manuscript complete and ready for consideration. It’s an Adult Fantasy Romance around 103,000 words that deals with the primary themes I write: how suffering gives Joy its rise, how masculinity needs desperate reformation from an anti-patriarchal position, and how Love is the immutable moral and ethical center of the Universe.
What else, aside from the David Copperfield notion of “I was born. I grew up,” is there to say about myself? My personal writing mentors have been folks like Laird Barron and Matthew Woodring Stover, and my intellectual mentors are Steinbeck and Tolkien, Flannery O’Conner and Larry McMurtry and Melville; my literary style being equal parts of each, sounding like none of them. More importantly, I should say that I believe in the inalienable dignity inside every person, which you might find strange to hear from a person who grew up in deep West Texas. When it comes to writing: the work is the reward. And that I want to team with a literary agent who feels they can be transparent and honest in a mutual enterprise of mutually beneficial success.
I hope this introduction has been meaningful to you. At the bare minimum, it’s been cathartic for me to write it this plainly to a literary agent. Would love to hear from you if this introduction has raised an eyebrow of interest.
Thanks so much,
C.S. Humble (Seth)
Contact Info
Work Samples can be found here: https://cshumble.substack.com/
Goodreads Reviews can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/16242510.C_S_Humble
