novel progress

So, today, while the kids are sleeping, i worked on my novel. I have 16/17 chapters edited (third round) and just that first, annoyingly bad chapter to deal with. UGH. Not sure where to go with it. I did ask four people to be the "fine tooth comb" on the book (2 new readers and two who helped with round 2 editing). I'm aiming to make April a dual-function month- finish round 4 edits and write the query letter.

For those of you not familiar with this, a query letter is what you send to literary agents. the goal is that they read your amazingly well-written letter, are smitten with your style and plot, and then they request to read your manuscript. ultimately it is this agent that will represent me to the big publishing companies - they'll get the book sold, negotiate the $, etc.

In order to prepare for writing the query letter, i had to research the official dictionary of genre types and have determined my book is not a romance or a chick lit (as i orginally thought) but would be considered "women's fiction". Fortunately i have a large audience of potential agents who represent this genre. *wiping brow - whew!*

in the real world, i've learned, authors send these letters out to 100-800 agents in an effort to hook one that wants to represent them. The agent blogs I've read describe their intake of unique query letters to be in the dozens per day- so glad that there's no competition for their attention. :P

All advice-giving articles say that a strong query letter is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing i'll write, in many cases more important than the book itself. If the query letter is terrible than no one will even get to the point of seeing my book.

At least I have a plan B - self publishing.

Feeling some pressure.....

Jamie made a comment to me at the end of one of her editing emails - something about a second book with Megan as the protagonist (she's a side character in this novel) being worth considering. DARN YOU, JAMIE. Now I've got that whole stinkin' plot rolling around in my head.....