The Final Frontier

The Final Frontier…

Growing up watching the original Star Trek, they always started with, “A Five Year Mission,” from what I can recall. Then later it went to a Continuing Mission. Well, this is my ‘Continuing Mission’ to find an agent. For some reason, whether it’s my own confidence level or me just being a realist, I knew that my first attempt wouldn’t be successful in scoring a deal.

Now the search for a new victim (And by victim I mean literary agent) search to begin. I’m not an expert at this but one of the things I learned, is don’t just blindly send your book to just anyone. 

First off, if they don’t even deal with your subject, then they most likely won’t deal with your query letter. 

Next thing is do some research; find out which authors they’ve worked for. 

Also make your query personal. Find out something about them, read one of their blogs, or an author they represent, and put this in your query letter.  (This is information some people charge you for!)

Just a little more information on subject: My novel is a story that has its roots with zombies, and zombie folklore, but does that mean it’s a horror? It could, but my story really spends more time with the main character Ryan growing into a man, falling in love, and gaining confidence in himself.

Is my story a YA novel (Young Adult)? I’d think so, for one it deals with a group of young adults and kids, it’s also relatively clean, plus my vocabulary is not for someone seeking to better their knowledge of the English language. It’s meant to be fun, quick paced, and humorous.  What I’m trying to say is this; just because your novel may fall in a category of monsters, or spacemen, it doesn’t necessarily mean its Sci-Fi or horror.

One major thing I’ve learned is that Horror fans love real horror, they want to be scared, and that’s why they’re reading it. So if you call it horror but don’t scare the bahjeebees out of them, then they’ll eat your lunch. Sci-Fi fans are the same, but even more so. If you write Sci-Fi you better know your stuff. They have you for lunch if you don’t.

So try not to pigeon yourself into just one category when seeking an agent. But, if you do try to sell your book in a different market, you should be able to back up; why it fits in the market you’re trying to sell it to.