On Querying: Send It & Forget It!

If you were like me, you probably watched way too much television as a kid. Even as a young adult (before I had children), I remember bored-watching tv even when all that was on were those stupid Saturday afternoon infomercials.

For some odd reason, one particular infomercial from 2001 has stuck with me. Actually, it has nothing to do with the product, but the company’s slogan: Set it and forget it! I honestly couldn’t remember what they were selling, so I had to look it up for the purposes of this blog post. It was a rotisserie cooker. Something I never would have bought in a million years.

Anyway, since I started round two of querying THE BUG COLLECTOR’S BUCKET LIST just last week, that dumb saying has been on my mind again. Only I’ve been swapping “set” for “send”: Send it and forget it! I can’t take all the credit, but to me, it’s genius. Or it’s at least the best advice I’ve given myself in a long while.

Querying a novel is fun, stressful, exciting, suspenseful, and downright frustrating all at the same time. You can literally become so wrapped up in the process that it starts to consume your every waking thought.

Each time you open your email, you’re looking for query replies. And when they don’t appear, a long list of questions blast on replay in your brain: Did I query the right agents? Has anyone read my query yet? Do agents even read queries? Did I spell the agent’s name wrong or make some other dumba$$ mistake? Do I even have any business querying at all? The list could probably go on for all of eternity. . .

However, if you follow my infomercial-inspired advice and send it and forget it! you can carry right on with your life! Or at least try your best to do so.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking: How on earth you can just forget about something as important as querying your novel?

Okay, I’ll be completely honest here. You probably can’t forget about it completely. However, you CAN get busy doing Other Things. It’s amazing how much Other Things can help. Here are a few ideas, for instance:

• work on a new book or writing project
• clean your house
• read all the books
• do fun stuff with family or friends
• devote more time a hobby other than writing (if you have other hobbies, that is. if not, maybe it’s time to find one)
• get outside (one of my personal favs)
• blog (start one if you don’t have one!)

As you might have guessed, I’m doing all of the above. Well, I haven’t quite gotten to the first suggestion yet, but I’m about to. ROMEO AND THE SCARLETT LETTER has been calling my name for some time now. After a quick anniversary getaway with my husband, I’m all in. Of course, there are many other things you could do in order to Send it and forget it! Just make your own list and then hop to it.

If you get responses to your queries–whether they be rejections or best of all, requests–awesome! If not, oh well. You’ll be much too busy living your life to care.

At least that’s the idea here. 🙂