The Agent Search Begins!

Hi everyone, or you there. I've been busy straightening the kinks and smoothing out the rough edges of "The Shanghai Tunnels". Just last Thursday I completed all my revising on Chapter 5, and attempted to submit a query letter with my Synopsis and The Prologue, but soon found that I really wasn't ready to do that.

I discovered from my research on query letters that it's usually a good idea to include the amount of words in your novel, but since I wrote each Chapter and Prologue in their own separate file I had no idea how many words I had total in my novel. I had to spend the time I had set aside for writing a query letter putting all 41 chapters and prologue together in one file titled the entire book. That little job took me all of both Thursday and Friday to do. (It came to around 76,500.)

I know that doesn't seem like a lot, However! Here's the story.

I'm really not ready to submit all of my manuscript to any Agent or Publisher. I only intended to submit query letters to Agents who take a while to respond, just to see who would bite, while I finished up with my revisions to the rest of the book. The Agent I had lined up wouldn't be responding any sooner than 4 weeks. Perfect, right? Only I really don't want to screw this up and get rejected because I didn't make it clear that my book is in fact finished and was already in the process of writing the next book. Oops!

Uh ... by the way, I've started writing "File 7279: Pioneer Courthouse Square".

Anyway. After I learned from a book written by a book publisher that it's a good idea to slip in the fact that the book has been written and ready, I felt I had to include it. So, I couldn't submit a query yet, not until I fill out a few chapters and at least get a better idea of how many words I'll have.

Honest! Its done! The story is complete. I just need to get a little more descriptive with a few things and get some locations and actions more into focus, so to speak.

So that's whats happening. I'm working on The Prologue for "File 7297: Pioneer Courthouse Square" and at the same time getting "File 3297: The Shanghai Tunnels" ready to be published.

Thanks for your interest and remember. Omission is the enemy.

Greg Wilhelm-author of The Pendleton Files.