Memoir and the Query Process

In which I document my own query process

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

In the middle of the pandemic, I moved from Connecticut to the Santa Cruz, CA area for 4 months, after which I landed in Atlanta. The pandemic ate my job at Yale and I used the paid time to start guitar lessons and work on my memoir. When I moved to Santa Cruz (a 10-minute walk to Monterey Bay beach during the summer months to walk my dog daily - glorious!), I could feel the end of writing my memoir coming on fast. So I grabbed a copy of Guide to Literary Agents and created a spreadsheet of agents who represent memoir.

I dutifully read every entry, making sure that their interests intersected with my own.

The book included short essays for the novice: how to write a query letter, how to write a book proposal, etc. But there was one contradictory piece of advice - whether to query before a book is completed (or even written at all) or whether to query only when the book is complete.

In general, the “rules” of publishing:

• nonfiction books are sold through a detailed book proposal

• fiction is sold through completed manuscript

Memoir, however, inhabits that in between region. It reads like fiction but it’s a true (i.e. nonfiction) story. I read contradictory advice. Ultimately - here’s the takeaway - a memoir is sold based on a completed, polished manuscript, not a book proposal. The exception to that rule is for celebrities and other famous people. They can usually get a contract on their idea for a book. Since I’m not a celebrity or in the public eye, I had to finish my book.

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When I arrived in Atlanta, I had decided that I had to finish my book rather than worry about querying just then. This was during the last part of 2020. It took me a bit over a year to finish my book while working a crummy grocery store (essential worker) job at nights. I spent the day writing and working nights. The only good thing about that job was that it was 450 feet from my front door. The paycheck sucked and the 24 cent and 14 cent raises at 6 and 12 months kept me at the lowest pay rate I’d ever had in my life (let’s not even get into how my supervisors were cheating on the job and even got promoted while the asst. mgr position stayed vacant that I was more than qualified for and had applied for. Un&^%ingbelievably ridiculous. So I quit and started remaking my life as a writer and editor. I would have gone broke (and crazy) had I stayed at such a dysfunctional workplace.

I finished the book (the first time) in December 2021.

Once I completed my book, I learned it was too long, twice as long as it needed to be. I arranged to attend the Atlanta Writers Conference, and set a goal to cut my book in half (203,000 words to under 100,000) by the time of the conference - from January to May. I queried a little bit but the reception was not what I expected mainly because the book was too long.

The Atlanta Writers Conference was my first in-person contact with editors and agents. I arranged for several pitches and manuscript review meetings. I was met with either horror or mild interest. Ultimately though, I did not find any takers. The conference also led to a discussion about improving my query letter, a process that I’m still refining.

I queried a bit more after the Atlanta Writers Conference with a new query letter, but still no luck. I keep a spreadsheet to know who I sent my query to and when and what, if any response I get back, including when I should follow up in case I haven’t heard anything.

Finally, I had a consultation with an editor I know who had some fantastic insights into my query letter and suggestions for improvement in order to place the book in the marketplace.

I had one long interaction with an editor who I met at the Atlanta Writers Conference. She expressed interest in the book, mostly because of its tie in to The Waste Land. She complimented the writing, a good sign. But then nothing. I followed up with her and she said the office was busy putting together the catalogue of books to publish and would response later in the year. She finally did response with a rejection, kindly worded. I wrote back asking if she had any reason why, and she did response with some vagaries, nothing specific, that had more to do with the fit for the book in the marketplace than any qualms about the subject matter or writing. In all, that correspondence took 10 months.

This gives me hope of finding a place for my book.

The book is complete, though tinkering with it is slimming it further. It’s like being on a slow diet. At this rate, I’ll have a book in the 70,000 to 80,000 word range, one that was in draft form once 203,000 words.

The major shift in my query letter emphasizes that my life was thrown off track by dysfunctional and toxic relationships and interactions with other people’s mental illnesses, rather than an implication that I suffered from a mental illness due to my similarity with my brother who had major depressive disorder for 13 years before taking his own life. That’s a major difference.

• How to survive mental illness

vs

• How to survive toxic relationships caused by other people’s mental illnesses?

Most memoirs I know focus on major problems that the author has endured - extreme poverty, physical/sexual/emotional childhood abuse, sexual violence, eating disorders, substance abuse, alcoholism. My childhood had none of this. In fact, I had an almost perfect childhood. However, my life’s path was altered in adulthood through the sheer number of family and people close to me who had severe mental illnesses, a decade which almost broke me.

My query process will remain the same. I have my list of agents and have burned a few of them in querying too soon. My manuscript is complete. My query letter is in revision. Soon, I will be sending out queries again.

Are you querying books or sending stories out? Let me know in the comments below.

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Just keep writing!