Flattery vs Insincerity

Image: Michal Marcol / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

or To Suck Up or Not to Suck Up, That is the Question

I'm tiptoeing in the trenches, diving into the slushpile and baiting my hook... I'm querying. It took me a while to craft a few paragraphs which describe the main characters and story, and I know it's not perfect. It's close enough to enable me to send it out to see if I get any bites. If I don't get any requests, I'll tweak it.

The subject of this post however, is the bit you're supposed to customise for each agent. Most writing-advice websites implore you to say something specific about why you and this agent are destined to become professional soul mates. Perhaps she knows you by your handle when you comment on her blog. Maybe you adore or are very similar to someone on her client list. You may have met at a conference (that's never going to happen for me in my geographic isolation).

I do research every agent I query. I have been reading some of their blogs for years, or following them on Twitter for months. I may love some of their clients, but I can't find a way to relate their work to my own. It's really hard to write a sentence which conveys some of this without sounding like a stalker, or just plain pathetic.

"I love your blog, so I thought you might like to represent me."

"I have long respected your agency, and hope my novel may be of interest."

"I would love to join your list of well-respected authors in [this genre]."

"I comment on your blog a lot. My novel is..."

"I like what you say on Twitter."

In a couple of queries I have mentioned specific blog posts or talked about something from the agency website. When it's relevant and true, it feels right to put it in the query. But when it's just pandering for the sake of it, I feel fake. Even if I've had an agency on my To Query list for ages, there's not always something specific to say. "I've wanted to query you for ages" or "I'd like to join your stable of really cool authors" doesn't seem to cut it.

The other tricky bit is the bio. Some websites advise the equivalent of "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all". If you don't have any writing-related credits or associations, don't include a bio. Other websites insist you should definitely have a bio however brief. While I've had to do a lot of writing for my day jobs over the years, there's nothing specific I can point to. So when I attempt to write a bio it sounds like a dating profile or a desperate plea. "I do [this] for a living, but it's my life ambition to be a writer. I am married with two cats and enjoy long walks on the beach." Hmm.

Fellow queriers, how do you tackle these things? Do you make stuff up, or omit them altogether?