Tracking Queries
Four years ago when I was first querying agents, I kept track of to whom I’d sent what (and their replies) by using Microsoft Excel. Not particularly sparkly, but tidy and efficient. Anything that keeps me from being painfully confused when I come back to it a few weeks later is a good thing (This would be after I’ve forgotten what the heck I was thinking at the time).
Now there are several websites that will do the job for me, and wow… what a difference a few years makes! Now a lot more agents have blogs and websites, and e-querying makes life so much easier for everyone (and saves trees).
Probably my favourite is LitMatch.net. The name is silly, as it sounds more like a dating site for people who know how to read, but I can get over that. I also hate that they used a .net address, because I’ve accidentally sent a couple people to the .com because I tend to filter out that type of thing in my brain.
Above is an example of the type of tracking data you can keep on a project. I like this. But then I’m a sucker for pie charts too (which they also have!) Okay, mostly I like pie, but still…. good information!
I also like that so many of the agents I was interested in have updated their own listings, and I could filter for things like “accepts e-queries”, genre, even down to things like whether or not they have a blog or agency website. This is useful for research, even if you aren’t going to use the site to track your queries. You can also see data from other querying authors about how long it took for an agent to answer their queries. With small samplings, this doesn’t really tell you a lot, but some have enough responses to actually build a picture.
A less pretty version of this site is QueryTracker.net [Side note: What's up with the .net websites? Take it from a web professional (yes, I'm a woman of many talents). Hold out for a .com when buying a web domain.] Anyway, this is a very similar site to LitMatch, but not as nice to look at.
A site with more information about individual agents but no features for tracking anything is AgentQuery.com. This site has some great writer’s resources, including a page which lists editor and agent blogs.
What are your favourite writer’s resources?
I have been using Query Tracker in the past few months–mostly for research, not for keeping up with queries (because I didn’t like the set-up and format of it). But LitMatch sounds like a good option for me–thanks for the heads up!
thank you for this
i have agent q, and a few others, in my sidebar
Thanks for the post, I’ll have to check out LitMatch. Agentquery remains one of my favorite sites and their Agentquery Connect allowed me to meet some writers I’ve admired and re-connect with others I met at conferences.
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