Out the Who-Ha

"If you don't tryout, if you don't show the hell up, you definitely won't make any teams. Or get any agents, in my case."

Feeling unqualified is a strange thing when you're old as sin like me.

Okay, 43 isn't all that old, and I get Botox and dress like a teenager so I try to appear younger, lol. But learning how a brand new industry operates after two decades in healthcare means becoming the rookie again, and that makes me feel an excited flutter and a dumb ass simultaneously. I'm used to being the one people consult. Not the one just off the bus trying to figure out where the F I'm going.

The unexpected is what this weekend holds for my kid too.

She's got volleyball tryouts. Not her first rodeo, but let me tell you, these teenagers are serious about their game. She's trying out for five teams — two right in her experience level, three that are a stretch. Each tryout is different on how many girls show up to bid for 10 to 12 spots. Last year one tryout had over 75 girls fighting for spots. And of those 10 or so, sometimes the coaches have already chosen 7 of them before a single girl walks in the gym. In her case, as a setter, a team carries 2 total. Two.

So the competition is steep. And at the end of each tryout they hand out yes-you-made-its or sorry-kiddo-but-you-didn't. Some girls leave crying because they had their hearts set on a team. Others are squealing with joy. She'll be doing the emotional equivalent of a 10-hour HIIT workout this weekend. But I have faith. She's got this.

She is not, in fact, a rookie the way I am in the publishing world.

The number of writers out there querying is bat sh*t crazy, and the process itself is brutal in ways I didn't expect. Last week I sent a few, did more homework, scrapped what I had, and started the letter over completely. Results so far: one standard form rejection, not a good fit at this time. One telling me I completed the process incorrectly and to resubmit. One I still haven't heard from.

This week I fired off three more.

One was an intense submission form that ate almost two hours of my life. And guys — on another one, I sent the unedited version of my first ten pages. I suck at following directions, plain and simple. The wild part is I do give everything a once-over. I research each agent, what they've represented, exactly what they want, and every single one wants it differently. Five queries, five completely different sets of rules.

My odds in this process feel strangely close to volleyball tryouts.

Roughly 5 to 8 out of every 40 queries get a request for more pages. Of those, maybe 1 turns into an actual offer. Zoomed all the way out, agencies get 200 to 400 submissions a month and sign a handful of new clients a year. Under 1% at some houses. The "average" range before landing an agent runs 30 to 70 queries, with real cases stretching from 5 to over 80.

50 to 75 girls, 2 setter spots. 200 to 400 queries, 3 to 4 offers a year.

And just like I know some agents are a stretch — the equivalent of trying out with the older girls — I know that eventually I'll make an agent's team. I'll get a full season with them. It's just probably going to hurt on the way there.

Here's what I keep landing on watching her walk into that gym this weekend: I would never not encourage her. I would never tell her that her endless hours of practice were for nothing. Or that three years of club teams isn't going to give her a leg up. Or that she isn't a total badass any team would be damn lucky to have.

So I have to look at my own process the same way.

I have business and pitching experience out the who-ha. I come to this table well versed in a lot of ways, just like my babe knows her game inside and out. We all have room to improve. But I'll tell you this — if you don't tryout, if you don't show the hell up, you definitely won't make any teams. Or get any agents, in my case.

Jo will make a team. For sure.

And I will keep swinging. Because I don't want to be stagnant. I don't want to stay where I'm at in life or business. I want to push, and try like hell.

QUERY LAND UPDATE

📬 5 queries sent so far.

❌ 1 form rejection. Not a good fit, at this time.

🔁 1 "you did it wrong, try again."

🤐 1 still sitting in silence.

🚀 3 more fired off this week, including one two-hour form and one mildly humiliating unedited-pages oopsie.

🧐 Also: doing a full, real, line-by-line pass before any full-manuscript request goes out. Crappy but "final" was aspirational.