Word to Captain Asshole

“But dude, the book is finally somewhere besides in my head and on my computer, and that's something, even if it's small.”

My finger hovered over the send button for way too long.

Not because the letter wasn't ready. It was ready. Hook, comps, bio, the whole package sitting there polished within an inch of its life for days. My finger hovered because I have a whole personality trait around this.

If it's business, I make snappy-ass decisions with zero hesitation. Personal stuff? I freeze. Scared I'll hurt someone's feelings, scared I'll disrupt my own peace — I cave to avoid stuff every time. So sending my very first query letter felt like a BFD, because I was popping my query letter cherry, so to speak.

For anyone who doesn't know: a query letter is basically a baby pitch to an agent — a snap judgment, made off very few words, on whether you and your book are worth their time. Finding the right agent means researching a f*ck ton first. The sites that are supposed to make this easier feel like they were built in 2003. But eventually, I found a few good options.

Then you read what each one actually requires. Some want just the 400-word blurb (people, length matters — yes, that pun was intentional and you're welcome), and it needs to show you did your homework on them: who they've represented, what they're actually looking for, genre, word count, a hook, and why in the actual hell you're sellable. Not “I have a degree” unless the degree is relevant. They care about audience. They care that you know how to capture attention.

One agent wanted just the letter. One wanted the letter plus the first ten pages — pasted directly into the body of the email, which is officially the highest word count email I have ever sent in my life. No PDF to hide behind. No file icon. Just the words, right there, scrollable, judgable, in an email to a total stranger. And the stranger in question was a literal match on paper — his wishlist might as well have described my book back to me. Health, wellness, humor, pop culture. That's supposed to make it easier. It did not. If anything it raised the stakes, because now there's no “well he probably doesn't even represent this kind of thing” excuse to hide behind if it's a no.

I said out loud, to nobody, “I have to send this before I chicken out.” Then I did the thing. Then I said “eekkkkkkk” to nobody in particular. Then I sat there for a solid minute just breathing.

After both letters were out, I had a sinking feeling what I'd sent sucked ass. So I went and did the homework I should have done first — YouTube, agent panels, the whole rabbit hole. What I learned: agents get up to 25,000 queries a year. Acceptance rate is something like 1%. Only about a quarter of people even format things right or follow directions, and a lot of agents stop reading the second you don't. Some reject you because they don't have a need for your genre right now, or they just signed someone similar, or you flat sent a memoir query to a cookbook agent.

It reminded me of my surgical rep days — someone pitching me their instrumentation without ever once looking at my actual account. Word to Captain Asshole: did you even look at my profile before pitching me? That's how a bajillion agents feel, every single day, about most of what lands in their inbox.

One video in that rabbit hole called me out by name: so many people take five years to write a book, and then only take five minutes to actually think about querying it. That math isn't mathing over here.

So I went back to my original letter and scratched the whole thing. It wasn't bad. It was just a far cry from concise, and I overshared (shocking, I know). I really feel like it's important to infuse me into these things — I hate boring generic sh*t, it's half my brand and the whole book. But there's a difference between voice and begging for attention, and my first draft hadn't figured that out yet. Now I'm trying to put myself in an agent's shoes and write to them the way I'd want to be pitched. Not waste their damn time.

I'd be lying if I said the last two weeks haven't come with some real process fatigue. Some days it's felt like shopping for life insurance. Other days it's straight up watching paint dry. I've said out loud, more than once, “I feel like we should be doing this better, or it's just that horrible of a process.” Maybe both are true.

But here's where I landed: I'll keep going. No harm in it.

Because for years this book lived in a Google Doc where I was the only judge. I could rewrite a line eleven times and nobody had to know it existed until I said so. The second I hit send, that ended. Somebody else gets a vote now. I know a pass isn't a verdict on the book, it's one person's specific list on one specific day. My nervous system did not care about that nuance even a little.

But dude, the book is finally somewhere besides in my head and on my computer, and that's something, even if it's small.

One query out. One agent reading, hopefully.

No idea what happens next. But I'll keep you updated IF and when I hear back on the first ones. Not holding my breath.

MANUSCRIPT STATS

✅ 19 chapters. Locked.

✅ 56,747 words. 137 pages. Done done. In print it becomes 190 ish pages.

📨 First two query letters sent.

🔄 Revised and rewrote query letter and DRAMATICALLY shortened

👀 Roughly 6 to 6.5 hours as an audiobook