This is a repost from
I have ADHD. For me that means that I have to keep to routines, and keep things relatively organized (as a parent I must stress the relatively part of this sentence). I knew when I started to query my first book, I wanted to direct the queries to an email account that wasn’t the one I used for social and life contacts.
There were a couple of reasons. First, less spam and less worry about responses going into my spam file. Second, ease of racking and organization. And last, but certainly not least, the ability to not check responses unless I wanted to see them. I’ve learned that good news doesn’t lessen if you hear about it later, and rejection letters can always wait until you are in the mood to see them. As long as I checked the account every 2-3 days (and usually I checked it more often), I could reply to things in a timely manner, and also not check if I was having a bad or frustrating day. That extra layer of control has helped my mental health immensely.
But mostly I want to talk about the second reason I set up the account. It’s no secret that agents all have different requirements for querying them. Some take a query letter and 5 pages, some the query and 10, a chapter, 3 chapters, 50 pages, synopsis, 1 page synopsis, bios, and pitches. Almost all of them want this in an email, rather then an attachment.
I use a gmail account for my querying email. This account saves drafts easily and accessibly. So I created a draft for my query letter and bio, a draft for the first chapter, first 5 pages, 10 pages, etc. etc… When I query and agent all of the information that they need is right at my fingertips, already formatted. I copy and paste it into a new email, add personalizations, and send it off.
The other advantage I’ve found from querying from a gmail account is the calendar. When I send out a query I also go into my calendar and create an event for when I should receive a response or should follow up with an agent. I set up an email notification for each event, and the system keeps me on track.
Now one of these days I’ll show how I set up the 160 line agent spreadsheet where I track who has what… which is a whole other cat to wax…