Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.
My big accomplishment this week is finally compiling a first query list for Past Present, the book I'm looking to try to find an agent to represent. By that, I mean, I went through QueryTracker, a site I've used before, searched for agents that handle Crime/Police and Mystery genres. With that list, I limited my list to Agents in the US who were open to queries. That has given me a list of 227 agents; there may be multiples per agency. I'm tracking agent's name, agency, what forms they want to receive queries (post, email, form, Query Manager), email (if that's how they want to receive them), website, what they want, and dates. I haven't gotten past websites at this point.
Using the comments from other queriests (my word), I marked most (172) as yellow or normal or the kind of comments you'd might expect to see. Some were red for bad, a few green as in good, and some (40) red as in bad, or as Monty Python would say to "lay down and avoid." Reds go to agents who have not responded in a long time (years), or have really bad comments, or want "clean reads" (i.e. no sex no cursing). 14 were Green meaning good. These were agents who seemed to give feedback rather than form letter rejections, or people really liked working with even if they didn't take them on as a client. One agent was new and had no comments, yet.
Now, this was a first run through. I will most likely avoid the reds, but I'll do more research on the yellows and greens. While QueryTracker is a good site for research, I have found in the past that just because QT says they handle a genre doesn't mean the agency/agent actually handles that, or maybe only handles say Cozy Mysteries. And, also what does the agent want to receive.
While post only agents might be ones to avoid, I do prefer emails, rather than Online Forms and Query Manager, which, if you didn't know, is a database many agents are using. But we'll see as the research continues. I don't plan to research every agent before querying, but I may want to find an agent I want to query before starting the process.
I hate to say it, but I've thought of another story for my private detective stories. I wrote out a brief synopsis for myself. So, that's two stories I'll be working on for that character. I hate to say it, the second one intrigues me more at this point.
Last weekend, I submitted the next two issues of Powers Squared to get proofs made. Got feedback on one cover that seemed to have some pixelation. I was able to fix it, having been able to recover my version of Photoshop Elements. Not sure what happened the first time, but it's good now.
We had a Comic Book Club meeting on our podcast this past Friday. Artists Julia Canon and Rachel Wells, join Trevor, Paul and I to discuss Rooster Fighter Vol. 1 written and illustrated by Shū Sakuratani. You can listen to it now here or watch it when it comes out on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm, here.
Next Sunday is the first of February and the latest issue of The Hound Dogs' Howl will be coming out. Be sure to sign up to receive your copy at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc to join the mailing list.
This past Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was my review of the silent film The Johnstown Flood. I figured since L.A. is living through one natural disaster, why not look at how one of the first in the U.S. was handled on film.
My review this week was Blackmail (1929), but the silent version. This is not an all out review, but more an addendum to the one I wrote about the sound version. As always, no date for pub yet.
Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.
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