The Query Trenches | An Interview with Peace Zodanou
In this series, “The Query Trenches,” we will get an insight to what today’s querying landscape looks like for a variety of authors seeking to traditionally publish.
There are two sides to publishing a book: The creative side and the business side. The first step, of course, is writing a book, which is the creative side. But the business side is actually publishing the book and getting it to readers. And the first step of getting published is getting a literary agent. To do that, authors must query, a process where you send a quick overview of your book, sample pages, and a synopsis to agents so they can get a sense of whether they’re interested in your work and representing you. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Except it takes months to even get a response. Longer to get representation. Many authors have suffered through the trenches, but no two journeys look the same.
This interview is with Peace Zodanou, who recently queried a middle grade sci-fi book and recently signed with a literary agent!
Thank you so much for doing this interview! First, congratulations on signing with your agent! Why don’t you introduce yourself and the book you queried.
Hello. My name is Peace Zodanou and my pronouns are she/they. I write middle grade science fiction and fantasy. The most recent book I queried that landed me a literary agent representation is a middle grade sci-fi about a sisterhood of thieves and the girl who betrays them.
Can you talk a little bit about what it's like querying a middle grade book?
When you're querying a middle grade you could get comments from agents along the lines of "this sounds too old for middle grade" which can affect your self-esteem depending on where you're at in your publishing journey. But outside of that the form rejections are the usual "I couldn't connect", "I don't feel I'm the right agent to champion this."
As anyone who has ever queried knows, this process tends to have a lot of highs and lows. Can you talk about what your experience has been with that emotional whiplash?
It's bad. It's so bad that when I returned to query land with new work in 2021 I created a specific email address for it so I don't jump whenever my regular inbox dings. Doing that also allowed me to go for days, sometimes a couple of weeks without checking my query inbox. And it did wonders for my mental health.
If you’ve queried before, have you seen a difference in your recent querying experience and the last time you queried? Or, if this was your first time querying, was it what you expected? Better? Worse?
I queried in 2020, 2021 and 2022. With each passing year it became more competitive and rare to get any actionable feedback from agents when they pass. For example people would balk at a form rejection on a full request before but nowadays that's a norm. So things are getting harder overall.
Querying is a highly emotional process, so what are some of your go-to self-care tips?
I'm terrible with self-care. Even though I know I can't mentally handle it I often turn to writing something new and wildly different from the project I'm querying. Creating serves as a distraction and a shield against the barrage of rejections. But every now and then I manage to sneak in a Kdrama marathon. They are the best. But depending on where you live and your financial means, go outside for a while and spend time away from your phone or computer. I removed my querying email from my phone as well. Why make it easy to constantly check it when it's detrimental to my mood?