Query letters or as Iike to call them GARBAGE!

In my quest for greatness I have come to the conclusion that I need and agent or a manger. I am guessing that all non-professional writers think this. Validation through representation. Every time I hear an A-list writer speak, they always play down the agent card. For them its all craft craft craft, but I can promise you that every aspiring writer looking back at them is just waiting for that Q and A to start so they can ask the time old question, "How do I get and Agent?"

I guess I would liken it to sex. Remember when all of your friends started having sex and you would talk about it. The ones having sex would carry on about how it isn't a big deal and the virgins would look back and think "Dude it so is." I remember it like it was yesterday, second grade was great (I'm kidding).

Anyway, I can think of only 6 ways to get an agent.

- Be related to a rich or famous person.
- referral
- work for an agency
- win a contest
- save an agent or his/her family from peril (stop a home invasion, pull them out of a burning car seconds before it explodes, shoot a charging rhinoceros that is about to trample them etc.)
- query letters

Most of us don't fit into 1. I am trying 2. 3 isn't happening for me(I suck at answering phones, kissing ass, and remembering things that mean nothing to me). I will get to 4 in later posts. I live in NY so 5 is very remote and highly unlikely.

That leaves us with query letters. You get a massive list of agents write a generic letter that seem personal and flood the postal system with request for people to read your script. Here is my problem with that. Have you ever been walking along the sidewalk, minding your own business when some guy covered in a billboard tries to hand you a flyer? Do you ever take it? Do you ever envy that guy? Well when you send out letters like that you become that guy.

Not that I have any particular problem with that guy, but to be honest he is not very effective. In fact I will bet you that the guy handing out flyers on the side of the road has a higher rate of success then your query letters.

But Dave? How do you know this?

Good question. I know it primarily because I know people and people hate junk mail and that is what those letters are. In fact they are actually worse because you can't get sued for opening junk mail. More proof? On the wordplayer website there is an article about query letters. I encourage you to read it, but to sum it up the article claims that no one in Hollywood knows anyone who has ever gotten in through the use of query letters. And those guys know a lot of people.

Second example: On another blog that I was reading an aspiring writer was talking about how he sent out 200 query letters. TWO HUNDRED! He heard back from 2 and they didn't respond after getting the script, 200 to 2 to ZERO.

That is why query letters suck and I will not be sending out any.