Query Tracker: https://querytracker.net/
Alyssa Matesic: https://www.alyssamatesic.com/

The standard advice, the best advice, is that as the author, when you are traditionally published, you pay nothing. Money flows to you. If someone is presenting themselves as a traditional publisher and asking for money. RUN.

How much to get an agent:
Query Tracker Pro – $25
I could have used the free version of Query Tracker. There is a fantastic free option. I wanted more data because my strategy was to find agents I wanted to query, but then I queried them in order of who responded the fastest first to get some data on, ‘is this query working?’. I wouldn’t have been able to see all the data I wanted with the free version. That said, $25 for a year of access to Pro is a RIDICULOUSLY good deal. I have no affiliate relationship with QueryTracker; I just love what they do for authors.

Query Coach – $475
I’m assuming her rates have gone up since then, but I did work with a query coach. So I had a query letter I was happy with. I had been querying for a month, and I had a full request. With my pro access in Query Tracker, I could see that my query was being skipped, so the agent liked something and wanted to come back. But ultimately, not getting more than two full requests after a month. I hired Alyssa to review my query packet, so the query letter, the synopsis, and the first 50 pages. And it was so much better. It was still my words, but more concise, tighter. Much better. So while I’m waiting for her edits, I’m making my plans and a list of who to query next, as soon as I have this updated query packet. And I got it back, and the first agent on my list was Kristina. So she was the first to get the new package. And within 48 hours, she requested the full, and within a few weeks, she asked for a call.

So all in, I spent $500 on the querying stage. All optional. But it helped me get what I wanted, FASTER.

Getting a Deal:
I spent nothing on the editing and submission phase. Maybe a few coffees while I was editing on Saturday mornings, but I probably would have spent that anyway.

After the deal, but still kinda required:
Genisse (French translation of Heifer)

Tax forms: For the French translation, I needed to pay $85 for a 6166 Certificate of Residency so I could get paid with the correct tax withheld. So reduce that from my earnings. Then another $3 to mail the forms to France. I could have paid $47 to expedite and have tracking, but naw. For some reason, this specific form is expensive and onerous. And I did pay out of pocket because at this point, I hadn’t been paid by the publisher yet. It was the chicken that came before the egg. They couldn’t pay me UNTIL i submitted this form. And I paid the money to the IRS.

For headshots that the publisher requested: $300. So Hugo asked for my headshots and I had some amateur ones. In my mind, I had planned to get headshots done once I had a deal. But this was all while waiting for that expensive tax form. So I paid out of pocket for my headshots, but I knew the money was on the way.

So for Heifer/Genisse I spent $387 between the tax form, mailing it to France, and headshots. But I see the headshots more as CapEx than a line-item expense for that book.

FOMO:
For Fake Out Make Out, which we are lovingly calling FOMO, I haven’t paid a dime.

But again, we have a deal memo in place and no one has asked me to spend a dime.

So what questions do you have on the trad publishing process?

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