How do you write that query letter?
I struggle with this subject. I have since I began the process of selling my projects. I even solicited the help of experts and paid for their input. It remains a topic of great importance.
Why so much angst?
Because that letter can derail all the months and years of work an author puts into a novel.
Good literary agents receive hundreds of queries per day. That is one reason I roll my eyes when someone says it must not be hard to get published because there are literally thousands of published works in a Barnes and Noble or other bookstore. Behind every published work are millions of good works that don't see the light of day via a publishing house. I believe the query letter is one reason to explain that.
There are many who are prepared to give advice on proper technique. Literary agent Janet Reid (known as the Query Shark) writes that no query letter can contain more than 250 words. I believe brevity is good, but is that sparse enough? Most agents don't adhere to such draconian rules. I read examples agents put on websites of authors' successful queries. I see few if any that meet Reid's standard. My current query is a little more than 350 words.
How to construct that query? Don Maass' advice is to open with the name of your work, the word count, and that it is a complete manuscript. (Don't bother submitting a query letter for fiction if you have an unfinished manuscript. Non-fiction works have other rules.) Other agents want a summary of your novel up top. I have seen successful queries in which the author talks about seeing information about the agent and how they seem to be a good fit, or that the agent was a speaker at a recent conference the author attended.
My current structure goes: information on the novel in two paragraphs, followed by title and word count, a short biography, and a personal message to the agent. It is great to see that an agent represents one of your favorite writers, or that he or she is a native Oregonian, or that he or she has a great interest in works by journalists. That goes in the personal message.
Still, results define adequate work. I can feel good about my novel, but being published via an agent is a validation of my skills. (It also saves the author hundreds of hours of work in marketing, lining up a book cover, fighting to get spots for author appearances, etc.) I believe more than 99 percent of authors feel that way, therefore I attempt to get better.
Why so much angst?
Because that letter can derail all the months and years of work an author puts into a novel.
Good literary agents receive hundreds of queries per day. That is one reason I roll my eyes when someone says it must not be hard to get published because there are literally thousands of published works in a Barnes and Noble or other bookstore. Behind every published work are millions of good works that don't see the light of day via a publishing house. I believe the query letter is one reason to explain that.
There are many who are prepared to give advice on proper technique. Literary agent Janet Reid (known as the Query Shark) writes that no query letter can contain more than 250 words. I believe brevity is good, but is that sparse enough? Most agents don't adhere to such draconian rules. I read examples agents put on websites of authors' successful queries. I see few if any that meet Reid's standard. My current query is a little more than 350 words.
How to construct that query? Don Maass' advice is to open with the name of your work, the word count, and that it is a complete manuscript. (Don't bother submitting a query letter for fiction if you have an unfinished manuscript. Non-fiction works have other rules.) Other agents want a summary of your novel up top. I have seen successful queries in which the author talks about seeing information about the agent and how they seem to be a good fit, or that the agent was a speaker at a recent conference the author attended.
My current structure goes: information on the novel in two paragraphs, followed by title and word count, a short biography, and a personal message to the agent. It is great to see that an agent represents one of your favorite writers, or that he or she is a native Oregonian, or that he or she has a great interest in works by journalists. That goes in the personal message.
Still, results define adequate work. I can feel good about my novel, but being published via an agent is a validation of my skills. (It also saves the author hundreds of hours of work in marketing, lining up a book cover, fighting to get spots for author appearances, etc.) I believe more than 99 percent of authors feel that way, therefore I attempt to get better.
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