Query letters
Agents, Submitting
|Reasons for Submission Guidelines
As you know, almost all agents have Submission Guidelines posted on their websites and/or blogs. Agents who blog and Twitter always remind writers to follow guidelines, and some agents reject without responding if you don’t follow them. But why are the guidelines so important? Are we just picky and anal people, obsessed with power and…
Read More About Me, Agents, Submitting
|Agent Query Policies: Stop the Griping!
Ever since I’ve been an agent, I’ve listened to writers complain about the unpleasant aspects of the publishing industry. Part of my job is helping authors navigate these difficult waters. I try to talk my clients through the hard parts of publishing; and on this blog, I do the same for many writers who aren’t…
Read More Submitting, Writing
|Tell Me the STORY
One thing I’ve noticed lately in fiction pitches – verbal pitches or queries – is that some writers want to tell all about the theme or the emotional journey of the story, but they have a hard time conveying the actual story. Every novel has a theme. There’s a character arc, in which a character…
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|Querying Multiple Agents
Catherine M wrote: “I know you can send out multiple queries, but what if there are three agents who have asked to see your manuscript after a verbal pitch at a conference? Do you send to all three?” The protocol is always the same. If you’re querying multiple agents at once, simply mention that fact…
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|Two Things That Don’t Help a Query (Part 2)
“My mother [best friend, husband, Great Aunt Matilda] told me I needed to write my story.” “For years, all my friends have been telling me I should try to get my work published.” “God told me to write this book.” Believe it or not, none of this is relevant in a query. It doesn’t help…
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|Two Things That Don’t Help a Query (Part 1)
“I got up today and decided to wear purple socks.” Now, I’m sure you can see how a line like that wouldn’t help your query. Does it tell me something about you? Yes. Is it relevant to your book? No. Does it help an agent make an informed decision about whether to represent your book?…
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|Query via Email or Wait for Conference?
Jill asked: Say I’ve been doing the research, investing an agent’s website and following the blog for a while and I’ve decided I want to query that agent. Would it be better to do a cold query (following all the submission guidelines, of course) or wait for the possibility of an appointment at a conference,…
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|A Funny Thing Happened…
On the Way to my Query Box Last week, as you know, I was away at a conference. I was responding to email the best I could on my Blackberry. I have my email structured so that queries won’t appear in the regular inbox; instead, they get filtered into the query box. They receive auto-replies…
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|Anatomy of a Winning Query
Have you noticed that agents tend to talk a lot about what not to do in a query, but less about what makes a great one? It think it’s because the good ones are each unique; it’s hard to come up with a formula that makes a terrific query. But the unexciting or badly composed…
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|Following Submission Guidelines
(Oops, technical difficulties, my blog didn’t post properly at the scheduled time. Sorry!) If you’ve been reading agent blogs and you follow them on Twitter, you probably know by now that most agents want you to follow their posted submission guidelines when submitting. A significant proportion of rejections happen because the query doesn’t follow the…
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|Quick Update on Query Submissions
Many of you have written that you’re not getting an immediate automated response to your query. I just found out why. The responses are generated through Outlook, and they’re only sent when Cathy, our office assistant, has Outlook running. Since she’s part-time, this isn’t a whole lot of hours each week. So if you send…
Read More A Writer's Life, Submitting
|Your Queries Say a Lot About You
Over the last year, I’ve given you numerous examples of things not to say in a query letter. One of the most unhelpful things you can say in your query is something like, “my book will win the Nobel prize” or “it’s bound to be a blockbuster bestseller.” Or even the more restrained, “This book…
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|Change of Heart
Last week, you may have noticed some interesting happenings over on Twitter. Several agents participated in “queryfail” day. They posted “turnoff” lines from query letters, in hopes of helping to educate writers about what we don’t want to see in a query. At first, I wasn’t going to participate, concerned that people might think we’re…
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|What Not To Say (part 87)
I was watching American Idol last night (duh) and the judges were bringing contestants in one after the other and telling them either “You made it through” or “You’re out.” That’s how it feels when I’m going through my query box, reading them one after the other. You’re in, you’re out. Just like contestants on…
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