Query letters

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…

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…

“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…

“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?…

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,…

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…

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…

(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…

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…

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…

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…