Query Letters

Query letters follow a relatively strict format. It’s not that you’re required to follow it, or that it’s some unwritten rule. It’s simply the easiest and fastest way to get your point across, and agents like to see it that way. If you receive 10 unsolicited manuscripts every day, you want their query letter to follow the same structure, because it makes your job a thousand times easier.

To simplify the language, I’m going to assume you sent the letter to an agent. Everything remains the same, though, if you send it directly to a publisher.

What’s the purpose?

The purpose of a query letter is simply to give the necessary information about your book that an agent needs to determine if they’re interested.

So …

• Be concise. (Again, don’t waste their time.)
• Be specific. (Give the raw details, not some vague marketing or abstract statements.)
• Be personal. (If your query letter isn’t unique, why would they want to publish it?)

The structure

Below is a good step-by-step plan.

• Greeting
• Target Audience
• Hook
• Marketing Blurb
• Biography / Personal Touch
• Thanks

Wow, what a coincidence. I structured this course to naturally lead to writing a good query letter! In How to Sell your Work, I already taught you the most important bits, in the same order: target audience, hook, blurb.

Greeting

A simple “dear NAME” will do.

Don’t make this any longer. It just delays the actual information agents are looking for. Also don’t “suck up to the agent”. Don’t overwhelm them with congratulations, praise, or how much you appreciate their work. It’s probably dishonest, and if you really want to do that, do it at the end.

Also don’t make it generic. It communicates that you don’t care about the person on the other side—so why should they care about you.

Target Audience

Open with the raw details about the target audience.

• Title
• Word count
• Genre
• Other general categorization (such as age)

Hook

Now get to the hook. The unique selling point. The logline.

The specific thing about your book that should immediately make the agent perk up and pay closer attention. No more than a few paragraphs.

Lead with your strongest selling point. The details can come later, once the agent is hooked.

Below are the three methods that generally work well.

• An exciting concept (interesting abstract idea or world setting)
• A powerful conflict (strong clash of characters and goals)
• A compelling question (mysteries and intrigue)

You can move this above the target audience, if you think the hook is strong enough for that.

For the record, I’m just coming up with these examples on the spot. Don’t Google these stories, they don’t exist.

Marketing Blurb

Now you have one or two paragraphs to go more in-depth. Expand on the characters, the central conflict, some more interesting pieces of the story. You don’t give away the ending or spend too much time on details near the end. It’s all about the inciting incident, the first chapters, the hook that has to draw the agent in.

It’s good to find a balance between character and plot. On its own, a plot is just a sequence of actions nobody cares about. The characters make us care. Conversely, only discussing characters tells the agent nothing about the actual plot.

As always, be brief and be specific.

Don’t go over two paragraphs, no matter how much you want to.

When you find yourself writing a general statement (“the twins fight the greatest evil ever seen”), replace it with something that is concrete and unique to your book (“the twins know they must unite to defeat the Vampire Council, but their magic suppresses communication between vampires and non-vampires”).

Remember that agents (and readers) see vague, general, abstract descriptions of a story every day. Millions of stories can be described with “our main characters fight a great magical evil”—so don’t give that description, ever. Give the one that only works for your unique book. Lead with that.

To finish this section, it might be good to reinforce your target audience. A common way is to compare your book to existing titles.

• “A meets B”: say this book is like STORY A meeting STORY B.
• “For fans of”: mention a few books that inspired you to write this one or that have a similar writing style and audience.
• “Comparable titles include”: if you have no strong, specific comparisons, use this more general phrasing.

Whatever you do, don’t use books that are extremely popular, obscure or outdated. (Popular books seem like a lie to be trendy, obscure books mean nothing, and outdated reveals you’re not up to speed on the current book market.)

Biography / Personal Touch

Now tell a little about yourself. Again, lead with the raw details, so the agent has a picture of the author behind the book.

It’s up to you what you want to share—and what you deem important—but it’s similar to picking a target audience. You might share your …

• Age
• Gender
• Nationality / Residence
• Background
• Education
• Previous work
• Accomplishments

The “properties” of your personality, though, are probably the least interesting. The author is 32 years old? I doubt the agent cares. The author has published a book before? Yeah, the agent cares.

Focus mostly on your work and accomplishments. (Which is a great reason to actually get some work and accomplishments in the first place.)

Not only is this “social proof” of your ability and popularity, it also reinforces your book and its style. If the agent can find two self-published books of yours, with the same target audience, they immediately get a better picture of you and your work.

If you don’t have anything to mention … don’t. Keep it short and simple. A one-line bio is fine, especially for debut authors.

As always, be specific! Don’t say things like “I lectured about Biology and read a lot of books about Physics”. Those are vague statements. What is an agent supposed to do with that?

State exactly where you lectured, for how long, and what that matters. Mention one or two popular books on Physics that you have read and how they inspired you to write this book.

This is where the personal touch comes in. Clarify, with specific examples and language, why you wrote this book and why it means so much to you. Explain your unique background or personality trait that led to this book. Explain why you believe it will be a success or a good fit for their portfolio.

Don’t go longer than one paragraph here. Be harsh on yourself: only mention what is relevant and supports this particular book and why it should to be published.

Thanks

Again, a simple personal thanks or statement is enough, followed by “sincerely, YOUR NAME”.

Don’t “suck up to the agent”. Be honest with any praise or compliments.

If you can’t do that—because you just don’t know the agent or haven’t read any books in their portfolio—simply state the facts. Mention a book they published of which you like the cover. Refer to a mission statement on their website and that you agree with it. Refer to their target audience and that it matches your desired audience for the book.

Something personal and something to thank them for considering your book. Remember that this book means the world to you, but to them it’s one of the many letters they must consider every day. They give you three credits, while a reader only gives you one. Thank them for that, and don’t waste their time or attention.

If the agent has a form for submission, they’ll often ask a direct question about this. “Why do you think the book fits with us?” or “Why did you approach us?” You might also answer such a question in this section.

Conclusion

All in all, the Query letter should never be more than a single page. (Using the common layout details: Times New Roman, 12pt, single-spaced.) Another guideline is 400 words.

If your agent requires physical submissions, print the letter and add it at the top as the first thing to read.

If your agent accepts online submissions, you can put this in the main body of the email, but I’d recommend putting it in a separate file. It gives more control over how it’s presented on the other side. (You never know how mailing clients mess with formatting.)

It’s less intimidating, as the wall of text is moved to a separate file, not the moment they open the email.

Within the email itself, you can simply type something like …

Greetings,

Please consider the query letter and synopsis for my novel TITLE in the attachments.

Thanks in advance for considering my work, YOUR NAME

I have done this countless times: moving the actual complexity to a separate file, keeping the email body itself extremely short and clean. I also do it for other clients (as I am a freelance artist). I regularly get compliments about how easy that was to process and understand.

Finally, obviously, proofread the letter. A spelling error or clunky sentence in the first paragraph is sure to burn those few credits in an instant.

If you send them out to multiple publishers, you can take the time (after each rejection) to read it again and check for any improvements.