On Industry Fridays, posts will relate to purely professional matters, including writing, producing, directing, books, film and television. This week is about the Query Letter.
A query letter is a formal letter you send to an agent, publisher or editor to try and get them interested in reading your book manuscript or hiring you to write the book. The letter should include:
- The topic of the work
- A short description of the plot
- A short bio of the author
- The target audience
Based on your query letter, the literary agent or editor then decides whether to contact you and request to see the manuscript. The query letter is possibly the first (and last) piece of your writing the agent or editor will ever see, so it’s important to get it right. It is literally the first step towards getting your manuscript published.
There’s tons of information about query letters on the internet, but here is a great free handbook by Noah Lukeman that explains how to write a great query letter. http://www.lukeman.com/greatquery/download.htm Did I mention it’s FREE?
Below are 30 simple bullet points re writing the query letter (that are explained further in Noah’s handbook):
1. Open the query letter with a reference to a book the agent sold
2. Make sure you have a clear “hook” or logline of the concept of your book
3. Mention the genre of your book
4. Make comparisons to other books in the genre
5. Explain why your book is different than these other books
6. Describe the plot in no more than three sentences
7. Do not use character names
8. Do not mention subplots
9. Describe your bio in five sentences or less
10. Only include relevant information in your bio
11. Do not mention minor credits in your bio
12. Do not make your bio overly personal
13. Put any publication credits in italics or caps
14. Do not pitch more than one book
15. Do not have more than three paragraphs total
16. Do not exceed one page with your query letter
17. Do not quote your own book in the query letter
18. Do not include small talk
19. Do not be self critical
20. Do not mention givens
21. Do not include endorsements from family, friends or barely known authors
22. Do not include lots of underlining
23. Do not include lots of bolding
24. Do not include lots of italics
25. Do not use a font that’s too big or too small
26. Do not use unclear or colored font
27. Use good quality paper
28. Use a good printer
29. Remember to date the letter
30. Use letterhead instead of including contact information in the body of the letter
Below are a few examples of successful query letters (i.e. letters that got agents to read the author’s work and/or led to publishing deals). You’ll notice that some of them break one or two of the above rules, but in general, they stick to them.
http://www.underdown.org/mf-sample-query-letters.htm
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2009/07/anatomy-of-good-query-letter-iii.html
Finally, if you’re curious how to find agents to send letters to, here is a link to the 2013 Guide to Literary Agents (available from Writers Digest, Google, Amazon and more). http://www.writersdigestshop.com/2013-guide-literary-agents?lid=cswdblog13
Happy creating!
Riding Bitch 
November 17, 2012 at 7:48 pm
Great tip for authors. I’m glad there are a lot of don’ts in your list – otherwise good luck to anyone trying to fit it all into one page! But a good query letter still requires some really ‘compact’, to-the-point writing by the looks of it. Of course if you want to show you’re worth your salt as a writer, it pays to invest time and attention 😉
November 17, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Agreed. Fitting into one page is challenging but worth the effort. Thanks for your comment!