“How difficult is it to draft a query letter? And how do I find a publisher or agent to send it to?”
First
hings first. It’s not that difficult to write a query letter. Which is
fortunate, because drafting a good query letter is the most important
aspect (next to actually writing the book) of getting published. You may
have written the next bestseller, but if you can’t garner enough
interest from publishers or literary agents to look at it, your
novel/story is just taking up space on your hard drive.
Let
me preface this section by stating that there are numerous ways to
write a query. Use the format that best works for your work, or that you
feel most comfortable with. What I’m offering are tips on how I draft a
query, and so far they seem to have been successful for me. Also, this
format should be used only for works of fiction. Non-fiction query
guidelines are much different.
Start out with a brief
introduction on how you discovered the publisher/agent. If a published
author has referred you to them, or if you met this person at a
convention and he/she asked you to forward a submission, state that up
front. It gives you a foot up to climb out of the slush pile. Otherwise,
just say that you discovered them while researching potential
publishers/agents for your work, and you wanted to give them the
opportunity to review your manuscript.
Next comes a
brief description of your novel/story. Keep it to one small paragraph,
two at most. Make it just long enough to provide a general idea what the
work is about and entice the publisher/agent to want to read more. How
do you do this? Read a few examples from jacket covers or the back of a
paperback to get an idea. Remember, this is the make or break paragraph
of the entire query. If you do not immediately snag the interest of a
publisher/ agent, they’ll throw the query aside and move on to the next
one. You need to get a hook into them so they’ll continue reading.
Your
next paragraph has to sell the concept. The publisher/agent will
receive hundreds of submission for romances, murder mysteries, vampire
thrillers, animal books, or whatever genre you write in. Your
novel/story must stand out. Saying your mother or spouse thought it was
terrific will not get you published. Nor will telling them that you’re
the next Stephen King or Dan Brown get you out of the slush pile.
Publishing is a business, and your work will never make it into print
unless you can convince the publisher/agent that it’s perfectly poised
to take advantage of a new trend in the market, or brings specific
insight to the genre that has not been seen before.
Follow
with a brief paragraph noting what is attached to your e-mail, the word
count, and whether the novel/story is available for immediate
submission. [NOTE: Don’t waste your time querying publishers/agents with
unfinished work. Rarely do they show interest in them.] If your novel
is part of a series, now is the time to state that and, if known, offer
an idea when the next book(s) in the series will be available.
Your
penultimate paragraph should be about you. What makes you qualified to
write this novel/story? Are you a police detective writing about a
homicide unit in New York? Were you the victim of an abusive
relationship, or a recovering addict, who has fictionalized your life?
If you have no specific experiences you can relate to (I’ve never hunted
vampires for a living, though I would like to), find a way to make
yourself interesting. You’re selling yourself as well as your book.
This
is also the paragraph to list your previous writing credits. Don’t list
more than three otherwise you’ll look like you’re being pompous. List
the most recent works, or those that are most relevant to your query.
[NOTE: If you’re writing in a genre in which you don’t have relevant
experience, I recommend trying to get several short stories published
before you attempt to query on a book. Being able to say that you’ve
been previously published bolsters your credentials. I noticed that
publishers/agents showed more interest in looking at my novel after I
had a few short stories in my bibliography.]
Finally,
end with a closing sentence thanking them for their consideration and
noting that you look forward to hearing from them.
NEXT: Finding a Publisher or Literary Agent, Part II (some useful tips on writing queries and a sample query letter)
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