A query letter is a tricky piece of writing. It has to excite the interest of the reader while being informative, condense the basic plot to a couple of sentences that still give a clear indication of what’s in the book, be funny and sound like your book while still being professional, tell them about yourself in a way that makes you sound competent and artistic without being nuts and ask for their enthusiasm about a book they haven’t read yet. And you have to do all that in about three paragraphs.*
And then you have to write a different one for the next agent.
Then again, maybe I could just write one query letter and it would be so brilliant and masterful that the person I send it to will leap in the air with glee and demand to be told what happens next.
Or, you know, reality could happen.
* Without letting the subtext come through too loudly. Because although the point of a query letter is always to get them interested enough to ask for more, and the best advert for the book is the text itself, it’s still probably a bit off-putting if the letter just screams: Read the book, dammit!
Kandace Mavrick
Paul McLaughlan
Research paper
16/07/2011
I really need to read this book right now!
Meryki Basden
18/07/2011
I am now imagining the letter _literally_ screaming “Read The Book, Dammit!” like one of those cards that plays Happy Birthday when you open it 🙂
Kandace Mavrick
18/07/2011
I wonder if authors have ever actually done that — in the times when it was in vogue to print on fluorescent pink paper or whatever in order to attract an editors attention.
I’m just glad most of them go for email this day. It means they can’t smell the author’s desperate enthusiasm on the paper. Also less chance of accidentally spilling beetroot on it before you send it…
Michael Dawson
18/07/2011
What’s wrong with using the same query letter? Just need to make sure that the publishers you’re sending the letter to aren’t related in some way so the same person doesn’t read it… or am I missing something here? 😛
Kandace Mavrick
18/07/2011
A certain amount of each one is the same, but each letter has to be personalised. That’s the part where you say ‘I chose you because’, ‘I think we would be a good fit because’, ‘I think you’d be a great representative of my work because’ or ‘remember that time we met at a conference and you told me to send you this?’. And that’s different for each of them.
Also agents have different specific requirements, so you want to make sure you’re providing each one with the information they want.