Tag Archives: Query Letters

More Novel Query Letter Do’s and Don’t Do’s

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It’s been several weeks since I visited the rather sensitive issue that is “Query Letters”.  Every aspiring writer wants to know, “What’s the secret?”  Every aspiring writer, at one point or another, thinks that there must be some secret to query letters or some secret code.  Maybe you’re supposed to say the word “sassafras” or “kerfuffle” or something at some point in your letter, and that will be the point when the agent reading your letter says, “He knows the code… send him a book deal.”  I don’t know.  If you want me to be honest, the key to what makes a perfect query letter is #3 behind The Da Vinci Code and the whereabouts of The Holy Grail on the list of the world’s greatest mysteries.  How mysterious is it?  I have a strange feeling that Indiana Jones will be trying to find the perfect query letter if they ever make a fifth one of those movies:  Indiana Jones and the Query Letter of Providence!

I just hope they bring back Shia Labeouf.  What’s that, Microsoft Word?  Red squiggly lines under “Shia” and “Labeouf”??  That’s because his name is like something out of a Canadian Dr. Seuss book.

In all likelihood, though—as much as it pains me to say this—the possibility of there being a “perfect query letter” is about as remote as the likelihood that Eddie Murphy will ever star in anything watchable again.  There is no perfect query letter because there are no perfect agents.  The querying process is a give and take, and your letter is going to be subject to an impossible range of factors over which you have absolutely zero control.  An agent might pass on your project because the story of your book just happens to be close to something the agency has already taken.  Your project might be passed up because Agent #17 just spilled hot coffee on herself, she’s pissed off, and, frankly, she’s taking it out on your book because what does she care?  Your project might be passed up because it’s 2:00 in the morning in New York and Agent #31 just decided to browse your letter on her I-Phone while enjoying drinks at a bar with some girlfriends and “Party Rock” is playing for the fifth damn time and, while she really, really LOVED your idea, in her drunken stupor she accidentally hit delete and was too intoxicated to notice.  That could happen!

Or your project could be terrible.  Like really, really terrible.  Like if your book were a movie, even Eddie Murphy wouldn’t star in it.  Yes—that’s TWO Eddie Murphy slams in one post and you know what’s strange?  I love Eddie Murphy.  That’s just the way the wind is blowing today, my friends.

I think I had too much coffee this morning.

Anyway, there are some strategies you can adopt to help hedge your bets when it comes to query letters.  And for this letter, I’m not going to waste time telling you the obvious stuff that you should already know.  You should already know that a query letter should never be longer than one page.  Some agents will tell you a letter shouldn’t be longer than 250 words, although I try to keep mine between 250 and 400.  If an agent is too busy to give my project more than 250 words, I would suspect that agent is too busy to stick his or her neck out for me anyway, even I suspected I’d written the next To Kill a Mockingbird.    I shouldn’t have to tell you to research any agent you query and make sure that agent represents books in your genre and I shouldn’t have to tell you to edit the crap out of your query letter.  You should reread that bad boy no less than 10 times.  So, with all the basic stuff out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.

Find New Agents:  I don’t divulge all of my secrets.  The point of this blog is not for me to do all the research for you but rather to point you in the right direction.  Rosters of new agents give you information about young, hip, and eager agents who have just entered the game and their appeal should be obvious to you.  New agents are probably in the process of building client lists, which means they’ll be taking on more projects.  If you’re young, there’s probably a better chance that your interests overlap with new agents.  I find that younger agents, for example, are far more likely to embrace sci-fi, dystopian fiction, urban fantasy, etc. than some of their elder counterparts because our generation has always embraced those genres.  It could be easier for you to get your foot in the door with a young agent than with someone who already has a client list chock full of prolific, skilled authors who are already established names.  I won’t tell you where these listings are, but they shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

Don’t Spend Too Much Time Selling Yourself:  This can be a surprisingly contentious issue.  I have met some agents who say you shouldn’t feel obligated to say anything about yourself in your query letter and I have met agents who say, “Well, of course, we need to know something about you!”  What I can say is that I have seen no discernible benefits from listing all my degrees, my background in journalism, my work as an English teacher, my extensive international traveling, blah, blah, blah.  You’re trying to sell your book and, assuming you’ve written a good query, that should be the highlight of your query.  Biographical information is just sort of the icing on the cake.  My advice?  See if the agency you’re considering has anything really specific to say about query letter specs.  If they tell you they want an absurdly short query letter (250 words), then your biographical info is what you put on the chopping block first.  Several agencies will specifically request that you write something about your background and credentials.  In that case, go for it, but keep it short—I’d say three sentences, unless you live a really dynamic and exciting life—and don’t mention anything that isn’t relevant to your book or your writing.

Ixnay on Ebut-Day:  Pig Latin?  Some experts claim that you should never mention that you’re a debut writer or that you’ve never been published.  I agree with most of this.  With regard to the first part, use your own discretion on whether you mention a book is your debut attempt.  My instinct is to say don’t mention it at all, because the fact that you’re a debut writer shouldn’t have any bearing on the quality of your book.  However, some agents have a soft-spot for first-time writers and, in those rare situations, mentioning that you’re young and just starting out might make them nostalgic enough to give you a chance.  If you’re uncertain how an agent feels about debut writers, don’t mention it.  As I said, the fact that you’re a debut writer isn’t terribly relevant and does seem far more likely to work against you.  You may not be a professional yet, but that doesn’t mean you should sell yourself as an amateur.

As for mentioning that you’ve never been published, failure in the industry should not be seen as an indictment against your abilities.  Who cares that you’ve never been published?  That doesn’t mean you’re out of the game.  Take my first book, The Notice, for example:  I still believe that I wrote a fantastic book and reviewers on Amazon seemed to agree, giving it 20 five-star reviews and 5 four-star reviews out of 25, however, I will admit that a ghost story set during The Bosnian War may not have been the most marketable book I could have written.  In that respect, I understand why agencies may not have wanted to take a risk on it.  However, why should I put myself on the line by referencing the books I failed to get published in any query letter regarding a new project I’m pitching?  How could that possibly help me?  Trying to get published is the process of continually looking forward.  Never put all your cards on the table and always keep your query letter focused specifically on the book you’re trying to sell now.

Know What an Agent Does:  Okay, I might be treading into “Obvious” territory here, but I still hear tons of stories from agents who receive letters from folks who are unclear what a literary agent does, and I am sympathetic to their plight.  Nowhere in your query letter should you ever make a request for an agent to give you feedback on your project.  You should not ask for advice or criticism.  That is not what an agent does.  You should not mention your payment expectations (probably not a good idea at any point in the publishing process) and you should not ask for advice on the promotion or marketing end.  The first step in the game is for YOU to make your manuscript and query letter as pristine as possible, then you contact an agent strictly to attract their interest in hopes that he or she will help you pitch your project to a publisher.  Leave all the business jargon and catchphrases out of your query letter.  Keep it focused on your book, first, and then your credentials, if applicable.

Raise your hand if a part of you dies every time you see a Calvin & Hobbes comic and you remember how awesome they were.

 

How To Ruin Your Query Letter in 6 Easy Steps

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It’s been several weeks since I posted anything about query letters on this site.  In fact, I’m not sure I’ve said anything about them since my first writer’s conference in June and even though that was only a month ago, it feels like that happened years back.  To be honest, I have spent hours (days, even) researching what makes the perfect query letter and I’ve probably written damn close to 100 of them myself.  I’ve written bad ones, I’ve written mediocre ones, and I’ve written letters that literally had me thinking, “If I don’t hear back from an agent about this letter I swear I’m throwing in the towel for good.”  Of course I never heard back anything even on those last letters and I’ve still got that towel optimistically in hand.

We’ve been through a lot together that towel and I and, while there are still far too many glaring contradictions in the industry for me to be able to say definitively what makes for a “perfect query letter”, I can say that I’ve stumbled across a few things that everyone in the industry seems to agree you should NOT do in a query letter.  Let’s have a look:

Overconfidence/Arrogance:  If there’s one thing I can say it’s that I am overconfident and arrogant about my work.  Every time I finish a book, I think it’s the greatest thing in the world and I think it can outsell any other book.  It doesn’t matter whether or not that’s actually true, but it’s what I tell myself because I am proud and secure in my abilities.  HOWEVER, I never let a drop of that overconfidence trickle into my query letter.  In fact, I never try to be anything but a humble and respectful little kitten.

And it’s gotten me absolutely nowhere, but I digress…

I don’t really have a picture to go with that, but I’ll take any opportunity I can get to use this one again.

First, just let me spell out what I mean by overconfidence.  If you have ever written some variant of the following line, then you may want to check your ego at the door:  “My forthcoming sci-fi novel has been likened to H.G. Wells by way of Hemingway if Jesus Christ had written it while roundhouse kicking a velociraptor in the face.”  Actually, if you have ever written that EXACT line in a query letter, forget everything I’m about to say because you’re almost definitely going to get published—that sounds INCREDIBLE.  But you get my point.  Don’t compare yourself to the industry’s leading writers.  You aren’t the next Stephen King.  You aren’t the next J.K. Rowling.  Become successful first and then let other people make those comparisons.

As good as I think my books are, I would never call myself “the next J.K. Rowling”, because right now being the next J.K. Rowling feels a lot like sitting at my computer in my underwear in a sweltering apartment in Kentucky ranting on a blog and eating applesauce out of a jar.

No Plot:  This was my major shortcoming with all of my early query letters.  I made an innocent mistake that probably 75% of unpublished writers make when they are sending out their first query letters:  Describing the book without actually getting into the plot.  By plot, what I mean is that you outline your important characters (especially protagonist/antagonist) and you outline their conflict.  A novel has to have some sort of conflict, Folks.  All agents seem to agree on that and I don’t think I have to linger too long on this point.

Get to the point quickly.  Don’t spend too much time talking about what your book is or isn’t.  Show what it is by digging deep into the central drive of your story.  What does your character want?  Who or what stands in his or her way?  What must he/she do to get there?  You don’t have to give away the ending (in fact, it’s best if you don’t), but you should give the agent a clear sense of what is at stake.

No Voice:  Another flaw in many query letters is that the letter does not reflect the voice of the manuscript.  Your manuscript can be the greatest thing ever, but if your query letter is full of redundancies, no confidence, sloppy editing, etc. the agent will assume that your book will just be more of the same.  Make sure that your query letter represents a concise example of your best writing and that it draws in the readers just as much as your book.  Convincing readers to come along for the ride?  That’s the easy part.  Convincing an agent?  That’s the true test.

“What is that, Arial  Size 12? This person clearly has no idea how to write.”

I’ve heard several agents say, “I can tell everything about a writer’s book from the query letter.”  That’s only partially true.  If you’re like me, writing the book was a breeze compared to trying to get it published.  I think my book is in fine shape now, but my query letters are a mess now because I’ve been told 20 different and conflicting things about how to write them.  My book has confidence.  My book has a voice.  My query letters have less confidence and less voice because the more I try to change or improve something, the more someone tells me, “Sean…I don’t really like the font you used on the date at the top of the letter” or “What is this query letter printed on, Boise X-9 Hi-Brite Multipurpose Paper?  No way in Hell am I reading this!”

I’ve only had one agent give me good feedback on query letters and I met her at a conference.  Too bad several other agents with whom I’ve spoken since have told me they disagree with her, but whatever.  At the end of the day, professionalism and persistence are key.

Baffling or Unprofessional:  I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time here, because this is just talking about the ludicrous and absurd things that people try to pull on agents.  We’re talking about stuff that makes the rest of us look bad.  One example I heard an agent tell was a story involving some person who said in their query letter, “I have chosen you to represent my new novel” or “my novel is the first in a twelve-part series that I have written which will quickly make more money than the Harry Potter series”.  If I have to spell out for you what is wrong with both of those statements, please reconsider your writing endeavors, because ultimately these sorts of efforts only polarize agents that much more and make it that much more difficult for aspiring indie authors who are trying to play the game right to get published.

Never say things like “I worked really hard on this book” or, as Ann Rittenberg and Laura Whitcomb point out in one of my favorite publishing books Your First Novel, “I know how busy you are, so I’ll get straight to the point and not take up too much of your valuable time”.  The first quote is irrelevant and, hopefully, implied.  If you didn’t work hard on it, don’t even think about trying to get it published.  The second quote, in trying to keep from wasting time, needlessly wastes an agent’s time.  Just get to your own book, keep it focused, and try to stay confident and optimistic.

I mean, it couldn’t HURT, right?

Also, don’t include a photo of yourself unless you look like George Clooney.  Or you can just do what I do and include a photo of George Clooney with every query letter.  By the way, I don’t actually do that.  However, if I don’t start getting some interest from agents soon, I just might start doing that…

Contact Information:  If this seems like a stupid thing for an agent to get worked up over, that’s because it is, but some (I want to emphasize “SOME”) agents will still get in a tizzy if you list your contact information at the top of your letter instead of at the bottom.  I know, I know.   It is ridiculous…but I’m being serious.  I say, unless otherwise stated, always put your contact information at the bottom of the letter, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE QUERYING VIA EMAIL.  I guess you can completely ignore the example of a “Good Query to Agent: Novel/Memoir” listed on page 35 of the 2011 90th Anniversary Edition of the Writer’s Market, which claims to be “The Most Trusted Guide to Getting Published”.  Even though that letter comes from what is, in my opinion, one of the most reputable and trustworthy sources on the market today and even though that resource clearly shows a mock query letter with all relevant contact information in plain sight at the top of the query letter with the agent’s address directly below that, evidently you are an idiot for thinking that’s how it should be done.

Bah! What do they know? They’re just WRITER’S (freaking) DIGEST.

I hope you all are enjoying the sarcasm that is practically dripping off this blog right now.  Yeesh.

I’m not even joking about that book:  http://www.amazon.com/2011-Writers-Market-Robert-Brewer/dp/B0062GJOZS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342108655&sr=8-1&keywords=2011+writer%27s+market  There’s the Amazon link.  It’s a great big helpful-looking book evidently compiled by a vast list of industry professionals and, yet, I have now had about ten agents tell me that the query letter information in it is wrong or, at the very least, unhelpful.  What the Hell?  Evidently, there was a meeting of agents in an ominous, shadowy lair somewhere miles below the Earth’s surface that involved The League of Evil Agents randomly deciding to reject query letters with contact information in the wrong place.  It happened sometime in late 2011, by my estimate.  What, you didn’t get the memo either?  How about that…

Wow, I can’t believe how much I wrote about putting contact information in the wrong place.  I just find that point to be the dumbest thing imaginable over which to reject a query letter.  It would be like me unwrapping a Big Mac and deciding to throw it away because of the placement of a cheese slice.  If the burger doesn’t have any MEAT on it, that’s a pretty big problem, but if all the ingredients are there, only SLIGHTLY out of order, I’m pretty sure I can still eat it.  And, agents, I’m pretty sure you can still read a damn query letter at least through the first sentence.

Never ever ever refer to your book as a “fiction novel”:  A novel is, by definition, a work of fiction, so claiming that you’ve written a “fiction novel” in your query letter is seen as the calling card of an amateur.  This is yet another honest mistake that I’m sure tons of writers make and, yeah, most agents will stop right there as soon as they see that in a query letter.  I wonder how they feel about someone calling his or her book “novel fiction”, though…

When all is said and done, you need to remember one thing:  Almost any agent is looking for a reason to not read your book.  Any agent who just read that sentence is probably throwing his or her hands in the air at that statement, saying, “How can Sean say that?  We make our livings off of the books we sell!”  Well, I stand by my assertion.  I have read the most asinine reasons by agents for rejecting books based on query letters.  I have read and listened to some of the most offensively stupid arguments imaginable for snubbing queries—things that don’t even have anything to do with the writing or the book itself.  Things like, “I didn’t read her letter because she wrote it in standard business letter format and put my address at the top…like I don’t know my own address!”  Yes, agents will even reject people for trying to be professional and respectful.  I had no idea that business letter format was a major turn-off for many agents, despite the fact that one of the books I purchased on writing query letters provided examples written in business letter format.

However, most agents don’t care about all the contradictions and hypocrisies that are pervasive across the gamut of “Help” literature on query letter writing.  They want everything done their way, and you have to do your best to accommodate them.  Of course as I can tell you most of the time even that won’t be enough.

Coping with Rejection: Tips for Turning a “No” into a “Possibly, Maybe”

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Judging by that doozy of a title, you can guess that I’m probably not about to tell you anything earth-shattering regarding rejection, but it is something that every single writer must deal with from time to time and is therefore worth acknowledging.  Rejection sucks.  There’s no way around it.  I could go on and on about the things about rejection that annoy me as a writer.  Not being taken seriously as a writer because I chose to pen a book about Bosnia.  Receiving rejection letters within one hour of sending a query letter (wow, I bet you really gave my letter your serious consideration, Mr. Agent).  This kind of treatment makes you really wonder why you even bothered, right?

Personally, the most annoying comment I receive from agents is that my book “is not what we’re looking for at this time.”  Oh, I’m sorry—you aren’t looking for GOOD books at the moment?  You aren’t interested in a book that has received nothing but 4 and 5-star reviews from folks on Amazon?  You’re only looking for crap at the moment?  Damn, forgive me, I didn’t get the memo.  All joking and sarcasm aside, form replies or no replies at all are an injustice suffered by us writers but we all suffer them and, more importantly, we suffer them together.  Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and even that guy who wrote the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies books ALL have received rejection letters.  Even though most agents do us a disservice by giving us bulls*** run-around answers, that doesn’t mean that we can’t hedge our bets by learning to read between the lines.  Two wrongs don’t make a right, but 30 rejection letters should make YOU write.

Chin up, everyone.  Everything’s going to be okay.  Or perhaps you’ll just live a long, stressful life punctuated by shameful periods of disappointment and rejection that culminates with an early death in a gutter full of garbage, urban rain runoff, and decades of unfulfilled ambition.  Either way, um…Um…I forgot where I was going with that.

Ah, yes, so what can we take away from rejection?  Well, there are a few things:

1.  Consider re-writes.  I know, I know, I know.  It’s what every writer knows is coming and still doesn’t want to hear.  I’ll be honest, when I finished The Notice I pretty much jumped up from my computer, chest-bumped my fiancée, ran a victory lap around my apartment building, and then went streaking through downtown Lexington, Kentucky.  Nailed it!  …Or so I thought.  I was so convinced that I hit all the right notes and written the perfect novel with nothing but dead-on emotional cues.  It amounted to a literary “whole” that as beautiful and moving read backwards as forwards.  Yeah, I overshot it a little bit.  What I actually discovered is that my book had a fatal flaw among literary agents—the first chapter was a bit of a slog.  All that awesome buildup in the middle chapters of the book and the gripping climax and satisfying conclusion didn’t amount to SQUAT because agents weren’t giving my book the time of day.  I have since revamped all of that and now I’m taking a swing at it again.

Just a thought, I know I refer back to my own projects quite a bit on this blog.  I swear I’m not just trying to shamelessly promote myself, it’s just obviously I have more insight into my own books than any other books that are out there.  I could write volumes about my own writing failures (as evidence by the existence of this website).  I’m just hoping you’ll take my advice about The Notice and Naked in Korea and whatever else I talk about and apply it to your own projects so that you can take away the useful messages I’m trying to offer.

2.  Consider your platform.  Platform is another huge trick I’ve been having with The Notice.  I’m guessing.  Since no agent to date has ever given me anything remotely helpful to go by when rejecting my book, I’m guessing that their reasons for rejection boil down to A) the subdued nature of my first chapter and B) uncertainty about how to market a book about Bosnia.  There are movies out there about Bosnia but people don’t watch them.  Rachel Weisz and Angelina Jolie both found that out in 2011 with The Whistleblower and In the Land of Blood and Honey.  Even though The Bosnian War, to me, is one of the most fascinating historical conflicts of the last several centuries, 99.9% of people in the United States don’t know that, including 99.9% of agents, I’m guessing.  An obscure platform can be a monumentally difficult thing to sell and I would not recommend starting with Bosnia for your first book.  Try something more mainstream like zombies/vampires or romance, which is by far the top selling commercial genre.

On the other hand, I haven’t ruled out (since I have no information to go by) that just MAYBE…JUST MAYBE…agents are afraid to release my book to the public for fear that its awesomeness might cause the rest of the literary community to just give up and prompt the entire publishing industry of the United States to just collapse overnight.  It would be devastating.  There’s a chance right?

…Right?

Blah, blah, blah, I already stopped listening.

3.  Consider your voice and style.  At the risk of sounding like every single conceited writer in the world today, I’ll go out on a limb and say that voice and style are less likely to be the elements holding me back.  Of course, I would never know because no one in the industry has ever commented on it.  Thanks for nothing, industry!  All I know is that the people who have read The Notice had nothing but positive things to say about it.  Now, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m naïve enough to think that my voice and style couldn’t be refined—this is a process that lasts a writer’s whole life.  I’m always endeavoring to improve myself and grow as a writer, but I at least believe I have my own writing style and that it translates well to the stories that I tell.  But maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe we’re all wrong.  If agents aren’t taking the bait, then maybe we really need to read up a bit more on our genre and see what established authors are doing.  Look for inspiration in your field and try to build on that.  I try not to write a single page until I’ve read one good page by a great writer in my genre, just to kind of get me going.

More advice on query letters from Agent Sorche Fairbank

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Deer enjoy salt licks. Don’t make me explain every joke, folks. Keep up!

Last weekend, as many of you know, I had the opportunity to attend my first writer’s conference.  At first I came out more on the negative side of that experience, but I have to admit that I received tons of great information and useful* advice (*actual usefulness to be determined).  I also heard a veritable wealth of direct contradictions, of course, about writing query letters.  One person on our panel would say “never include a bio” and the next person would say “always include a bio”.  One person would “tell us how it ends in the query” and the other would say “never give away the ending”.  Advice on query letters should be taken not with a grain of salt, but with an entire salt lick.

I’m really surprised that query letter advice doesn’t attract more deer.

Anyway, here is what super nice agent Sorche Fairbank (awesome name, huh?  How many of you are planning to put that in your next fantasy novel?  A show of hands?)  had to say about writing query letters:

#1: Don’t take the life out of your query letter – All this means is that your query letter should read like an extension of your book.  If you’ve written a heavy, self-serious historical war piece like my book The Notice, then your query letter should reflect that same gravity.  If you’ve written a comical memoir, then your query letter damn well better elicit a chuckle or two from the agent reading it.  Try to mimic your narrative and never lose the heart of what you’ve written.  If this sounds like a delicate dance, it’s because it is.  This is not nearly as simple as it might sound because your goal is to be concise (much more concise than your novel probably is) while also keeping your language true to your prose.

#2:  Who is your audience?  Who is your genre?  A no-brainer.  Research and spell out your genre and, ideally, briefly mention who your target audience is.  This will not always be clear to the agent reviewing your work.  Try to point them in the right direction of your market.

#3:  What is the protagonist/antagonist conflict?  This seems to be a pretty unanimously agreed upon point among the agent world.  Agents may disagree profoundly on things like structure and whether or not a bio is necessary, but they all seem to agree that your query letter should get to the heart of your book’s conflict.  And why shouldn’t it?  If your query letter has no conflict, why should they assume your book will?  You need to spell out who the protagonist is and who or what the narrator is and how the conflict between those two forces will result in decisions or choices that move the story through your standard beginning, middle, climax, end arc.

#4:  Remember the 4 S’s (Style, Story, Setting, Someone):  Sorche said something that sounded a lot like “you can only pick one of these” in your query letter, but I’m not sure I understood her correctly or perhaps she misspoke.  I don’t see how you could only pick one of these in a query letter.  You can’t base a whole query letter on “setting” without mentioning the story or “someones”, obviously.  Or at least that doesn’t make any sense to me.  Your query letter should incorporate your style and story, while briefly dispensing with the setting and detailing the key characters and their dynamics, as I mentioned above.  At any rate, remember the 4 S’s.  They seem pretty universal.

#5:  Discuss your platform:  I’ve blogged about this in other entries but you should discuss your platform.  What abilities do you have to ensure that this book is sold?  Do you have a considerable Twitter presence?  Do you do speaking engagements regularly at which this book could be sold?  Are you George Clooney (if you are, um…use that.).  I built this website partly to nurture my platform.  This site gives me a venue through which I can gain exposure, market my books, deal in mirth and snark, and attract others within the literary community.  This is really increasingly important in this economy, where agents and publishers are perhaps less willing to gamble on unknown writers with experimental or high-concept stories.

I don’t condone the lack of risk-taking.  Frankly, it annoys me.  But we still have to be practical.  It makes sense from a business standpoint and business is everything.  Hollywood does it too.  That’s why we get four Transformers movies and just as many Alvin & The Chipmunks “Squeakuels” (shudder) for every District 9 that comes out.

#6:  Author Bio or Contact:  Another thing on which agents seem to be in agreement is that contact information should come at the bottom of your query letter after your name.  If you’re like me, that goes against everything you ever learned about writing business letters.  But these aren’t business letters, they’re queries.  Checkmate!  As for bios, really study any agencies requirements and you’ll often find indications of how they feel about bios.  Some will tell you explicitly to give a brief paragraph about yourself.  If nothing about a bio is mentioned but the agency instructs you to keep your letter short, I say don’t feel obligated to include one.

NON-FICTION ADVICE

Sorche also gave a brief lecture on what to include in memoir queries.  Having just finished Naked in Korea, I thought her advice was worth repeating.  Firstly, agents need to know what about your memoir will attract readers to your story.  How will your narrative transcend the individual?  A memoir about your trip to Jamaica, for example, is useless if you don’t have an angle.  What happened in Jamaica?  Did you see a part of Jamaica that few people get to see?  Were you abducted and molested by howler monkeys?  (if that actually happened to anyone…I’m really sorry)  What I’m trying to say is that your memoir won’t matter to anyone but you if nothing interesting actually happened to you.  The memoir-verse is full of books by the likes of Hillary Clinton, Kofi Anan, Bono, Angelina Jolie, Snookie, and the Dalai Lama.  How are you going to compete with them if the only thing that happened in Jamaica was that you went to the beach?

Another point Sorche made is that you should mention if your book is the first to do something.  Also, why are YOU the best person to write it?  What it is about your experience or observations or humor that qualifies you to write the definitive memoir about that experience?  If you battled cancer, what can people learn from your battle with cancer that they can’t get anywhere else?  Always put your most interesting material first.

All the Small Things: 4 Little Details That Can Make or Break Your Query Letter…and 1 HUGE THING!

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I’ve been told that I’m overhyping the query thing this week.  To anyone who feels that way, I believe that you can’t overhype the, um, unoverhypable.   If you have a poor query, Joe Agent will never read your book.  In that respect, the query is more important than your novel.  I’ve submitted probably a hundred queries to date and I’ve never heard a word of criticism against my writing; I have, however, heard problems that agents have had with various minute aspects of my query letters.  On those points, I have learned more in the past week than I probably have in the past year.  Here are some thoughts I wanted to share.

1.  Where you put your contact information.  You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”  Well, that isn’t the case with writing query letters.  Here, the small stuff is precisely the sort of content that could be driving agents away from taking your book seriously.  I know—it sucks.  In a perfect world, your book would sell itself according to its own virtues.  There are so many double standards and hypocrisies against independent writers, that I couldn’t possibly comment on them all in this post, although I will address some of them soon.

What’s important is that your contact information should come BELOW YOUR NAME at the end of your query.  Forget everything that you know about business letter format.  Agents can be a little, ahem, dickish about you putting their contact information and yours’ at the top of your letter.  Their rebuttal will be “I know my own address” and the underlying point is that any agent is only interested in your story, so get to the damn point!  If they want to get in touch with you, they WILL look for your contact information at the end.  The best comment I’ve heard on where you put your contact information is that every time you put information at the top of your letter, you are increasing the need for an agent to scroll down your page (in an email or on a smart phone) and you’re also increasing the likelihood that he or she won’t.

2.  The subject line of your email – The subject line of your email can be the kiss of death if you try to get inventive.  If you try any mischief like “Urgent! Please Read!”, you are only making your query letter look and smell like SPAM, and if it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, you can bet what any agent will do.  Your subject line should only ever say “Query:” , followed by the name of your book.  Many agents will resent or just ignore anything outside of this standard.

The only time when it is ever okay to bend the rules is when you’re John McClane. When you are not John McClane, you must follow them to the tiniest detail. I was John McClane once. It was a Tuesday. I went 13 words over the word limit and the agent actually sent me a thank you letter. It was powerful.

3.  Don’t try to negotiate the rules. – Agent and famed query letter obliterator Janet Reid summed it up best on her blog when she said “The only thing about your query letter or writing that should be ‘exceptional’ is the writing itself”.  Never, under any circumstances, think that your writing deserves to step outside of the submission guidelines listed by any agency or publisher.  If 250 words is the limit for your query letter, don’t even think about doing 251.  Agents who are accustomed to what 250 words looks like, for example, will spot a 300 word query instantly and probably throw it to the sharks.  Furthermore, if an agent asks for 3-5 pages of your book, never send him or her an entire 8-page chapter.  I can personally tell you that following the rules may not get you anywhere—it probably won’t—but believe when I say you got farther than you would have breaking them.

4.  How you describe your protagonist – One interesting thought that I came across in researching little things that detract from query letters is how people describe their protagonists.  The agent commented that descriptions about things like race, age, and (my favorite) “chest size” ultimately made him or her believe that the protagonist was not interesting enough to transcend those basic labels.  There’s something to be said for that.  If you have to describe your character as a “black femme fatale with an impeccable rack”, what real definition is there for your protagonist?  If your heroine is little more than a walking skin color with a great figure and no personality, background, inner conflict, or decisions to be made,  why would any agent want to follow your character from page 1 to 150?  Basic physical descriptions are for the novel itself; in a query letter, agents need about one sentence that describes precisely who your main character is and what makes him or her tick.

5.  TALK ABOUT YOUR STORY! – This is the big enchilada!  The hat tamale!  The…enormous Mexican-food-themed cliché describing something’s enormousness.  Great, now I’m hungry again.  Anyway, if there’s one thing all agents can agree on, it’s that your query letter needs to talk about your plot.  Now, I’ve made a mistake on query letters of talking about the story…and NOT the plot.  If you’re like me, you may not understand the difference, so let me wax poetic (I’m not really waxing poetic, but it’s a phrase I adore and one I rarely get to use, so there you go).  Your “plot” as relayed in your query letter needs to address exactly what the primary conflict will be that is endured by your protagonist throughout your novel.  What difficult decision will your protagonist have to make?  How will it affect your character?  What is the ultimate journey that your character must undertake to address said conflict?  Believe me, it’s not easy—especially if you submit to the “Keep Your Query Under 250 Words” Art of Query Writing.

Hope this was helpful, Guys.  I really appreciate the feedback and support I have received so far on this site.  Your comments have been really inspiring.  I may not have found an agency yet, but I really admire the positivity and brotherhood that encapsulates independent writing.  I hope my observations might help someone else succeed where I have so far been unsuccessful.  I’ll get there someday.  It may not be with “The Notice”, but one of these days…

“Querious George”: 5 Tips for Polishing Your Query Letter

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Ah, my dream agent…

Okay, that headline makes it sound like Curious George just decided to start exploring his sexuality.  My mistake.  What I’m really trying to say is that an author’s query letter might be more important than the book he or she has just finished writing.  First things first (um, this is not part of the 5 Tips), don’t even think of submitting a query letter for fiction until you’ve actually finished your book.  Now let’s go one step further:  Don’t even think of submitting your letter until you have edited your book at least twice—preferably THREE times.  While an agent might appreciate your enthusiasm if you have that query letter ready to go the exact moment you type the final word of your book and complete your first draft, the odds are almost astronomically against the possibility that you nailed every aspect of your story on the first run through.

Now, assuming that your book is ready to go, let’s look at the letter itself.

1.  Explain your market – There is an old saying that you catch more flies with honey and if you’re trying to sell honey, you should probably have some idea of where the flies are.  Where your book’s market lies may not be as obvious to Joe Agent as you might think.  This is something I ran into with my first string of submissions for The Notice.  I expected those to whom I sent my book to automatically see the wider applications of my novel.  I thought it would be understood that my novel transcended its categorical historical fiction genre.  Only when I explained the significance of The Bosnian War, the number of refugees living in the United States, and the book’s similarity to other popular world novels like The Kite Runner did I start to hear back from interested agents.  At least one brief paragraph should state specifically to whom you are trying to sell your book and what evidence you have that such a market exists in the first place.

2.  Who are you again? – Give yourself a little more credit.  I went the humble route on my first line of submissions for The Notice.   I mentioned that I was a teacher and that I had obtained two degrees in international relations and, of course, this was information that I found relevant while pitching The Notice—a book of international themes.  While I received a slew of nice automated-form rejection letters, I came up empty-handed from every single agency to which I applied.  On the second string of queries, I identified myself specially as a private school English teacher (writing cred!) and as an international affairs “expert” (hey, why not?  I’m on my way to a PHD in it…).  Lo and behold, I received an interested reply about a week later.  DO NOT make up credentials that you can’t support—you will eventually be exposed—but do make it clear for agents why you have a “right to write”.

3.  Work on your Hook – This is the most difficult part of writing your query letter and, because of that, most people will never perfect the art of the hook.  If you have a hook before you ever start writing your book, FAN-TAS-TIC.  It makes the process that much easier and probably shows that your idea is a solid one.  Most of us won’t be that lucky, however, and will need to come up with something to draw in an agent after the writing process.  You must zero in on the one aspect of your work that distinguishes it.  For instance, my book The Notice (wow, I hawk my novel way too much in this blog), is “a coming of age story that revolves around a young girl making sense of a terrifying war in her homeland by sharing conversations with the ghost of an elderly Muslim woman who was murdered in her neighborhood.”  That’s not exactly the same hook I’ve been using—I paraphrased it just so I could crank this out fast enough to get back to watching “House”—but it does have the core elements of my book, without giving too much away.  Once you’ve dispensed with the hook, you can get down to divulging a bit more about the plot in the second paragraph of your letter.

4.  Research Your Agent – Nothing works against you more than not researching your prospective agent’s catalog prior to sending your letter.  Any self-respecting agency’s website will have a page that details the interests and publishing history of any given agent.  It goes without saying that you should only submit YA horror to an agent who lists YA fiction and, ideally, horror in their bio as personal interests.  Some agents seem to be open to anything, which might make it seem like your job just got that much easier.  Don’t settle for that, friends!  Find out whether or not any of the books that agent has previously helped publish match or parallel your own novel.  If Joe Agent claims to take any and all fiction but shows a clear bias towards legal thrillers or vampire sagas, then maybe your dystopian story is not for him.

5.  “The 4:1 Rule” – This is just a neurotic, safety-first rule that applies to my own query letter editing process.  The Sean Chandler rule of thumb is to edit your query letter FOUR times for every draft of your book.  If you edited your novel three times, be ready to go over your query a whopping twelve times!  It might seem like overkill, but it underscores the significance of preparing the best letter possible.  It’s better to err on the side of caution than submit a query letter that accidentally prevents an agent from reading your book.  You might as well just email said agent a video of you drunkenly singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” in your underwear; both approaches will undoubtedly prove equally successful in selling your novel.

For more information on query letters, please consult the book “Your First Novel” available here: http://www.amazon.com/Your-First-Novel-Achieving-ebook/dp/B0033ZAVX0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1338405702&sr=8-2 It contains by far the most helpful and detailed analysis of good query letters that I’ve seen so far.  It’s also a pretty cheap purchase. If you’re young and aspiring like me, it’s definitely worth your coin!