Just finished your first novel? Want to get an agent and get traditionally published? Then the query letter will be your next challenge.
Keep in mind as you read this, that while I have written a few query letters, I have not successfully published my first novel yet. So, in this post I am not claiming to be an expert on the subject. But I have done a lot of research on query letters, and I can point you to some excellent sources that actually are written by experts. This way, you can save yourself some time and benefit from all my hard work and research.
So, query letters are sent to someone you think you might want to be your agent. They are often sent as an email or sometimes as a mailed-in letter. Their whole purpose is to introduce this prospective agent to your work.
But often your query won’t even go to an agent first. Often, the first person to see your work is the agent’s assistant. These assistants are probably overburdened with work and must make snap judgements about what work to accept and what to reject. And they may make these choices based on the query letter alone. If what they see in this letter does not appeal to them, they may just move on. And your work will be discarded, just like that—even if they haven’t read any of your actual work yet.
This means that the query letter may be your only opportunity to make the best impression possible. Now, it is true that no matter how well you write your query letter, the agent might just not be looking for a book like yours right now. Maybe they want YA romance, and you wrote cyberpunk. In this case, your book might be out of the race immediately. And in such a case, it may be better to look for a different agent any way. This way you can find one that will be more excited about your kind of work. And this may mean they will be more willing to work hard to get your book out there.
But still, the query letter is your sales pitch. It is your first line of contact with the assistant or the agent or whoever. It’s always smart to make your best impression. And what if you can write something that convinces them that, yeah, I was looking for YA romance, but now I realize that what I was really looking for was the next big cyberpunk novel all along?
This is the potential of the query letter. It will likely be the difference between your novel getting considered or flat-out rejected. And, who knows, you might change some minds in your favor.
Of course, the agent’s assistant might read your query letter and then go on to read the first few chapters of your book or your synopsis. I’ll post what I’ve found on how to write a synopsis later. But this just means you will also have to excel at these other parts of your submission as well. There’s always more to learn.
But if you have a bad query letter, it won’t matter how good your novel or synopsis are. They will likely never read that far.
So, how do you write a great query letter?
The way I thought of it, the query letter is just another genre of writing. Saying that it is a writing genre is another way of saying that it is a kind of writing. And all genres are made of conventions, which are features that you would normally expect a piece of writing in that genre to have. So, for instance, in a science fiction novel, some conventions of the plot are more universal. These could be having a protagonist, a problem, obstacles, and a solution.
But we could get even more specific and look at conventions of the science fiction novel that are more subject- or character-based. These could be aliens, futuristic technology, robots, ray guns, spaceships, space, and time travel. Of course, not all science fiction novels must have all of these or even most of these more subject-based conventions. But these are common things that we might expect to find in a science fiction novel.
So, when thinking of the query letter as a writing genre, one of our first steps is to find its conventions. These are the things that an agent would expect to find in there. Now, by saying that an agent would expect these things is not to say that an agent would necessarily be bored by these things. These conventions serve a function or a purpose that the agent usually wants satisfied when they read your letter.
For instance, the agent will want to know the book’s genre and what the approximate word count is. They use this information to get an idea of what kind of book it is and if they will be interested in a book of that type. That’s the function or purpose for including these conventions.
This means that, while we want to stand out from the herd of query letters they are getting, we don’t want to bunk all the expectations they hope for when reading a query letter. Sure, it is good to work outside the box, but because this genre is new to us, let’s first learn what is inside the box and why it is there. Then we can think about how to break the rules without irritating our audience.
My recommendation is to first read Jane Friedman’s article, “The Complete Guide to Query Letters.” In general, Jane Friedman’s page is excellent for all kinds of publishing information. It covers topics like how to get an agent, how to make sure your agent is not a scammer, how to work with a publisher, or just about anything you can imagine. But start with this article to get an overview of the query letter. It goes over the 4 elements of every query letter, which, in our terms, are this genre’s main conventions. And it also goes over some valuable do’s and don’ts from someone who has been in the business for 25 years.
In general, to learn more about publishing and making a living as a writer, I highly recommend reading Jane Friedman’s book The Business of Writing (paid link). It is simultaneously an education about the publishing industry and a how-to guide on becoming a professional writer. I recommend getting a physical copy. It is a goldmine of information, and you will want to have it at hand so you can refer back to it repeatedly.
Next, check out Nathan Bransford’s article, “How to Write a Query Letter.” Nathan is an author, former literary agent, and blogger. His blog is also full of wonderful information for new authors, and I would recommend looking around on it. Like Jane Friedman’s blog, this can be a great place to answer all those questions you have about writing, finding an agent, and publishing.
After that, read Nathan Bransford’s “Query Letter Template.” This article lays out all the conventions of a query letter in an easy to understand and memorize “mad lib” style. Now, I know some of you might be concerned about writing a letter in this fill-in-the-blank manner. Wouldn’t it get cookie-cutter and boring for an agent to see all these template-following letters come in?
I completely understand your concerns. Here’s what I suggest. Start with the template. Make a query letter that fills in all the blanks. Then, check out real query letters that actually led to a deal with an agent to see how these differ. For example, Nathan Bransford offers four on his website:
Check out each of these and be sure to find others online or on Jane Friedman’s site as well. The more samples of successful query letters for fiction novels that you can find, the better you will understand the genre. With these in mind, you can now get a feel for how these letters fulfilled the expectations of agents and then see how these authors took these expectations another step to turn these into memorable and persuasive query letters.
So, that’s what I have for now. Query letters are an interesting and perhaps a little stressful writing genre. How do you prove how wonderful your novel is in a short page? Mind boggling.
But learn from me and take query letters seriously. When I first started submitting my novel to agents, I hadn’t done all this research. I just whipped out a quick introductory letter off the top of my head and hoped for the best. Each time I submitted, the letter was a little different, and I didn’t take the time to refine it or even thoroughly proofread what I was sending out. Looking back, it’s no surprise that I got rejection letters or no-replies on all of these submissions.
Since then, I’ve made at least three new drafts of my query letter for this novel. Each time I refine and improve it a little more (hopefully, that is). In future posts, I’ll update you all on how my adventures in traditional publishing have gone.
Once you’ve studied this writing genre and learned its conventions and why they are important, all we can do is polish our query letter as best we can and hope for the best. Of course, another important factor is making sure you are sending it to the right agents, but I’ll talk more on this later.
If nothing else, though, writing your query letter helps you think of your book from a marketing and business perspective. Sure, your novel is great, but why do you think it will sell, and why should someone invest their time and money into trying to make it sell? That’s a hard question, and one I have been trying to wrap my brain around for the past few months. Thinking of comps, or books that are comparable to your own book, has been an adventure for me, one that I talked about more in this post.
But I wish you all the best in your endeavors into these strange waters. May you get quick, enthusiastic replies, or at the very least get rejection letters with helpful feedback. You’ll find that something is better than nothing, and if someone takes the time to reply with anything other than a form rejection letter, consider it a triumph. These are opportunities for improvement, and clues that you are on the right path.
Until next time, keep writing!