Wait!
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You’ve done the hard part.
You’ve spent ages researching, writing, and rewriting until you finally feel your book is ready to share with the world.
Not so fast.
Your next step is one of the most important. Writing a query letter can determine whether a literary agent asks to see more or sends you a cordial form letter intended to let you down easy.
It’s time to move from author to salesman.
You’re about to make a virtual sales call, and your query letter makes the first impression.
Nothing can be more important.
It was once customary for a bachelor to request permission to call on a woman by having his calling card delivered to her.
You’re courting an agent on behalf of your manuscript, and the query letter is your calling card.
This one-page letter must masterfully sell. Write it poorly and an agent will assume your book is also poorly written.
It must stimulate and intrigue to secure your all-important first date.
Get the agent’s name and title right. You’re not sending this “To Whom It May Concern.”
It should be clear you’ve done your research and are targeting an agent who represents your genre and that you’re aware of similar books he has represented to publishers.
Include a one-sentence summary. Here was mine for my first novel: “A judge tries a man for a murder the judge committed.”
It worked.
Grab the agent with compelling writing. Briefly tell the plot of your novel or the purpose of your nonfiction book. Write with the same voice you’d use when telling your best friend about it. Your passion must be obvious.
An agent needs to believe he can sell your book before he’ll ask for more.
Be specific about your target audience, and “everyone” doesn’t count. Agents know the business and cannot be persuaded that “everyone will find this amazing.”
Tell what you hope readers will take away from your book and why.
Briefly summarize why you’re the one to write this book.
What else have you published? What platform have you built? What education do you have? Link to your website.
The more you’ve done, the less you need say about it. Don’t emphasize your lack of experience, but resist the urge to exaggerate or embellish.
You need not list your entire resume. Instead, refer to a web page where an agent can find more details.
Better to just say something like, “I’ve been a professor of astrophysics for more than two decades, the last four years at Notre Dame.”
An amazing book idea can even transcend the need for a vast platform. So if you don’t have one, it’s all the more important to well represent the potential of your book.
Keep it brief and express your ability to provide whatever is requested: proposal, synopsis, sample chapters, whatever. Conclude with a simple “Thanks for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.”
Be sure to:
Be patient. Occupy yourself with your next project idea.
Some agencies say that if you get no response after a certain period, assume they’re not interested. That’s rude, and sometimes you’re not even told whether they received it in the first place. In that case, wait six weeks and follow up with kind note asking about the status.
Best case: the agent reads your query and immediately asks for more. That’s rare, but it happens.
Agents get thousands of submissions, and they reject most of them within minutes.
Too many writers give them too many reasons.
My goal is to get you to where you’re seen as the next success. That’s why agents are in the business.
Despite how many ideas they reject, they’re longing to discover the next bestseller. Be the one who writes it!