How To Secure A Literary Agent? Lesson #2: How to Write A Query Letter (Paragraph by Paragraph) That Gets Results from Agents! Tips + Do's & Don'ts!
This is the question I am most often asked by emerging writers. And there is no "golden key." But there is a key to unlock a path to success, and I'm here to show you how this summer. Join me.
So you want to write a query letter?
Seems easy, right? One page. I mean, you just wrote a 400-page book. How hard could it be?
Listen to me: It’s hard. Especially to do it right.
First, just consider the life of an agent you’re querying: They are exceedingly busy. Not only are they running a small business, they are likely busy — just like you — with family and life.
This is a typical day in the life of an agent: Managing existing clients, which includes fielding countless phone calls and emails, pitching their new proposals or books, endless meetings (online and in person) with their clients’ editors and publishing teams regarding the varying stages of their authors’ books (launch, marketing, edits), pitching new books to sell, managing foreign rights, reviewing contracts, networking with editors (who are constantly on the move) and other agents, working with film agents and (drum roll) … looking for new clients.
Agents receive hundreds and hundreds of query letters a month. Often times, they have an agency assistant (a fairly recent college grad with an interest in publishing or agenting, or an assistant who has moved their way up to new agent) review these emails and queries. They are the gate keepers for the gate keepers, and they pass along those queries in which they feel the agent might be interested based on genre, quality of the query, excellence of the book’s initial pages. Often times, an agent will review queries all on their own or in conjunction with an assistant.
A good deal of the time, these assistants and agents review these query letters either when they are multitasking or when they are on the run (to meetings, on the train or subway) or when they have a moment of quiet time (first thing in the morning, before they go to bed). That’s why your query has to be PERFECT. Each word of every paragraph must be gold (not to mention no typos) for you to move to the next round of American Author (it’s like Idol, but for books).
Here are my tips, paragraph by paragraph: