Query Letters: One Solid Approach

By: J.T. Evans

Query letters are a vital piece of the publishing world. It's rare to land an agent without a solid query, and once you get that agent, he or she has to query publishers on your behalf. Query letters are the introduction to a piece of work, you the author, and any comparable titles already on the marketplace. 

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Query letters are so important. Pikes Peak Writers has shifted some of its focus to representing this fact. Our fiction writing contest, The Zebulon, has a query letter round. We've also replaced the typical pitch session with a Query One-on-One session where you can get feedback on your query letter, and, hopefully, make the initial contact with an agent or editor that will lead to the path of publication.

There are numerous approaches to query letters that are taught in classes, workshops, and seminars. No single approach is "the one true way" to composing a query letter. There are a variety of designs to presenting your work, but my favorite structure was taught to me a few years back by Pam Howell while we hung out at Pikes Peak WritersConference.

Her favorite style of query letters involves three parts, with an optional introductory paragraph if you've personally interacted with the agent somewhere. The three parts are: hook, book, cook. Let's dive into those sections in more detail.

Hook

What will hook the reader, agent, or editor into your story? Do your best to avoid questions, especially hypothetical ones. Stick to interesting statements and facts about your story. Be concise and hit the high points here because all you have is three to five sentences. I also make sure to lead this paragraph with the genre, word count, and target market (young adult, middle grade, adult, etc.). This lead-in information sets the stage and allows the agent to know what to expect out of the rest of the query letter. I conclude this paragraph with comparisons between my novel and one or two other titles already on the market. Aim high, but don't claim to be "the next [insert famous author here]."

Book

This is where you talk about the core plot and characters. Stick to your main protagonist (or two if there is a split point of view). Don't delve into the details in this area. That's what your synopsis is for. Keep this paragraph (again, three to five sentences) focused on the tale you're telling. This is probably the most difficult portion to write because condensing your 100,000 word novel into a paragraph is rough. It can be done, though. If you need help, look at the back cover copy of several of your favorite novels. Practice writing some back cover copy for your own story. This will naturally lead to content you can use here.

Cook

This is where you get to talk about yourself! Make all content here pertinent to your writing and the novel. Don't include winning the third-grade spelling bee or any non-critical details. You also want to list up to your last three publication credits. If you're not published yet, just leave that out. There's no need to state, "I currently have no publication credits."

Miscellaneous Bits

I include the first and last name of the agent I'm querying in the salutation. This prevents me from using "Ms." with the name "Pat" and it turns out "Pat" is a man. It's the safe road to go. I also go to their web site and use copy/paste to snag their name from their own content. This keeps me from misspelling a name, and there are some tricky last names out there.

I always include, "I look forward to your reply, and thank you for your time in reading the submission," as a closing statement.

Just below that I put something along the lines of "The synopsis and first XXX chapters of the novel are below my contact information." This reiterates the fact that I am able to follow instructions, and that I have checked their submission guidelines on their web site.

The next thing is my contact information. I make sure they have every available means of contacting me listed. This includes my physical address, phone number, email address, and my Facebook and Twitter accounts. If they want to get back in touch with a "yes," I don't want a communication failure to turn it into a "no."

Once that's done, I copy/paste the requested materials into the body of the email and send it off! Please make sure to read the agent's query letter guidelines and only include material they want with the query letter. If they don't specify additional content, only send the query letter.

Query Letter for Griffin's Feather

Here's my query letter for my novel that will be coming out later in 2017:

Dear [AGENT NAME HERE]:

GRIFFIN'S FEATHER is an adult urban fantasy novel standing at 62,200 words. This is the first novel in what I plan to be a series. It is about an immortal Roman Centurion working as a bounty hunter for the Ancients. The deities and powerful entities of the distant past use the protagonist, Marcus, as an agent to do their bidding. When bartering for payment, he asks for copies of his missing father's journals. Marcus Barber, as he is known today, uses his abilities of dogged determination, two millennia of experience, and a few close friends to finish his jobs. While working for a pack of egotistical Ancients who treat Marcus more like shared property than a person, he searches for his still-living father. Griffin's Feather would appeal to people who enjoyed Kevin Hearne's The Iron Druid Chronicles or the invocation of mythology found in Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

Marcus must rescue Freyja's Daughter from a cult of Ereshkigal in San Antonio, Texas as he recovers Nemesis's lost Griffin, frees a captured Pixie on behalf of Cailleach, handles a "mundane" private investigation for a mortal client, and chases down clues as to where his father's next steps might lead. During the course of his adventures, bullets fly, Barghests attack, a demi-goddess invades his mind, and he assaults a drug dealer's stronghold at the Griffon's side. His immortal soul will be lost to the Ancients if he fails in any of these tasks.

I am the current president of the Pikes Peak Writers and received the 2014 Pikes Peak Writers Volunteer of the Year award. I was the president of the Colorado Springs Fiction Writers Group from 2009 until 2013 and have been active in the Colorado Springs writing community since 2006. My publication credits include stories in "An Uncommon Collection," "Phobias: A Collection of True Stories," and "Carnival of the Damned."

I look forward to your reply and thank you for your time in reading the submission.

The synopsis and first [XXX PAGES/CHAPTERS] of the novel are below my contact information.

Sincerely,

J.T. Evans

Contact Information:

Cell Phone: 719-REDACTED

Email: REDACTED

Website: http://jtevans.net/

Twitter: @jtevans

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jtevans.writer

Address: REDACTED

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[ADDITIONAL MATERIAL GOES HERE]

J.T. Evans writes fantasy novels. He also dabbles with science fiction and horror short stories. He is the president of Pikes Peak Writers. When not writing, he secures computers at the Day Job, homebrews great beers, spends time with his family, and plays way too many card/board/role-playing games.

A Three-Pronged Approach to Finding Agents

By Karen Albright Lin

A savvy agent can spot timely and quality writing. Editors count on them to bring them great work.

They say it’s harder to get an agent than an editor. I’m not sure who “they” are, but I’ve found that is not true. I’ve signed with several agents, some of them for one-book contracts, others for overall career management—book-length nonfiction, novels, and screenplays.

I teamed up with them in three different ways.

joesandymimsuccess.com

Conferences:

Beyond scheduled pitch sessions, there are many ways you can link your name to your face so your story idea will get more than cursory attention. For many years I’ve attended, volunteered at, and taught at conferences where schmoozing in the bars, at meals and during hotel room parties facilitate personal connections. Occasionally a deal is made at a conference. One agent offered to represent me after I told her about my nonfiction book over dinner. She had a personal connection to the topic, something I wouldn’t have known without chatting with her about where she came from. During a workshop, a Hollywood producer heard my pitch for a novel in progress and later asked me to turn it into a screenplay so he could market it for me. One of my editing clients signed with an agent during a conference weekend solely on the strength of her high concept pitch.

Contests:

If you can afford the fee, entering a good quality contest is well worth your investment. I entered ones that offered feedback and had acquiring-agent judges. The feedback was invaluable when coupled with my critique group and beta reader input. Winning or placing added to my bio and put me on the stage. This exposure to industry insiders made all the difference on my path. An attending agent, who I didn’t even know was in the audience during an awards ceremony, contacted me with an offer of representation because of my moments of glory. She auctioned one of my novels. Though, in the end, it didn’t sell, I had someone in my court working on my behalf for a couple of years. All because I invested in entering that contest. Likewise, on the strength of screenplay contest feedback and honors, I’ve gotten work-for-hire screenwriting assignments, a director/producer interested in using one of my scripts for a webisode, as well as an offer of representation from a Hollywood agent and a paying screenwriting blog column, with all of this leading to work as a script doctor.

Query Letters:

Learn to write a quality query letter that sells you and your work. An agent can’t resist a marketable idea when proposed in a competent letter. You are introducing yourself, your connection to that agent, what you are writing, and why it will put the agent’s child through college. Rarely will you find an agent who puts money second to the quality of work. Much to the chagrin of brilliant literary writers who fail to gain traction, it’s a business, not a mission. This ad for your product needs to grab that agent and hold on so tightly that he will stare at the ceiling at night contemplating which imprints will want that book, imagining your blog tours, and counting your million plus Twitter followers hopping over fences to get to your signings.

The query letter can be a follow-up to meeting an interested agent at a conference. It can be a cold query to a recommended agent, one you are being referred to, or one who is listed in books such as the current Guide to Literary Agents or Writer’s Market. There are numerous online sources for finding and evaluating the fit of these agents. I have three favorites.

Query Tracker is the Match.com of the literary world.

Absolute Write is like a gossip site where you can find recommendations and cautions.

The Predators and Editors site is like the Consumer Protection Agency, Better Business Bureau and Consumer Reports all rolled into one.

I hope this three-pronged approach helps you find an agent, too.

About the Writer:  Karen is an editor, ghostwriter, pitch coach, speaker and award-winning author of novels, cookbooks, and screenplays. She’s written over a dozen solo and collaborative scripts (with Janet Fogg, Christian Lyons and director Erich Toll); each has garnered international, national and regional recognition: Moondance Film Festival, BlueCat, All She Wrote, Lighthouse Writers, Boulder Asian Film Festival, SouthWest Writers Contest, and PPW Contest. Find out more at www.karenalbrightlin.com.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a Writer, Not a Bricklayer!

By Aaron Michael Ritchey

This is the reality of my life. Last month on the PPW blog, I wrote a rousing post on Indie pubbing, giving my stories to the world no matter! It was all so full speed ahead, take no prisoners, damn the torpedoes, or in the words of that lovely workaholic polygamist Dagny Taggert, GET OUT OF MY WAY!

This month, not really feeling it. My current work in progress is too long, too unmarketable, too dripping with tears and complications. All my query letters are going unanswered. I’d rather take a physical beating than email silence from the traditional publishing industry. I’m working with an editor at a small press, but I don’t have a contract yet. Writing feels like a chore, not just a little chore, but like cleaning out the Augean stables. Marketing, even worse. More like when Hercules had to shoulder the world for Atlas to get the apples of the Hesperides. My website is out of date and lonely. I’m off track shopping projects around. Things feel bleak.

I’m so not Hercules at this point. Nor very Atlas Shrugged. I still can mix metaphors, so I got that going for me.

Do I still show up and write and do the marketing stuff? Yes. Do I do it overjoyed and inspired? Hardly. Writing is a vocation, like being a priest or a monk or a nun. It takes stupid amounts of self-discipline. Writing is less divine act of sacred storytelling, more bricklaying. Does the bricklayer lay bricks with joy and inspiration in his\her heart? Some days, probably, other days, it’s just mortar, baby, just one brick at a time.

I was talking with a friend about all this, when it hit me. I’m impatient. I want glory, fame, truckloads of greenback dollar bills, right now. I don’t want to march anymore like a good little writerly soldier. I wanna' fly to Olympus on my very own gold-plated Pegasus. I want Harry Potter amounts of success, and I want it yesterday. I want adoration, damn you.

So I say all that, loudly, in public. People stare, and my friend says, “What would that give you?”

Big pause. Even if I could quit my day job, live the dream, write full-time, would everyday still shine like diamonds, which are forever? No. Would I be able to write all the books I want to write? No. What would change? Maybe I’d get some adoration, but I’d also get packs of critics chewing on my heart.

So I go back to the basics. Writing is its own reward. Writing is hard, but it’s the hard that makes it good. My job is to write stories and get them out into the world. Which means laying one word next to another next to another. Which means sending out the emails to the abyss the traditional publishing industry is becoming, a void where query letters go to die.

It’s so not sexy. It’s so not my dreams of riches and praise. It is what it is. What else should I be doing with my time? Yes, if I didn’t write, I could get caught up on movies, but I’ve been watching a lot of summer movies, and mostly, they are all very explosion-y. Are they worth the precious minutes of my life? Not really.

Writing is worth the time I spend on it. In the end, writing is a gift to the world. Might just be a small gift, but it’s still a gift.

About the Writer: YA Paranormal author Aaron Michael Ritchey has penned a dozen manuscripts in his 20 years as a writer. When he isn’t slapping around his muse, Aaron cycles to look fabulous, works in medical technologies, and keeps his family in silks and furs. His first novel, The Never Prayer, hit the streets on March 29, 2012. Most recently, his work appears in the steampunk anthology The Penny Dread Tales Volume III and in the latest issue of Electric Spec.

Ready to Test-Drive Your Query Letter? Check Out Evil Editor

By Debbie Maxwell Allen

After spending weeks (or months) tweaking your query letter to perfection, you may want to solicit some feedback before you send it out. Evil Editor is your guy. He'll post your query on his blog, often with tongue-in-cheek comments, where other writers can chime in with their own opinions.

But Evil Editor adds a twist. He posts the titles of the manuscripts the queries represent, and invites blog readers to guess the plot based upon the titles. The most interesting (and far-fetched) plot ideas get posted along with his query critique in his Face-Lift series.

Another feature on Evil Editor's blog is the New Beginning series. Writers submit the first 150 words of their manuscript, and blog readers show how they think the piece should continue. Evil Editor posts the most interesting continuation, and invites blog readers to give the original author feedback on how the opening captured their interest.

It's nice to find a site that gives good feedback with an element of fun. If humor is not something you want to mix with your fiction, you may want to stick to more "serious" sites.

Evil Editor conducts monthly book chats, where readers discuss recently published books. There's also a weekly contest for writers to contribute captions to a posted cartoon. The best captions get published on the blog. If you need a laugh to relieve your writer's block, check out Evil Editor's short films to give you some relief. And at regular intervals writing exercises are posted, with the best examples posted on the blog.

And during the month of May, Evil Editor has posted several items in Brenda Novak's Annual Online Auction for Diabetes Research.

Does humor help to relieve tension in your journey to publication?

About the Author: Debbie Maxwell Allen writes young adult historical fantasy in the Rocky Mountains. She blogs about free resources for writers at Writing While the Rice Boils. 

Add "Submit" to Your Writing Process

By Stacy S. Jensen


Write. Revise. Repeat.

I repeat this phrase often and embrace it. This year, I’ve felt it’s a puzzle with a missing piece.

I’m inserting a fourth step in my writing process — submit. I’ve been on the treadmill of writing, revising, and repeating for too long.

One would think the submission part would be easy. We write to share our stories. We want to get published. So, why is it so difficult to hit the send button to submit my work to an agent, editor, or magazine?

Fear. There’s always a healthy dose of fear when one can get a rejection letter, or worse, no acknowledgement.

Time. I’ve found time to be my culprit. Through years of reading, talking, and practicing the art of writing whenever I can, I haven’t figured out how to apply this technique to the submission process.

When I write, I don’t have to read interviews or research industry guides for the right word. I just write. The submission process doesn’t feel that easy. There’s research, more research, and the nagging fear I haven’t found the right person, who will like my manuscript. So, I’ve been guilty of write, revise, and repeat with no submissions.

This year, through several associations, a critique group, and submission focused Facebook groups, I’m stretching out of my comfort zone and sending my work out into the universe.

It hasn’t been easy, so far. I’ve stumbled and found myself pushed up against “end of the month” deadlines more than once. It’s not an ideal technique, but for now my “babystep” is to hit send on those query letters to see what happens.

By the end of the year, I hope to look back and see the puzzle together — Write. Revise. Repeat. Submit.

Do you have a submission strategy for your work?

About the Author: StacyS. Jensen worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for two decades. Today, she writes picture books and revises a memoir manuscript. She lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and toddler.