Four million books entered the marketplace worldwide last year, and at least some of them entered their path to publication via a query letter, addressed to either a literary agent or a publisher.
A strong query letter can push your manuscript farther up in the slush pile. Considering that agents receive thousands of queries each year, making sure your query is polished and professional is a given requirement. You can find good advice online on how to do this; for instance, see Jane Friedman’s column.
At this year’s Pennwriters conference in Lancaster, PA, a panel of agents and publishers offered tips on what authors can do to make their queries better. The panelists were Marie Lamba of Jennifer De Chiara Literary, Noah Ballard of Buchwald, Reiko Davis of DeFiore Literary, and Lawrence Knorr of Sunbury Press.
The panelists said the primary reason for rejecting a query was an incomplete submission package. Before you hit send or submit, make sure you have double checked what the agent or publisher requires. Omitting your bio, or sending pages when they aren’t requested, or neglecting to format the submission in 12-point Times New Roman can keep you from even crossing the starting line.
Other tips included:
- Keep the query simple. “Just say what the book is about,” one panelist said.
- Be polite, clear, and come across as a team player.
- Let your own voice come through in the query letter.
- Make sure the agent you are querying represents your manuscript’s genre. If the agent doesn’t rep romance, don’t submit a romance. If they don’t take memoir, don’t expect them to make an exception for yours.
- As well, know the market for your genre. Make sure your comparison titles fall into that genre.
- In the same vein, make sure that your word count corresponds to expectations for your genre.
- If you are a debut author, pick comparison titles that are likewise by debut authors.
- Don’t “game” the query. This includes sending multiple submissions for the same manuscript or pretending your book is one genre when it’s really another.
The panelists also noted that word counts beyond 100,000 are a tough sell. Longer books are more expensive to print (more paper, more ink), so a heftier trade paperback might need to sell for $24.95 instead of the more common $19.95.
One final tidbit from the panel discussion was about submission windows. Authors complain that agents they want to query are often closed for submissions, but Marie Lamba explained that she closes periodically to catch up, and give the queries she’s received a thoughtful look. So don’t despair; be patient and wait for the window to reopen.
Dianna Sinovic is an award-winning author of speculative fiction, horror, and mystery, as well as a certified book coach and editor. She’s the author of the paranormal thriller Scream of the Silent Sun. Her short stories have been published in a number of anthologies, and her flash fiction appears monthly on the blog A Slice of Orange. She’s a member of the Horror Writers Association, Sisters in Crime, the National Association of Memoir Writers, and the Bethlehem Writers Group. Connect with her via her website, dianna-sinovic.com, or on Facebook and Instagram.
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