HOW TO PUBLISH YOUR NOVEL | TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING 

How to Write a Query Letter

If you want to be traditionally published, the query letter is your first step. Your query letter is the first thing a potential agent will read of yours. It’s where they are introduced to your story and to you as a writer.

Your query letter should do three things. It should give a short description of the plot and main character of book itself. It should describe the book’s place in the market. And it should introduce the agent to your experience and credentials as a writer, if you have any, as well as how to contact you.

Let’s break it down.

Step 1: Summarize the Plot

So how do you condense this amazing novel of 70,000 words (on average) down to 250 vibrant, punchy words that hook an agent? As with all writing, it’s not an exact science, but there are tips you can follow to set yourself up for success.

The summary of your book is kind of like the back cover blurb of a book. It’s short and provides the most essential information to hook the reader. Do not give away your ending in your query letter. (That’s what a synopsis is for.) You want to provide enough of a taste that the agent wants to pick up this book and read more.

The query should introduce your main character. Not just their name and age, but something unique about them. What sets them apart from every other main character crossing the agents desk that day? It should also introduce the main character’s goal and the consequences of failure. What is this book about and why should the reader care about reading it.

A common mistake writers make is to think like a movie trailer and keep things super vague. Be specific in a query. Things like “she must decide where her heart lies” or “he will need to find out what kind of person he is” could apply to thousands of books. “She must decide between remaining home to take care of her family and using her power to save the realm” or “He will need to decide if he is willing to finally look out for someone other than himself and risk his position in the gang to escort the child to safety.” are much more specific and unique. (Don’t judge the writing, these are just examples.)

A common formula is “Main character needs X or else Y.”

Harry Potter, an eleven-year-old orphan who has just learned he has magical powers, must navigate a new world at wizarding school while trying to learn who is trying to steal a powerful artifact from the headmaster. If he fails to protect the artifact, the same Dark Lord that killed his parents will have the means to return to terrorize the wizarding world and kill Harry once and for all.

A more detailed formula from the PubCrawl podcast is:

SETUP: A brief “laying of the scene”: setting, premise, etc. The “status quo”, as it were.
INCITING INCIDENT: A disruption of the status quo (e.g. a stranger comes to town)
CONSEQUENCES OF INCITING INCIDENT: How the world has changed after the Inciting Incident
THE MOMENT THE PROTAGONIST BECOMES PERSONALLY INVOLVED: What it says on the tin

The SETUP but when INCITING INCIDENT happens CONSEQUENCES OF INCITING INCIDENT occur, so then THE PROTAGONIST BECOMES PERSONALLY INVOLVED.

Source: publishingcrawl.com

The final element of your story description is that the voice of your novel should show in the query. If you’re pitching a quirky middle-grade classroom comedy, a dry academic query letter is not going to make the agent want to read the actual novel. Your query should leave the agent laughing out loud and give them a taste of what they’ll find in the novel itself. If you’re pitching a gritty thriller, the language in your query should set the mood. If your main character has Sherlock Holmes intelligence, your query should showcase some of that wit.

All this in 250 words? Yes. Query writing is an art unto itself. But you can learn to do it and do it well. Also, don’t forget the importance of feedback. Just as your novel will have gone through several drafts before you send it out to agents, so should your query letter. Just as you’ve had critique partners give you feedback on your manuscript, you should ask for their feedback on your query letter.

There are also many opportunities to have your query letter critiqued by industry professionals. Many writing conferences offer opportunities for agents to critique queries. Also, get active on Twitter. Especially prior to a Twitter writing contest like Pitch Wars or Author Mentor Match, authors, agents, and past contest participants will offer drawings for free query critiques. You will also occasionally see authors and agents offering query critiques as part of charity auctions promoted on Twitter.

Step 2: The Market Details

This content is much more cut and dry than the plot summary. Your query needs to tell the agent the title of your book, the genre of your book, how many words the completed manuscript is, and two “comp titles” for your book. Comp titles are books similar in genre, tone, and/or plot elements to your book. You can present them as books your novel will appeal to fans of or as a mashup (My novel is X meets Y.) to help the agent understand your book better. Comp titles also show you’ve read enough in your genre to understand what works and what doesn’t.

Under no circumstances compare your book to a huge bestseller. Not only is this arrogant and overdone, but it makes the agent question whether you’ve read widely enough in your genre if you couldn’t find a better fit. It’s the equivalent of seeing a published book compared to one of your favorites. You’ve now held it up to an impossible expectation in my mind that it most likely won’t come close to meeting. If it has a movie or TV series, it’s off limits as a comp title. (The exception is actual TV series, as very occasionally they can be used to help you set the mood of your novel, such as Buffy meets Sky in the Deep by Adrienne Young.)

This information let’s the agent know you understand the market and where your book fits into it. It sets you up as a professional they would want to work with.

Step 3: Your Bio

Your query letter should have a short bio section, just a couple of sentences. If you have any previously published work, any writing awards, or have experience writing professionally in other capacities, such as copywriting, this is where you will tell the agent all about it. If you don’t have any of the above, not to worry. Do not try to force it. Just say your profession and that this would be your debut novel and leave it at that. It will not count against you.

Putting it All Together

There is no right way to open your query letter. Many people open directly with the plot summary, but you can also open with personalization for the agent or the details about your book (title, word count, genre). Remember to keep it brief. the entire query letter should be around 250 words. Your query will most likely be written in the body of an email or in a web form.

Close with a thank you. Include customization if it’s genuine and not forced.

Example

The following example is from Jane Friedman’s excellent article on query letters.

Dear —:

It’s the year 1200. Since succeeding to the papacy two years ago, Pope Innocent III has been agitating for a new crusade, one that will finally conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem. But European monarchs ignore his call, too involved in squabbling amongst themselves.

So the Pope turns to two of his trusted men with a mission: to seek out the powerful Presbyter John, an unknown king in the Far East, who has promised to put his vast armies in service to the Pope’s Crusade. But it requires traveling through the treacherous political, religious and mercantile terrain of medieval Europe.

One of the emissaries is Mauro, an older monk who uses logic and reason to deepen his faith. The other man is Nicolo, a young Genoese merchant striving to improve his family’s fortune and his own place in the world. Nicolo is supposed to lead and guide the mission, but the young man carries secret orders from a corrupt Cardinal.

THE EMISSARIES (96,000 words) is an adventure tale solidly grounded in historical fact about the search for Presbyter John. The book will appeal to readers of historical fiction in the style of Ken Follett (Pillars of the Earth) and Noah Gordon (The Physician), and also to readers seeking the accessible social critique of Amitav Ghosh (Sea of Poppies, the Ibis Trilogy).

I did research for The Emissaries in most of the locations mentioned in the book. I have lived and worked in over fifty countries and received numerous international awards for my work in social and trade justice. My nonfiction book, Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee (Chelsea Green, 2008) received a Publishers Weekly Starred Review and the Gold Medal as Best Travel Essay Book from the Independent Publishers Association. I have been the on-air host of two recent PBS specials (“Coffee: The Drink That Changed America” and “Traveling in the 1970s”), and speak regularly at universities and conferences on issues of social justice, international trade and the environment.

Thanks for your consideration.

Source: janefriedman.com

Resources

Query Shark provides hundreds of query letter revisions and many articles on specific query letter questions.

Jane Friedman provides excellent resources for learning about query letters and publishing.

The PubCrawl podcast episode The Anatomy of a Query Letter dives into how to write a query, what works, and what doesn’t. The full Publishing Crawl archives contain many articles on querying written by a community of authors whose alumni include huge bestsellers.

Your Turn

Using the examples above, write a query letter for your novel. It may be helpful to try several drafts tackling the plot portion from different angles to determine what is most impactful and which information is most important to include. Once you’re happy with a version or two, get feedback. There are many opportunities to find critique partners on Twitter, and often a query critique is a low-commitment way to test out the relationship. There are also many editors who offer query critique services. Be sure to ask if anything was confusing or missing. But be prepared. With all writing, you will get feedback based on the reader’s personal preferences, so try to gather feedback from several sources and combine the most important parts into your new draft.