Writing the query
In my opinion, a query is a tough thing to write, much tougher than the actual novel (where, after all, you have 300 or so pages, not three paragraphs, to get your point across). The idea of having to condense my brilliant, complex ideas into a few trite paragraphs turns me cold all over, and I know I’m not alone. Fortunately, I think most agents are fairly forgiving in this regard, cognizant as they are of the limits of the query, provided you follow a few basic fundamentals.
First and foremost, do your research. Study the guidebooks and the Web for the names of agents who are amenable to new writers and who handle your kind of material. (See “How I found an agent.”) Check names, titles, and addresses carefully; agents, like any of us, are put off by misspellings, incorrect gender assumptions?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??don’t presume “Sandy” is female or “Gerry” male?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??or outdated addresses. (I hope I don’t have to tell you never to address a letter, “Dear Sir,” “Dear Madam,” or, worst, “Dear Agent.”) Obvious form letters are an absolute no-no; with mail-merge programs available on virtually every computer word processing program, there’s no reason every letter you send out can’t be personalized, even tailored, if need be, to the particular agent.
Like your second-grade teacher told you, appearance counts. This is so obvious I’m embarrassed to mention it, but you’d be amazed at how many people ignore the basics like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and format. Common sense dictates that the simpler the letter, the better; use neutral paper, black ink, a clean, easy-to-read font. Keep your margins neat and as wide as possible. Despite the fact that writing is a creative endeavor, the selling of books is a business, and your correspondence should reflect an awareness of that.
Let your query distinguish itself by the strength and eloquence of the idea. (If your idea isn’t strong or eloquent, you’d better pretend it is. That’s why we call it fiction!) If you haven’t yet come up with a one-to-three-sentence book concept, this is the time to perfect it. You should introduce the concept in the first paragraph of your letter, spend a paragraph or two developing it (a condensed synopsis, in other words), provide a few sentences describing who you are and any special credentials you have for writing your book, add a closing line thanking the agent for her consideration, and get outta there.
How long should the query letter be? Keep it to one page if at all possible (and don’t cheat by skimping on margins or using a teeny font), but many agents say they will consider two.
You might argue that you just can’t encapsulate your 100,000-word novel into a few paragraphs. I thought so, too, once, but I learned to do it and so can you. For guidance, take a few of your favorite books off the shelf and read the jacket copy, the short description of the book that appears on either the back cover or the inside flaps. “But that text was written by a marketing person!,” you’re saying. “I’m an artist!” Surprise! If you want to get the attention of an agent, you’re going to have to be both.
A few more tips to save your query a one-way trip to the wastebasket:
- Resist gimmicks. As stated earlier, keep the presentation simple: no fancy paper, no colored ink, no cute fonts or goofy logos. No photos of you or your two-year-old or your twelve cats, and especially no gifts; they’re insulting to the agent, demeaning to you, and they don’t work.
- One form the query sometimes takes, in samples in various guidebooks, is to open with a paragraph of prose from the novel. It appears often enough that it must be accepted practice, but in every example I’ve ever seen it sounds terrible, jarring and forced, and I think it brands you as an amateur who, instead of using her own style, copied a form letter out of a book. You may find a way to work a line or two of the book’s text into the body of your letter, but if you do, be sure to make sure it’s identifiable as such. I once saw a letter in which the writer did not visually distinguish the voice of her first-person narrator in the opening paragraph from her own voice in paragraph two, making her seem, at best, sloppy and, at worst, schizophrenic.
- Don’t say in your letter that you’re approaching the agent seeking representation; she’ll figure that out on her own. Likewise, it isn’t necessary to state that you learned of her name via a particular book or other source, unless that pertains directly to your project. It’s all right to mention that you’re approaching her because she represents Writer X, who publishes the type of work you hope to (although don’t assume it will automatically gain you favor). If you do have a relationship with one of her clients, or have otherwise been advised to contact her via a professional referral, by all means mention it, preferably in your first sentence. However, don’t think you can bamboozle your way into an agent’s good graces by claiming associations with people you don’t know or credentials you don’t have. She may check into the “close friendship” between you and her client or associate, and your bluff will be unmasked.
- Don’t send materials the agent hasn’t asked for. Assuming the agent you’re approaching has indicated (through the guidebooks, the LMP, the Web, whatever), her openness to being queried by unpublished writers in your genre, her listing should tell you exactly what your initial contact should consist of: the query letter itself, sometimes a synopsis or outline, occasionally the opening section of the book. Each agent’s wants are different, based on her workload and personal style. If you decide to get a leg up by sending her 50 sample pages when all she wants is a one-page letter, you’re going to annoy her, not dazzle her.
- Don’t think you must concoct a breathless biography in order to sell your book. If you’re a beginner, admit it; if you do have publishing credits, include them, but don’t exaggerate their importance, and don’t list items that are irrelevant, like editing your high-school yearbook 30 years ago. Contest wins may or may not help, depending upon the prestige of the organization; the same is true of scholarships and residencies.
- Restrain yourself from predicting your book’s runaway success. If your novel is a techno-thriller that will appeal to Tom Clancy’s audience, it’s okay to say so?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??such labels can be helpful to agents in deciding where to place your book or even whether to take it on?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??but stop short of declaring yourself “the next Tom Clancy,” unless you’ve already sold a gazillion books and own a professional football team. Likewise, if you can’t manage to associate your novel with an established writer’s style, don’t worry about it; I never brought up the subject in my query, and no one else did, either.
- Do not telephone the agent to (a) see if she received your query, (b) ask whether or not she’s had a chance to review your query, or© ask her to re-consider a query she’s rejected. In fact, it’s bad form in general to telephone an agent unless you’re already a client or have a personal referral. If you don’t receive a response to your query within the time period specified in the guidebook listing (and these can range from a matter of days to several weeks), it’s okay to follow up with a note or email asking if she’s had a chance to consider your proposal. If there’s no reply to the note, you’re probably wise to remove that name from your list and look elsewhere. And never, unless you’ve been requested by an agent to make specific changes, re-submit your material begging for a second chance. How would you feel if the dance floor was filled with potential partners but the same poor sod kept throwing himself at you, time after time? Life is short; find somebody else to dance with.
- Don’t grovel. It saddens me to hear of writers so desperate to win an agent that they’ll say things like, “I’ll do anything to get published.” Number one, I profoundly hope it isn’t true, and number two, be careful what you promise; the devil may be listening.
- Don’t presume you’re the lone exception to any of the scenarios described above. I’m not, Tom Clancy’s not, and you’re not (no matter how good your book is). Most “rules” in publishing exist for much the same reason good manners exist in the everyday world?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??to facilitate communication and help things proceed smoothly. Breaking one or more of them will not make you the compelling rebel, the literary Brando or Dean; it will only irritate the people you hope to persuade.
- Don’t burn bridges. An agent with whom I shared my work very early on, and who responded with a polite and constructive phone call detailing the various challenges he had with the novel, many months later wrote me a letter after seeing the news of my book deal in Publishers Weekly stating that he thought we had the “equivalent of a handshake” between us and as such was “surprised and disappointed” to learn I had sought representation elsewhere. (See “Questions to ask an agent.”) I found this bit of revisionism on his part distressing, and replied with a letter reminding him of the hesitations he had expressed about the book, surmising that only upon learning of the manuscript’s success did he recall and regret passing up the chance to take it on. There was nothing in my response that wasn’t true, or even justified, but after some reflection it feels petty and pompous, and even though the man will likely never be in a position to influence my career, mailing that letter was an inelegant move that I regret.
You’d think, after all that effort?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??and, since the query is your entree to one of the most important relationships of your career, you should give it a lot of effort?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??you’d have agents overloading your answering machine and in box with requests to see more of your work. It can come as a shock when what begins to fill up your mailbox instead are form rejection letters.
Just as shocking can be the realization that most form rejections come after the barest (or no) perusal of your hard-crafted pitch. Either the agent doesn’t handle your kind of material (in which case, why did you send her a query?), or she isn’t taking new clients, or she isn’t interested for any number of unspecified reasons in your particular project, none of which is likely to be explained in her scant, Xeroxed reply.
One consolation of this type of rejection is that it isn’t personal; the agent has dismissed your book before she ever read a word. On the other hand, that impersonality can be galling. I suggest that you let yourself get wrought up about it for ten or fifteen minutes, the first time it happens, and then get on with things. I never keep form rejection letters. Why clutter your workspace with all that negative karma? I simply log the response?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??”not interested” and the date?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??on a spreadsheet and toss the thing, then go out and burn the agent or editor in question in effigy.
One fine day, you will get some sort of positive response to a query: a request to see a detailed synopsis, some sample chapters, maybe even the entire manuscript. A personalized rejection note can be a thing of beauty, if it contains constructive criticism and/or encouragement: suggestions for revisions, the name of a colleague who might be interested your proposal. (Let’s hope you never get a note like writer Anne Lamott once received, which read, “You have made the mistake of believing that everything that has ever happened to you is interesting.” On the other hand, she took the comment to heart, revised her manuscript, and is now a respected novelist, essayist, and teacher.)
When you do get a personal comment, heed it if you can do so without selling your soul. One writer I know finished a children’s novel a couple of years ago, only to have an agent tell her that the market for that age group was saturated and that her only hope of selling the book was if the protagonist’s age was changed from, say, thirteen to seven. To the writer, the change meant sacrificing the integrity of the story, and she declined to make it. The book remains unsold. Only you can weigh the psychic cost of re-tooling manuscript against the possible rewards.
The process of querying agents can seem tedious, even endless, particularly when you consider the fact that landing an agent is not a guarantee your book will sell?¬¢‚Äö?ᬮ‚Äö?Ñ??it’s simply a necessary step in the process. I was extremely lucky to have found my agent with a minimum of stress; I have some writing friends who completed their novels about the same time I did who are still hunting three years later, hoping for the ideal match. You must prepare to be patient, and to cast a wide net, and never stop your work. The best method I know for dealing with long periods of uncertainty is just to keep writing, like you did in the old days, before you thought a soul would see it.