Heath Sommer's Blog - Posts Tagged "query-letters"
Two more cents on query letters
Certainly the only thing more disturbing than knowing one has to write a query letter for literary representation is the notion that one is going to have to accept countless opinions of its merit. There is something almost helpless about the suffocating feelings that arise as email after email and letter upon letter are returned with the range of responses, to include “excellent, yet not publishable,” to “crap, crap, crap, crap …” To this end from one familiar-with-harsh-replies author to another I post a few bullets regarding query letter “yeahs” and “nays” derived from my own historical successes and failures.
1.Axiomatically, the letter must be polished, polished, polished (and polished, polished, polished). After one harried night on the town I sent a few queries out only to notice afterward (yes, infer my post-mailing proofreading neuroticism here) that a last minute insertion contained a subtle syntax error. Wouldn’t you know that once I fixed the letter I had a twenty percent positive response, but zero of the batch I sent with the error replied with interest.
2.Include an intriguing statistic (or parameter for those of you who are mathematically esoteric and if one exists). Statistics are easy to acquire and always relevant to any provocative pitch. A rich, accessible, and valid source available at almost any library of repute is the United States Statistical Abstract.
3.Personalization really is key. I know there are mass query letter services that champion volume over fit, but I have found much better success when sending a personal letter to a specific agent over the flood-and-await strategy.
4.Further, it really does matter that the agent of interest specializes or at least posts interest in the literary domain in which you are writing.
5.Pay better attention to the class of literary fiction you are representing, but don’t try to sell an incorrect typology to an expert who knows you’re full of bull. Even if you already wrote the book, diagnose it correctly after ample research on the subject. For example, is it better to describe it as literary fiction or American literary fiction, and what is the difference?
6.Finally, maybe this reflects my own cognitive deficits more than anything of substance, but always send a query letter first even if the submissions page doesn’t explicitly state this. I got some bad advice from a dear seasoned author who indicated that in his early days he’d just send a few chapters with all his queries. Well, frankly, gone are the days of the unencumbered literary office (if they ever existed). To restate the point, if the site is vague about whether a query should precede a submission, QUERY, QUERY, QUERY first.
Now this is obviously one of endless tidbits on querying, but it is the kind of point-by-point I wished I understood better from the get go. Would’ve saved a lot of time wasted deleting rejections …
1.Axiomatically, the letter must be polished, polished, polished (and polished, polished, polished). After one harried night on the town I sent a few queries out only to notice afterward (yes, infer my post-mailing proofreading neuroticism here) that a last minute insertion contained a subtle syntax error. Wouldn’t you know that once I fixed the letter I had a twenty percent positive response, but zero of the batch I sent with the error replied with interest.
2.Include an intriguing statistic (or parameter for those of you who are mathematically esoteric and if one exists). Statistics are easy to acquire and always relevant to any provocative pitch. A rich, accessible, and valid source available at almost any library of repute is the United States Statistical Abstract.
3.Personalization really is key. I know there are mass query letter services that champion volume over fit, but I have found much better success when sending a personal letter to a specific agent over the flood-and-await strategy.
4.Further, it really does matter that the agent of interest specializes or at least posts interest in the literary domain in which you are writing.
5.Pay better attention to the class of literary fiction you are representing, but don’t try to sell an incorrect typology to an expert who knows you’re full of bull. Even if you already wrote the book, diagnose it correctly after ample research on the subject. For example, is it better to describe it as literary fiction or American literary fiction, and what is the difference?
6.Finally, maybe this reflects my own cognitive deficits more than anything of substance, but always send a query letter first even if the submissions page doesn’t explicitly state this. I got some bad advice from a dear seasoned author who indicated that in his early days he’d just send a few chapters with all his queries. Well, frankly, gone are the days of the unencumbered literary office (if they ever existed). To restate the point, if the site is vague about whether a query should precede a submission, QUERY, QUERY, QUERY first.
Now this is obviously one of endless tidbits on querying, but it is the kind of point-by-point I wished I understood better from the get go. Would’ve saved a lot of time wasted deleting rejections …
