What are some things to do and not to do when writing a query letter to literary agents?

A.D. Davies Always a good question.

First let me preface this by saying I don’t actually have an agent at the moment. I’ve been close, I’ve conversed directly, but just in the end I went on my own. But I have spent several years going through the process, so I have accumulated a bit of knowledge. Actually, it’s a LOT of knowledge. I could probably write a book on it. Here’s the short version (which is still pretty long).

Well, there are ample templates out there and ample demonstrations of good and bad letters, so I’ll talk more about the principle of what agents need from a query (or email) when it comes to selling your work.

To sum it up in a nutshell: DO present your work as positively as possible, but DON’T brag or show off.

To expand on that a little, you need to present yourself as a professional but not go overboard as a salesperson. So while you don’t want to say “I believe I am a great writer, probably the next Raymond Chandler”, by all means say “After winning ten first prizes for my short fiction I wanted to finally write my novel…” which gives an indicator of your past credits and immediately suggests you can actually write. If the prizes are well-known in the literary world, by all means name the top couple, but – again – don’t go overboard; this isn’t a CV.

Then sell your work. It’s fine to state the genre but leave the hype locked away.

So I would describe my book as a “crime thriller” or a “kidnap-murder-mystery”.

I would not say a “rip-roaring roller-coaster of a thrill ride” or a “gripping, tense thriller”. Of course I WANT people to think that, but it isn’t my decision to make.

You have to present the concept and wider story in a way that conveys your intent. If it’s exciting, present an exciting story; if it’s horrifying, give them the horror in the description (never say “horrifying”); if it’s a romance, make it feel romantic. The notion of “show don’t tell” applies equally to selling your work as it does in writing it.

Likewise, my protagonist is “Alicia Friend, a detective sergeant in the serious crime agency, and an analyst who is well-respected by her superiors. She has made a choice to be a happy person and not let the job grind her down, which has morphed into a perky personality that often grates on her more dour colleagues. But why should she change her personality just to fit in with others? She’ll be who she wants to be and do a fine job at the same time.”

Someone might hate that. But if an agent or publisher feels that she could “a unique character in crime fiction, who presents an unconventional yet subtle feminist angle” then I’m a happy chap; I just can’t SAY “a unique character in crime fiction, who presents an unconventional yet subtle feminist angle”.

In addition to selling the work itself, I mentioned presenting yourself as a professional, and there are a number of easy wins to do that. I’ll just list them here as they shouldn’t need much explanation, but if you want to look at it a bit deeper I’ll provide a link or two at the bottom.

DO: address your letter or email to a SPECIFIC PERSON. Never “Dear sir or madam”. Even if emailing, most agencies have a list of actual agents. Do your homework and find out which specific person is the best fit for your work – there’s no point sending your erotic romance to a crime/mystery specialist.

DON’T: be chatty. “Hey, just thought I’d drop you a note to see if you might be interested in my novel.” It makes you sound dumb. Or insecure. Or at least unprofessional. Equally, no jokes – unless your work is a comedy, and even then keep the jokes within the confines of the description of your work. You ARE a professional. Far better to keep it simple.

DO: use spell check. It’s essential that your query is as polished as your eventual manuscript.

DON’T: trust spell check. It will pick up when you spell “the” as “teh” but it won’t often tell you “too” should be “to” or when you typed “gril” instead of “girl” it auto-corrected to “grill”. Let it sit for an hour or so before coming back to proofread it. Ideally, have a neutral third party read it first. Don’t just type it and send it.

DO: use a “normal” font. I am personally not keen on Comic Sans, but I don’t go in for the real hatred that many people express. Trouble is, the person receiving your query might be one of them and just set fire to it rather than read it. As a general rule, if you are sending a physical letter, a serif font (like Times Roman or Minion Pro) reads well on the page; if emailing, sans serif fonts (like Arial, Calibri or Gill Sans) read better on a screen. I don’t know the science, but I’ve found it to be true.

DON’T: pester them for a reply. They don’t like it and you appear desperate. Check their website. They usually tell you about their policies on response times and whether they welcome follow-ups after a period of silence. In my experience, they always reply eventually – usually with a polite “no”, but they do reply. Remember, they are professionals too, and most of them have been around for a long time. They know what they are doing.

DO: take rejection with good grace. Maybe your work isn’t good enough right now. Maybe it IS good enough, but you sent it to Stephen King’s agent and you’re not better than Stephen King, her premier client has a book out next month so she just doesn’t have time to guide a newbie through the process. Or maybe it’s great writing but the concept isn’t original enough, or there’s a well-known book like that already out. But if you get rejected for the 10th time in a row, it’s hard. It’s not a conspiracy, though. Plus, getting sniffy with people who reject you can be very counter-productive. People in the industry talk to each other. Don’t be on their naughty-list.

DON’T: give up after the 10th rejection. Nobody ‘breaks in’ on their first attempt, or in many cases their first dozen attempts. Just keep on going, keep on reading about the industry as much as about the craft. I’d love to say you’ll make it eventually, but I can’t promise you that. All I can promise is if you DO give up, you’ll DEFINITELY fail.

That’s my basic round up. I’ll also recommend following this link that I have found useful over the years. It contains a number of posts featuring actual literary agents. Do give them a read.

http://www.bang2write.com/category/qu...

And finally, at the other end of the spectrum, here is a series featuring some examples of the WORST book proposals:

http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_f...

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