You can find guidelines for writing query letters to many different locations: online at sites such as Charlotte Dillon's, in resource use books such as Writer's Market, or contact your local group or the author's conference.
However, I thought it would be helpful for me to get the query letter I used when I was looking for representation for One Night in Boston. Of the 42 agents / editors I sent it, 36 requested either a partial or complete manuscript as a follow-up to a very good return.Ultimately, I secured publication with Samhain Publishing, and it will publish a summer of 2007.
Overall, I have queried 4 novels in the last 6 years and received all kinds of feedback on the road. Now I am sharing with you the tips I've found most helpful:
1. You write a business letter, or a business e-mail, depending on what the agent, you follow the standard format. Contact info, paragraphs, spacing, closing, should all appropriate andto correct mistakes.
2. Open your query letter with simple information. Some people recommend a "hook" in the first paragraph - it does not take too long! I'd also including the title of your work, the genre, including the word, and why you are contacting the agent (reference, a reaction to the pitch meeting to recommend the agent found to Agentquery.com, etc).
3. The middle number (s) should be a general description of your work, including the main characters and their struggle / conflict.What is their central goal? What is the overarching theme of the story? As this work is also similar, and differs from other works on the shelves today? What make this attractive to the target audience? Who is the audience?
4. Include some brief biographical information about yourself. This means any education / experience with the writing and publication of the story or you could have won elections. It does not mean a lengthy description of how you love your job or your great auntthree cats, you like your company if you write in the early hours of the morning. If you do not have any publications that put your name, or specific knowledge that relates to your genre or theme, then nothing. A simple statement like "The Mystery of the Seven Sisters Slippery is my first complete novel is in order.
5. Connect with an offer to send more material if you do not include all included in the first mailing. Be sure to view in order that the work is completed (and it should be,If the query) are agents.
6. Correction twenty times. At least. Then there were five other people and ask them to proofread. By the way, contains this statement from the spelling of the name of the representative. Do not rely on a website or source for this, I had at least 2 different locations.
7. Open your letter / e-mail with love first name last name of the provider. "Dear Agent", "To Whom It May Concern" and "Ladies and Gentlemen" is too general and suggest that you do not do your homework. You mustto target a specific person, and I commend the person's full name and not Mr. / Mrs. / Ms. to avoid possible gender-specific screw-ups. Ashley Grayson, for example, is a man. Wonder query, as addressed many letters he receives "Dear Mrs. Grayson ..."??
8. Make sure to follow the guidelines agent when submitting material. Some will ask for a query letter only. Some accept only e-mails. Others want the first three chapters. Include a stamped self-addressed envelope for postal replies. Tell them they canrecycle the partial / full manuscript, if you want to pay the return postage to get it back.
9. A large list of target agents. Many people have an "A", "B" and "C" list of top choices, and they work their way down. Unless the agent says "No more comments," I recommend sending your query letter to several agents per day / week / month, depending on your schedule. The query process can be long and there is no need to wait for a reply from us, until eachAgent before you send out another query.
10. Your request letter should be no longer than 1 page (or the equivalent for an e-mail). Indeed, agents sometimes slog through hundreds of queries per day. Get to the point, and take your attention. Period.
Okay! Below is my original query letter for One Night in Boston, along with a few comments in brackets. Good luck with these questions, and remember: do not let rejections stop processing your request. What makes an agent down, anothermay very well bucket with excitement and enthusiasm. Get to work!
Dear Susie Agent:
Can you really make a difference in 24 hours? Can all this?
My mainstream romance novel, One Night in Boston offers a turn for the contemporary reader, romance, because it takes place during a single day and night. (Think translated to the award-winning TV show "24" in the romance genre: twenty-four hours in eight p.m. develop four chapters.) Complete to 85,000 words, oneNight in Boston, tells the story of Maggie Doyle and Jack Major, College-lovers meet after ten years of ending their relationship and discover a new attraction, both stronger and more complicated than the first love they shared. As RWA indicates that you are an agent, the assumption is new romantics I thought you might be interested in a glance.
[Opening times paragraph contains general information about the book, its length, its subject, does what it unique, and therefore I amClick here to send] that letter
Maggie, a single, but struggling entrepreneurs in rural Rhode Iceland, faces foreclosure on her interiors business, thanks to a spiraling economy and its small-town mother nursing bills. Your only option: find the step-brother she has not spoken in years, and convince him, lending her the money she needs. Jack has now be performed for the enterprises of his family heritage and CEO of a large Boston Corporation. He is also too simpleA successful lawyer who plan the city's largest wedding and take all you crazy busy. Although the marriage will follow two prominent families, and please his father, sometimes Jack still thinks fireworks of his first love.
Maggie's search for her half-brother, led them directly into a high-profile charity ball ... and Jack. A dance to frighten some memories and a spontaneous kiss them both in the realization that the old feelings have not died. But thenJack fiancee comes to the ball, and Maggie runs away, only to find themselves caught in a violent storm that half of the roads has been completed in the city. Jack follows her, but when Maggie shows the reason she left him at school, and the reason it can not be with him now, both are forced to realize that people change, memories that are paid by year and the time also changes the things we most want to remain the same.
[Two parts of the body give a very general overview of the heroes andHeroine, their goals, their conflicts and the underlying theme of the book: the time changes everything, whether it be 24 hours or 10 years]
I am a member that her RWA PRO-pin purchased in 2003. Back to online publications / contest also wins "Time for Teachers", a narrative essay by RunnersWorld.com published in 2002, and "Hawkman and the widow Thompson") (short story) and "Untitled" (poem, the 1st and 2 Place went online in Writer's Mystery Contest (2003) and 5 meaning Contest (2004),respectively. Currently I am working on my next One Night ... Book, which also includes the ways and places may wish to explore will blossom overnight. For an overview, sample chapters or the complete manuscript of One Night in Boston is at your request. Or would you prefer to read an excerpt on http://www.allieboniface.com. I am available by e-mail (allieb@allieboniface.com) or phone (999-999-9999). Thank you for your time and attention.
[Last paragraph, while a bit long,mentioned my previous experience in writing - full-length publications not notice - my membership in Romance Writers of America, which is an interest in and familiarity with the genre, and my contact information. Although I have to mention my plans for the future One Night Books, it is not a wise idea to check more than one project at a time. Ours is only to mention here]
Sincerely,
Allie Boniface
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