The Seven Dos and Donts of Writing Queries

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Hopefully your advice will help me to write my next book soon. Enter Email Confirm Email. A free copy of formatting guidelines—our gift to you! Our e-publication, Submit Write Now! Send My Free Guide! We respect your privacy. These pesky rules are not hoops. These are term paper guidelines. These are interview rules. So read the rules carefully and follow them even more carefully. Because how accurately you accomplish this task will speak well of your capacity in the future to respond to your editors with some semblance of professionalism.

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• The 10 Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Query Letter.

Set down the camera, friend! The purpose of your query is the same as the purpose of the back of a book. Keeping this in mind, it will not read exactly like back-cover copy.

Because your audience is very specific agents. A card trick works for most people, but perhaps not for a magician.

A rhetorical question might get your friends or your parents intrigued, but an agent likely will see right through the ruse. This is a specific sales pitch for a specific audience.

Your Creative Writing Publication Credits

It has its own rules. The purpose of your query is to tell the agent as specifically as possible about the events that transpire in your book, not who loved it or what your beta readers thought or how it breaks all the boundaries of genre and language and history itself will be changed. That means sharing the triggering event, the main character, the choice they have to make, and what they have to lose stakes if they mess it all up.

Queries need to tell an agent what the book is about.

Now, most agents are not counting the number of pages exactly. Sure, confidence is great. Such communications should be handled in person if possible. Something can go wrong with any software program, and your email might be misdirected. If your message is highly personal or sensitive, ask for a face-to-face meeting or send it via regular mail. Email travels quickly, but speed of transmission does not guarantee speed of communication. Others may set aside a particular time of the day to check their email, but respond only to messages that require immediate attention.

Sometimes days or weeks can pass between when a message is sent and when it is read. Email mistakes to avoid. Archaic words have a charm that never fades away, from French sounding to wondrously mysterious ones.

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