Years ago, when I first thought I might become a published author someday, I started researching how to achieve my goals. What I found was completely overwhelming. I needed an agent, but there were thousands of them. Each of them wanted different documents I had never heard of. Query? Synopsis? What?
In this series, I’m going to share what I found and break down how to publish your novel. I’ll cover a the difference between the types of publishing currently available, writing a query letter, writing a synopsis, and finding the ideal agent to query. The process can seem overwhelming, but I hope to offer some clarity and simplicity so you can approach publishing with confidence.
Welcome to Part 4: Query Letters. Catch up on previous sections here:
Part 1: Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing
Part 2: Finding an Agent
Part 3: Finding the Best Literary Agents
Query Letters
You’ve compiled a list of agents and whittled it down to the ones you think are the best fit for your manuscript. But they want all sorts of documents and one of them is something called a query letter.
A query letter is basically a cover letter and it is your first chance to introduce your book to an agent. However, because it is usually the first (and sometimes only) thing an agent reads, it has to pack a punch in very few words.
There are a few basic sections that make up most query letters:
- A personalized introduction
- Manuscript stats / comp titles
- A short description of the manuscript aka the “query blurb”
- Any relevant personal information
Let’s write a query letter based on these four parts.
The Introduction
You’ve done your research and selected agents who may be a good fit for you. When writing the introduction, focus on what made you choose that particular agent.
For example:
Dear Ms. Tome, [This should always be the agent’s name and never “Dear Agent”]
On your website, you mention seeking sweeping, epic fantasies with a focus on female friendships and questions about morality.
This is a made up query about a fake book, but the gist is that you’ve picked this agent for a reason, and you should let them know what it is. This shows two things: that you think they’re a good fit (and so should they) and that you’ve done your research.
Manuscript Stats
In this particular letter, I would put the manuscript stats (genre, audience, word count) right after the introduction, but it could also go at the end of the letter, after the query blurb. Put it wherever it seems to fit.
My adult fantasy novel, DRAGON SKY (100,000) focuses on unlikely female friends who struggle with right and wrong. It is the first in a planned trilogy.
Include the word count in parentheses after the title. Note that this had better fit into the standard word count range for your genre as anything outside that range could be an automatic rejection. There is a handy word count guide here.
If the book is the first in a planned series, include that in this paragraph. You can also include comp titles here. No need to say that the manuscript is complete–it had better be, if you’re querying agents!
Comp Titles
Comp titles are usually included in the paragraph with the manuscript details, but it gets its own section in this article because there are a several important things to know. Comparison titles will give the agent an idea of similar books and, specifically, if you were in a bookstore, what books might you expect to find on the shelf next to yours.
A good comp title will be no more than five years old from the time of querying. Ideally, it will be no more than three years. Yes, that makes things difficult, but as a writer you should constantly be reading in (and out of) your genre, especially new books. If your comp is a series, the important date to note would be the publication date of the first book in the series.
Please, please, don’t list Stephen King as a comp. No one is comparable to Stephen King. Same goes for J.K. Rowling and other uber-famous authors.
Comps should be in your genre. Ideally they will also be in your age group (middle grade, YA, adult, etc.). While it’s possible to list a book of a different age group as a comp, you should endeavor to make sure the other comp(s) are within your age group. You can comp other media, like movies or shows, but again, the other comps should be recent books in your genre and age group.
When including comps in the query letter, you can write something like:
DRAGON SKY will appeal to those who enjoy the strong friendships of TETHERED by Jo Brooks and the mystical worldbuilding of HEAT OF THE MOMENT by Sherie Amil.
Or,
TETHERED by Jo Brooks meets HEAT OF THE MOMENT by Sherie Amil in my adult fantasy novel DRAGON SKY (100,000).
Query Blurb
The “blurb” comes next and should read like the back cover or inside flap of a published book. There are a lot of resources that explain how to write a great query blurb, including Query Shark, Jane Friedman, and the BookEnds Literary Agency YouTube channel, so I won’t go into excessive detail here.
In the wise words of Query Shark, the agent needs to know only a few things:
- Who is the main character?
- What do they want?
- What’s stopping them from getting it?
- What choices must they make?
- What’s at stake with those choices?
A query should convey this information within 200-350 words. Blurbs are always written in third person, present tense, regardless of the POV or tense of the book. Ideally, the blurb will have a similar tone as your book (i.e. a serious book shouldn’t have a jokey, lighthearted query and vice versa) and will convey an idea of the world, without going into too much depth.
Dragontamer Jarga Thistlemane has a problem. The dragon in her care escaped from its cage last night and Jarga has no idea where it is. If she doesn’t find it by week’s end, Jarga’s boss will fire her. Jarga needs this job to pay off her family’s debt, but that’s not the worst of it: the dragon’s owner is Kael Zephith, the most ruthless noble in the city. If he learns his dragon is missing, he’ll do far worse things to Jarga than take her job.
Jarga sets out to find the dragon, but everything goes wrong from the beginning. First, her annoying neighbor Sorrel insists on “helping” and comes along for the journey. Then, the two are pursued by the murderous local gang. Jarga soon learns that Sorrel stole information from the gang. Information that could lead to Jarga’s missing dragon. Information that could incite the wrath of Kael Zephith.
Jarga and Sorrel must work together to evade the gang and find the dragon before Kael Zephith finds out–or finds them.
Keep things short and simple. Two or three paragraphs will never be enough to convey the complexity of an entire novel, so distill it down. Don’t include more than two or three named characters and focus on one main plotline.
I highly recommend checking out the resources above for in-depth articles about writing great query blurbs.
The Author Bio
This can be an agonizing paragraph for writers who don’t have publications, but it doesn’t have to be.
[To be clear, by “publications,” I mean that an editor of a literary journal accepted your work–this can’t be something that you posted to your website or social media, and it’s not something you paid to have online. For example, I once paid a fee to enter a writing contest and all the stories submitted to that contest were later posted on the website. I do not count this as an authentic publication since I was not “chosen” by the editor. Academic or non-literary writing does not qualify unless it is directly related to the story you’re writing. (E.g. you published an academic paper about the rise of the Ottoman Empire and your story is about the rise of the Ottoman Empire.)]
If you’ve been published–great! You can definitely include that. If not, don’t sweat it. Not having publications isn’t as big a deal as writers think.
There are a few ways to approach the bio section of the query.
Leave it out! That’s right; just forgo it entirely. There is a caveat to this. If an agent specifically requests that you include a bio in the query letter, I would prioritize following those instructions. Additionally, agents using Query Manager are increasingly including a bio section in their forms. You should plan for this eventuality.
To deal with this, just write a few short sentences about yourself. Where you live, perhaps, or what your job is–bonus points if it’s something weird or unique. Do you have any strange hobbies or skills? Be honest here; it’s great if you can catch an agent’s eye, but they’re not going to request your manuscript just because you’re a skydiving wedding officiant. Again, if your job/hobbies is directly relevant to the story you’re writing, include it!
I received my degree in aeronautics from Griffith College in the 1980s. I live in Misthaven, CT where I have worked as a horse tamer for the past 20 years.
Closing
Don’t overthink it.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Loren Glider
Putting it All Together
Based on what I’ve written above, we end up with a query letter that looks something like this:
Dear Ms. Tome,
On your website, you mention seeking sweeping, epic fantasies with a focus on female friendships and questions about morality. TETHERED by Jo Brooks meets HEAT OF THE MOMENT by Sherie Amil in my adult fantasy novel DRAGON SKY (100,000). DRAGON SKY focuses on unlikely female friends who struggle with right and wrong. It is the first in a planned trilogy.
Dragontamer Jarga Thistlemane has a problem. The dragon in her care escaped from its cage last night and Jarga has no idea where it is. If she doesn’t find it by week’s end, Jarga’s boss will fire her. Jarga needs this job to pay off her family’s debt, but that’s not the worst of it: the dragon’s owner is Kael Zephith, the most ruthless noble in the city. If he learns his dragon is missing, he’ll do far worse to Jarga than take her job.
Jarga sets out to find the dragon, but everything goes wrong from the beginning. First, her annoying neighbor Sorrel insists on “helping” and comes along for the journey. Then, the two are pursued by the murderous local gang. Jarga soon learns that Sorrel stole information from the gang. Information that could lead to Jarga’s missing dragon. Information that could incite the wrath of Kael Zephith.
Jarga and Sorrel must work together to evade the gang and find the dragon before Kael Zephith finds out–or finds them.
I received my degree in aeronautics from Griffith College in the 1980s. I live in Misthaven, CT where I have worked as a horse tamer for the past 20 years.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Loren Glider
Final Thoughts
I find it helpful to write three (or more!) queries from scratch over the course of a few days. This can help you think outside the box and loosen you up. The first version is almost never the best version, so keep trying.
Take inspiration from the back cover copy of your favorite novels, as well as recently released novels to see what’s fresh.
Have multiple people read your query blurb and give feedback. Where were they confused? What did they find interesting?
And lastly, follow an agent’s submission guidelines. If they want a bio, include it. If they want the manuscript stats at the bottom instead of the top, move it. If they want a one paragraph blurb instead of three… well, get cutting!
Next Steps…
Believe it or not, the query letter was the easy part. Buckle up for the next post, “Synopsis,” where I’ll cover what agents expect and how to write one.
References and Further Reading
Query Shark
Jane Friedman
BookEnds Literary Agency YouTube Channel
Queries, Qualms, and Quirks
Quite The Query