How
to Write a Successful Query
From the Publisher’s Mouths to Your Ears
Listen.
They’re telling you How to Write a Successful Query!
One
of the most asked questions I receive from new and aspiring authors is; “How do
I write a successful query letter?” My go-to answer; “Read the submission
requirements and follow them to the letter.” This is wise and sage advice.
We
all know, or should know, to be professional, courteous, leave contact
information, and proofread before sending.
However,
what makes them want more? The best way to get that answer was to go to the
source! I went straight to the publishers and gave them a chance to tell us
what they want. What you will be reading in this article is pure gold.
Laurie
McLean, Fuse
Literary Agency
Start your pitch with the genre, title,
word count, and comparable title. When mentioning comparable titles, make sure
the books/movies are big enough and modern enough that most agents have heard
of them.
No more than two paragraphs of plot
synopsis. It should read like back of the book copy than a chapter-by-chapter
summary.
If you make a mistake, don’t send another
email.
Reagan Rothe, Black Rose Writing
What is the most important thing you want to see in a query?
An author's platform and any additional
insight to why this particular submission should be of
interest. And then, if the book's synopsis matches our current needs and is
intriguing, that's a winner.
What makes you reject a query?
Laziness. An author that does the
minimum when submitting, has typos or grammatical errors, and has no author
platform (or didn't care to share).
Karen Dales, Dark Dragon
Publishing
Query letters
should be no more than one page. It must be done in the form of a business
letter. The query is where you sell your story and yourself. The first
sentence, if not the first paragraph, better knock the socks off the person who
is going through the slush-pile.
Don’t go on and on about previous
successes which take up more in the query than
selling the story.
Marc Côté, Publisher Cormorant
Books Inc.
Q: What is the most important
thing you want to see in a query?
A: Brevity.
Q: What makes you reject a
query?
A: Too much information,
repetition, grammatical errors, spelling errors, claims that are evidently not
true, flat prose.
Lida E.
Quillen, Publisher Twilight Times Books
Query
letter; Ideally, I should gain a sense of the personality of the author shining through the query letter. A
friendly and personable, yet
professionally written letter gets my attention.
Reject a query; I tend to reject a query letter when the writer has
obviously not paid attention to three or four of
the requirements set forth on the
submissions web page.
Rhonda Penders, The Wild Rose Press
What is the most important thing you want to
see in a query?
Brief and to the point. You want to give the publisher
an introduction of yourself and your book. We want to know your writing credits
if any and we want to know anything about you that is important to the story.
For example. If you are writing a medical thriller, and
you are an ER Nurse that’s important. It is not important that you have seven
grandchildren and four cats.
We want a back cover blurb type of description of your book
and no more. The length of the book is important and what genre it
is.
For example – I have written a 75,000-word contemporary
romance set in a small town in New Jersey.
What makes you reject a query?
Something we don’t publish. While I won’t reject a
query for typos, it does give us a very bad first impression. Remember, this is
your first introduction to the publisher – put your best foot
forward.
Kerry McQuisten, Publisher Black Lyon Publishing
A successful query will target a genre we publish. The writing
will be clear, showing professionalism. From there, the premise of the story
should be interesting and well thought out. These queries stand out almost
immediately.
If we see a query for a sci-fi thriller romance, with
autobiographical and mystery elements, we don't have any idea what to do with
that! (Neither will most readers.)
Angry, arrogant or demanding queries get rejected. Who wants to
work with anyone who comes across hostile right from the start?
Tali Voron, Coach
House Books
One of the most important factors to me while reading query
letters and manuscript submissions is seeing if the work is a fit for our
publishing house and if the writer also recognizes their work as a fit for our
list. When a writer genuinely demonstrates why their work should be published
with us in their query, it makes reading the manuscript a far more
meaningful experience. The same can apply to the submissions we reject -
if the work is in a genre we don't publish, or we clearly aren't the right
home for, then it's something we need to turn down.
Laura Baumbach, MLR Press
The most important thing we
want to see is that the author understood the type of book we publish. We are
exclusively an m/m erotic romance publishing house. If we receive a submission
that is a not by definition within that wheelhouse, the author is wasting an
editor's valuable evaluation time and earning themselves a reputation as
someone who
doesn't understand their craft well enough to know where to submit it.
Quality and content can be improved;
inability or unwillingness to
understand one's own genre is a red flag to us.
Thank you to the following publishers for
participating in this article.
The Publishers:
Laurie McLean
Partner, Fuse Literary Agency
Director, San
Francisco Writers Conference
Reagan
Rothe
Black
Rose Writing
Karen Dales
Managing Editor
Dark Dragon Publishing
DarkDragonPublishing.com
Marc Côté, Publisher
Cormorant Books Inc.
CormorantBook.com
Lida E.
Quillen, Publisher
Twilight
Times Books
TwilightTimesBooks.com
Rhonda Penders
President/Editor-in-Chief
The Wild Rose Press
TheWildRosePress.com
Kerry McQuisten, Publisher
Black Lyon Publishing, LLC
BlackLyonPublishing.com
Tali Voron
Coach House Books
CHBooks.com
Laura Baumbach
MLR Press
MLRBooks.com
This book’s for you. My whole point of writing it is to help all authors. I’ve had many established authors, aspiring authors, and WIP authors ask me a multitude of questions and I was more than happy to help. (WIP-work in progress) I took the most commonly asked questions and solutions and put them in a nifty, absolutely priceless book.
What you’ll find in Be More Successful with Marketing and AdvertiZING:
Social Media Marketing and AdvertiZING for Books or Any Business
Becoming a Bestseller
Saying NO and Being the Bad Guy
How to Write Incredible Click Enticing Promotions
Promoting Your Book With or Without a Publisher
How Much is That Advertisement in the Window?
Self-publishing Doesn’t Have to be a Disaster
How to Make Your Website Awesome
Taking the Plunge into Publishing Audio Books
How to Make More Sales at Book Signings
The Uniform of Success
Purchase Be More Successful with Marketing and AdvertiZING at your favorite bookstore or on Amazon.
E-Book $4.99
Paperback $9.99
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
You can find me:
Amazon.com/Pamela-Ackerson/e/B00QY1ARI4
Wondering what my qualifications are? Don't want to get any advice from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about? I understand! There are too many people out there giving bad advice.
The first thing I'm going to tell you is that the book industry is constantly changing and even the "experts" have to keep their ears to the ground to stay in the game!
Okay, so...Here goes.
I'm President of Marketing and Advertising for AdC Magazine. Affaire de Coeur Book Review Magazine has been in business since 1980. No small potatoes there! We've managed to survive all the ups and downs in the industry. www.adcmagazine.com
I'm an award-winning, Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Barnes and Noble bestselling author. I've been a published author since 1972. Yup, you read that right. My 10th grade high school teacher entered my sci-fi short story in the Science Fiction Reader's Digest Contest and I took first place. I continued to write and publish short stories for several years after that.
A short break--which felt like forever--in 1996 I finished my first novel. I was picked up by a publisher two years later and I haven't stopped since.
