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How to Write a Great Query Letter
"How to Write a Great Query Letter" In his FREE Amazon Short "How to Write a Great Query Letter," agent Noah Lukeman makes a point that, at first glance, seems cruel. When agents go through stacks of query letters, they're looking for reasons to reject. Here is, your novel condensed into a three paragraph letter (if you follow Lukeman's advice) and the agent's first inclination is to toss it in the reject pile. Why? Most of us, I think, approach mail and e-mail in a similar fashion. Like the agent who hopes for a rare gem of a query, I hope for a rare gem of an e-mail. Neither of us expect it on any given day. We both want to "handle the glut." Frankly, I don't have time to spend 5 minutes with each of the 75 e-mail messages in my inbasket each morning. I try to go through them very fast, primarily to clean how the inbasekt, but also to see if there's anything in there that actually demands attention. Like the agent who welcomes queries from people he knows or people recommended by people he knows, I'm giving the first read to e-mails from people I know or from people who say, "Bob said I ought to forward this to you." Newsletters will be filed for later reading unless there's something exceptional there. SPAM is discarded with no thought whatsoever. Potentially interesting e-mails are scanned quickly so that I can get a quick idea what the sender is after. All of us protect our time. We don't have time to read each incoming e-mail as though it's a love letter from our spouse, mistress, or favorite movie star. As with everyone, agents see "time as money." If your query has "red flags," (odd type faces, narrow margins, over-the-top claims, bold face) as Lukeman calls the obvious flaws, the agent rejects it because consciously or subconsciously he knows there's nothing there he can use. Lukeman's Amazon short is well worth reading. Three paragraphs--that's your query. You'll be surprised: most of the stuff we writers think ought to go into the query is, yes, A RED FLAG. |
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