Jan Marquart's Blog - Posts Tagged "published"
Query Letters
Do you know how to write a good query letter? Because many authors do not, and in these difficul times, agents have a difficult enough time selling new writers to publishing companies. A good query could stand between the life or death of your manuscript. If you don't appeal to an agent; you'll have almost no chance to reach a publishing company.
Every writer coverly or overtly wants to have a manuscript chosen by a professional agent. Self-published writers choose to self-publish for many reasons and one of them is that the voice of the written word calls out to be heard just as it called out to be written. Self-published writers load up sites like Goodreads, SheWrites and more to get their creative stories and important memoirs out there. And thank goodness for these wonderful sites or self-published authors would be going door to door or standing in grocery store parking lots to sell their books.
We don't write to stifle ourselves. We want to be heard, talked about, make money and more. If we don't write for the love of writing; we write for some other noble reason. Don't we?
The saying goes: you only have a second to make a first impression so we must make it a solid one. There are no do-overs. That being said. Query letters are crucial to getting the attention of an agent. I've read dozens of query letters and it really isn't a surprise that the manuscripts they represent don't lead to an agent's acceptance. I spoke with a reader from a publishing house the other day. She said she reads hundreds of queries every day and knows quickly whether to continue reading or not. I asked her how many queries enticed her to solicit the manuscript. She stated one, maybe two a day. And there was no guarantee that after reading the first chapter or two of a manuscript that it would be accepted for publication.
What makes a good query letter? Several things:
1. Don't be cute. Agents don't have time for personal stories or teasers.
2. Don't waste a word telling an agent you are just as good as Tolstoy or Proust.
3. Don't run on for pages trying to reel them in with creative writing.
So what do you do?
1. Give a quick introduction to your book. Make it factual. Add a quote to demonstrate your writing skills and choose one that reveals something important about the book.
2. State the population that would be interested in your book. For instance, this book is written for the adult woman.
3. At the end, give your bio. Make it simple. Give a list of publications for which you have written, any published books, and awards you have received.
The Writer's Digest has query letter samples in the beginning of it. Read them. Take the advice given.
I cannot emphasize enough how important a good query letter is. Agents get thousands of queries a month. If you start wasting their time with superfluous information your query will be tossed. It's that simple. My agent for Kate's Way loved the book after she received and liked my query but even then it was difficult to make a good sell. Publishing companies are spending less time interested in new writers because they want writers who already sell thousands of books to ensure that they can make money in these tough economic times. Your manuscript has to be edited to perfection too. Publishing companies don't edit like they used to.
So, if you are not submitting your manuscript because you don't have a clue as to how to get started-do some research, study up on it. Don't let these economic times be totally discouraging. New authors are, in fact, being discovered every day.
The book, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road Kill Him, had something like 125 rejections. JK Rowling had 12 rejections. Both books are still selling well and Meet the Buddha was written in the 70's. Open to learn all you can so your fabulous stories and memoir have a chance.
Keep the pen moving,
Every writer coverly or overtly wants to have a manuscript chosen by a professional agent. Self-published writers choose to self-publish for many reasons and one of them is that the voice of the written word calls out to be heard just as it called out to be written. Self-published writers load up sites like Goodreads, SheWrites and more to get their creative stories and important memoirs out there. And thank goodness for these wonderful sites or self-published authors would be going door to door or standing in grocery store parking lots to sell their books.
We don't write to stifle ourselves. We want to be heard, talked about, make money and more. If we don't write for the love of writing; we write for some other noble reason. Don't we?
The saying goes: you only have a second to make a first impression so we must make it a solid one. There are no do-overs. That being said. Query letters are crucial to getting the attention of an agent. I've read dozens of query letters and it really isn't a surprise that the manuscripts they represent don't lead to an agent's acceptance. I spoke with a reader from a publishing house the other day. She said she reads hundreds of queries every day and knows quickly whether to continue reading or not. I asked her how many queries enticed her to solicit the manuscript. She stated one, maybe two a day. And there was no guarantee that after reading the first chapter or two of a manuscript that it would be accepted for publication.
What makes a good query letter? Several things:
1. Don't be cute. Agents don't have time for personal stories or teasers.
2. Don't waste a word telling an agent you are just as good as Tolstoy or Proust.
3. Don't run on for pages trying to reel them in with creative writing.
So what do you do?
1. Give a quick introduction to your book. Make it factual. Add a quote to demonstrate your writing skills and choose one that reveals something important about the book.
2. State the population that would be interested in your book. For instance, this book is written for the adult woman.
3. At the end, give your bio. Make it simple. Give a list of publications for which you have written, any published books, and awards you have received.
The Writer's Digest has query letter samples in the beginning of it. Read them. Take the advice given.
I cannot emphasize enough how important a good query letter is. Agents get thousands of queries a month. If you start wasting their time with superfluous information your query will be tossed. It's that simple. My agent for Kate's Way loved the book after she received and liked my query but even then it was difficult to make a good sell. Publishing companies are spending less time interested in new writers because they want writers who already sell thousands of books to ensure that they can make money in these tough economic times. Your manuscript has to be edited to perfection too. Publishing companies don't edit like they used to.
So, if you are not submitting your manuscript because you don't have a clue as to how to get started-do some research, study up on it. Don't let these economic times be totally discouraging. New authors are, in fact, being discovered every day.
The book, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road Kill Him, had something like 125 rejections. JK Rowling had 12 rejections. Both books are still selling well and Meet the Buddha was written in the 70's. Open to learn all you can so your fabulous stories and memoir have a chance.
Keep the pen moving,
