How to Send a Manuscript in a way that gets you Read by R.A. Black

The dreaded query letter. A hated, but essential, part of getting a novel published. Agents receive huge numbers of submissions every week, so they need a quick way to sift through. While some may also ask for a sample of writing, many will reject purely on the query, so it’s important to get it right.
Given that pressure, it’s easy to get bogged down in query hell, but if you strip things back,