It Felt Good to Get Out of the Rain

I’m a huge believer in BRIEF query letters. In the first place, what I really want to do is read the pages. It’s all in the pages. I don’t want to wade through a two-page single spaced letter telling me what the book is about. What I want to learn from the cover letter is the following:

title: I’ve said this a hundred times, but a great title gets you more than halfway there.

Brief description that focuses on themes, possibly mentions influences, mentions an unusual setting or very specific world (a sideshow, a grist mill, a molecular lab, the oompah loompahs, a blind optician, you get the idea).

Credentials are super important. Where have you published, studied, worked, fellowships, prizes, major social media following, etc. Who do you know? Who might endorse your book? If you don’t have any of these, then just say:

This is my first novel. Many thanks for reading.

But I would like to make the point that you should be working on getting credentials, especially publishing credentials. Send out chapters that can be stand alone stories. Write essays and try to place them. Try to get yourself to a writers conference and connect with your teachers. When I pitch a book, the first or one of the first things an editor will ask me is where has the writer published, who are they. It’s better to say that you published a story in the Paris Review or that your first collection of stories won the Flannery O’Connor Prize, or that you have an MFA from Syracuse and studied with Mary Karr, you get the idea.

Let me know if this is helpful. How can I help?