The Query That Landed Me An Agent

I'm told by several writer friends that I should post the query letter I sent to Jenny Savill at Andrew Nurnberg Associates on January 9, 2010. I will post it below with this disclaimer: I am not a guru for queries - I think the querying process is so utterly subjective that your query letter might work for one agent and for another it might put them to sleep. If I have any kind of advice to offer I would just say that your query needs to sound like the back cover of the book. That's pretty much how I did it.

I'm very fortunate, grateful and damned lucky that it worked. Oh, and I guess the query didn't land me the agent, so the title of this posting is kind of wrong. It should read THE QUERY THAT GOT AN AGENT TO READ POLTERGEEKS. So, here's the query for POLTERGEEKS:

Dear Andrew Nurnberg Associates:

Warning: the following query is for a young adult urban fantasy featuring a talking Great Dane, a little old lady in leopard skin outfit who pulls Jedi mind tricks on social workers, an oil company in bed with a minor deity and of course, teen romance of the awkward, non-sparkly vampire kind.

Oh ... and zombies, floating furniture and general bad juju.

What happens when a four hundred year-old grudge against witches manifests in the heart of a major city? Only a slew of off-the-scale supernatural activity and a mystery that leads to a paranormal battle between a teen witch and an entity whose hatred lives on in the after-life.

How much hatred? Oh, about this much:

"Has not this present Parliament

A Lieger to the Devil sent,

Fully impowr'd to treat about

Finding revolted witches out

And has not he, within a year,

Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire?

Some only for not being drowned,

And some for sitting above ground,

Whole days and nights, upon their breeches,

And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches."

Fifteen-year-old Julie Richardson is about to learn that being the daughter of a witch isn't all it's cracked up to be. When she and her best friend Marcus witness an elderly lady jettisoned out the front door of her home and the old lady's cat launched through the chimney, it's pretty obvious to Julie there's a supernatural connection. The house is occupied by a poltergeist and in order to reclaim it, Julie's going to have to exorcise the spirit. Of course, she'll need her mother's help and what teenager in their right mind wants that?

Julie's mom might be skilled in witchcraft, but there's a whisper of menace behind increasing levels of poltergeist activity all over town. After a large-scale paranormal assault on Julie's high school, her mother falls victim to endless night - a dark spell that rips her mom's soul from her mortal husk, leaving her in the supernatural equivalent of a persistent vegetative state. Now it's a race against time to find out who is responsible or Julie won't just lose her mother's soul - she'll lose her mother's life.

My name is Sean Cummings and POLTERGEEKS is the first novel in what I hope to be a young adult series entitled STRANGE DAYS. My debut novel, SHADE FRIGHT, has been picked up as the first in a series by Snowbooks and will be in bookstores on March 1, 2010. Between writing the second volume in the Valerie Steven's series, I'm promoting my work mainly by means of the rapidly growing blogosphere and via online social networking.

Attached are the first three chapters for your consideration. If you're interested in reading Poltergeeks, the full 60,000 word manuscript is ready to send.