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The Last Query
completely subjective and personal advice on fiction queries, often contradicting more sage advice and to be read critically
by Cindy Dyson

Introduction

You are an agent. You’ve got twenty minutes between meetings and a stack of thirty query letters in front of you. At most you’ll ask to see one manuscript. First you scan for mistakes, the ones that always irritate you. Next you skim, tossing out letters hocking books you don’t represent or that are so poorly written they don’t deserve a closer look. Now you’ve got seven letters. You read through these. Each promising one takes time -- something you don’t have. You are looking for a reason to reject. You want to say no.
However, you are a hunter, and you know that within this pile could be your favorite prey -- the undiscovered voice, the next meal ticket, the book that will boost your reputation.

     This is the mindset of the agent your query has to attract. Your query is competing with twenty-nine others that day, and the fifty that will come in the next week. On average, agents take less than three percent of the queries they read. Of those they take on, half will sell.
     Those odds are horrific. And they mean that many, many great books will never be graced with agent representation. And many, many great books will never be published.
     Agents are gatekeepers, and we want them to be discerning. We want them to offer up only the best of what writers can offer. With more than a hundred thousand books published each year, we can afford high standards.
     The key to this gate, the instrument an agent requires, is a thin piece of paper -- the query. And it makes all the difference.
     Let’s say you’ve finished a great book. You write a wonderful query, which gives you the courage to send to the top tier agents. Several ask for the manuscript; one offers representation. He suggests a few changes that you feel in your bones are spot on. He sends it out to several editors. They read it right away because this agent has brought them winners before and his submissions go fast. One of them offers a fair advance. Your agent negotiates an even bigger one. Your first novel gets mentioned in the trade publications because of that big number and the big names involved. The publisher has invested some coin, so they need to recoup. They put the best editor, the best publicist on your book. They press galleys into reviewers hands. They send you on tour and buy print ads. Your first run sells out, and the book goes into third and fourth printings. You begin to earn royalties. Your second book is eagerly awaited.
     Now let’s say you’ve finished that great novel. You’ve written a decent query, like everyone else’s. The top tier agents respond with form rejections. You move on to the second and third tier. One offers representation. She suggests a few changes, one of which doesn’t feel quite right to you. But you make them and wait. Your agent sends the manuscript off to several editors, who don’t know her well and put the submission in a stack to get to when they’ve caught up with the top agent submissions. Several months later, you get the news -- a publisher is interested. Your agent doesn’t have the berries or the competing offers to negotiate. You accept a small advance. The deal never makes the trades. Your publisher assigns the manuscript to the just-out-of-college editor and the freshly-hired publicist, both of whom have twenty other books they’re working on. The publisher didn’t pay much for your work, so they don’t expect much. Promotion will be your job. No one reviews your book. The first run sells out in a year but no one is excited enough to do another. Your shiny first novel is shuffled aside to make room for the new releases.
     Of course it could be worse, and usually is. Most novels never get an agent, never get read. Most sit in desk drawers yellowing. Your perfectly wonderful book could be rejected because you wrote a perfectly ordinary query.
     The query is the step where many writers stumble. It’s the one that either carries you across the threshold into the publishing world or leaves you pounding, frustrated, on the door.
    The approach to query writing I’m offering is a little different than what you’ll read in most of the how-to books. I used it myself after becoming frustrated with the contradictory advice and lackluster examples in the dozens of books and articles I read on query writing. It’s premised on the idea that a query should not follow a template, that every query should be unique, structured upon each novel’s and each writer’s strengths.
     Give it a try. You can always return to the classic query structure if this approach doesn’t produce a trophy query.

The Competition

To craft your brilliant query letter, you first need to know what everyone else is doing. You need to know what’s in those twenty-nine other queries your dream agent is reading, and comparing, to yours. Your query can not simply be well worded, your plot well describe, your bio interesting. Your query has to be better than the other queries on an agent’s desk. So let’s see what your competition is up to.

Nine out of ten queries plunge immediately into plot:

“Pat Barn’s beach-front life centers on his wife Florence and their two dogs until a tottery affair...”

Or a hook line into plot:

“In nearly corporation there is one person who knows all its secrets.”

Or a question hook into plot:

“What if your husband were so desirable someone would murder you to steal him away?”
The other ten percent of queries begin in one of two ways:

“I am seeking representation for a 100,000-word, western ...”
“I have recently completed a 90,000-word novel...”

     That’s the first impression most of those competing queries are going with.
     What follows is a two to three paragraph plot description. Half the time there is a one graph summary of the author’s writing credits or relevant life experience. The last graph is one or two sentences describing what’s being sent and the manuscript.
     They are surprisingly the same, regardless of genre, or voice, or the author’s background. Why? Because the how-to books tell them to be.
    First, most of the books advise you start your query with a plot hook or question. Then they advise another graph or two detailing the plot. Some books even go so far as to order authors not to include character development or motivation, themes, metaphors, or anything about why you wrote the book. Some books have taken the one-page brevity issue to an extreme and recommend you keep your book description to twenty-five words, your bio to one sentence and the business stuff to two sentences, one at the beginning one at the end. You’ll be told to keep your query professional by keeping your voice out of it. You’ll be told that agents don’t care who you are, just what you’ve written.
    Look at as many queries as you can. Search Google for fiction queries. Do a search at Writersnet.com in the agent’s forum for queries members have posted for critique. Look at the sample queries in how-to books and guides. Ask fellow writers for their queries. In short, recon the competition thoroughly.
     While some queries following this approach will succeed in capturing an agent, most will not. The problem is that this approach isn’t tailored to you and your book. It isn’t tailored to the kind of agent you want to attract. It will look like all the others and it will only by chance create the impression you need -- that you are the prey an agent has been hunting for. A better approach takes control of that impression with intention and thoughtfulness.

Motivational Approach

     The typical query is primarily structured to acquaint an agent with a book’s plot or premise, secondarily to acquaint an agent with an author’s experience.
     A motivational approach is structured to create an impression of your work and yourself that plays off of what motivates an agent to request a manuscript.
     We can think of the two basic human motivations as fear and desire. As Joseph Campbell says, you can’t get past the gates until you’ve satisfied these two potent guards. Everything we do is, at its core, a response to one of these.
     To understand what agents fear and desire, let’s take a peek inside their world.
     Agents, as gatekeepers, are a filter for acquisition editors. They weed out the bad stuff and pass along the good stuff. To be respected gatekeepers, they need to pick winners and continue to pick winners. They have to develop a zeitgeist-feel for current trends and future trends. They need a feel for what voices will resonate with editors and readers. They have to do this year end and out, with new generations of readers growing up, new topics grabbing our attention. They have to support themselves with regular sales. They have to keep their relationships with editors fresh by supplying fresh grist. They need to maintain their reputations as providers and hunters with the publishing houses they deal with.
     They love books and words. Part of the reason they are doing this is because they believe in books. They believe in the power of written words. And while selling a well-known client’s latest book feels good, discovering a new voice and bringing it to the world feels even better. The stories of such discoveries abound in agent circles. They love to tell them, revel in them.
     They don’t have much time. It’s a demanding business and there are always new young agents ready to take their spots. They do not want to have to work harder than necessary to keep up their reputations and keep the money flowing.

So here’s the short fear/desire list. You’ll see that most of the desire motivations mirror the fear motivations.

Desires

Work with easy authors. Professional, eager, smart, fast authors are the dream.
Work with promotable authors. Authors whose work or experience or persona lend themselves to creating buzz are easier to sell and more certain to get attention.
Work with career authors. The first book is always hardest to sell. Agents want clients who will keep writing because the second sale is often easy money.
Bolster reputation. Agents want and need to create and sustain a reputation with the ten or twenty editors they regularly sell to. They know these editors’ tastes and needs. They must keep supplying manuscripts that match in order to maintain this happy synergism. They can’t afford even a couple losers. Editors will quickly forget to return calls or read submissions right away. Agents also want the respect of their fellow agents. They want to be known as the agent who brought out so and so, the agent whose list includes two Pulitzer or Edgar winners.
Make money. Each manuscript agents agree to represent takes time, and they need to see a return. They can’t keep their agency open if they don’t make regular sales. If they do, they can perhaps expand and hire underling agents or strike out on their own. They can afford to take on more pet projects.
Discover new voices. This is the icing for many agents. Bringing out new writers helps them feel that what they are doing is meaningful, that they are adding something good to the world.
Impact literary landscape. Imagine the thrill of discovering an author that recreates the literary landscape. An author who will be talked about for years to come, who will define a new way of writing, of thinking. Agents drool for this.

Fears

Wasting time. Agents don’t have much. They don’t want to be saddled with an author who needs in-depth editing. Or a book that will be a hard sell.
Wasting money. If they spend weeks preparing and shopping a manuscript that doesn’t sell, they have lost out on the money a sold manuscript would have made.
Slipping literary judgment. Agents need to be reassured that they have that nose for a good story, the reputation for finding and selling the next hot thing. Even those agents with a sterling record, fear that the zeitgeist will pass them by in favor of younger, hipper noses.
Difficult authors. Agents fear that a client they are considering taking on will end up being a pain in the butt and irritating to work with.
One-hit wonders. Agents work hardest on the first book. They don’t want an author who never produces that much easier and more lucrative second and third.
Weird authors/books. Dealing with a book or an author who is too new or just plain weird is scary. Agents know editors are bottom line folks, they follow the herd. An agent can’t sell something she can’t convince editors has sold before.
Missing the next hot book. It happens all the time, but agents don’t like it. When they reject an author who goes on to earn a big advance and acclaim, it simply doesn’t feel good.

There are more fears/desires you can add to this list. But these cover the primary motivations for agents. Your task is to pick which will work for you and your book.
To craft your brilliant query, you need to zero in on which motivations you will use to beguile your target agents. For each author and each book there will be different combinations that best create the impression of succulent prey. To find yours you need to understand two things -- your book and yourself.

Finding Your Motivations

     Surprisingly, many authors will finish their wonderful book without really understanding it. They won’t realize how many controversial issues, or odd places, or sexy hooks are imbedded in those three hundred pages. You need to ferret them out.
     Get someone to help you because, as the writer, you will often miss aspects of your book that could be selling points. Get a reader friend, a spouse, a fellow writer and a bottle of wine and brainstorm.
     Here’s a good starter list for this brainstorming session. Really search for intriguing answers. You’re prowling for ideas, impressions, sexy words and phrases. Don’t think about the query yet. Just the book.

Metaphorical highlights?
What makes story stand out?
Hero’s transformation?
Audience?
What’s at stake?
What is the soul of the story?
Where?
Why does the audience care?
When?
How is the story executed?
Why not another place and time?
Universal theme?
How Is the ending satisfying?
Describe your voice. One sentence descriptions (do a bunch).
How did you write/research?
How do readers described the book?
Sexy hooks in book?
How have readers described your writing?
Why did you write this book?
Why should people commit time and money to this story?

Next do a similar exercise about yourself. So many writers have trouble with misplaced modesty. This is not the place. In your query you can feign modesty, if you choose, but here everything needs to come out. Again a friend and wine are helpful.

Writing credits?
Writing education?
Unusual jobs, travel, relationships?
Background bearing on writing?
Sexy hooks in your life? (sins, triumphs, travails)
What’s promotable about you?

     Read through the answers to these questions. Take a few days to let them fester. Then start sorting. Zero in on the aspects of your book and yourself that best address agents’ fears and desires.
     If you live on a lonely island in the San Juans, this would play into an agent’s desire to find authentic new voices because it plays into a stereotype of a hermit literary genius. If you’ve published several short stories and taught writing classes, this plays into an agent’s desire to work with a professional. If you’ve never published a word, this plays into an agent’s desire to discover the unknown voice.
     If your book falls into a current trend or growing or established genre, this plays into an agent’s desire to supply their pet editors with a steady stream of publishable manuscripts. If your book is hard to categorize, this plays into an agent’s desire to break literary ground.
     Here’s how it worked for me:

Because this was my first manuscript and I am fairly young, I chose to capitalize on agents’ desires to feel they have discovered a new voice. Because I’ve been published as a nonfiction writer and have a journalism degree, I chose to capitalize on agents desire to work with professionals. Because my book is a bit edgy and set in an unusual place, I chose to capitalize on an agent’s desire to find something new, but I was careful to convey that the book was also firmly within a flourishing genre of faux literary to allay fears of weirdness. Because I don’t want the agents to think I’m a one-hitter, I allayed their fears by mentioning my work in progress.

Every writer will work this differently. Consequently, every query letter will be unique.

Writing the Query

     It’s time to write.
   Think business letter written by Stephen King or Virginia Wolf. You’d expect something from them. Expect something from yourself. You’re interesting. Dammit. You’ve written a whole book. Let yourself shine. Let your writing shine. You’ve just written a hundred thousand words; you can do this.
     Don’t think you have to follow a template. Queries are often too formulaic. Remember agents see a ton of them every week, don’t be afraid to do something different. The goal is to communicate an impression, just be careful not to appear unprofessional or plain weird.
     If you’re like me, you’ll sit with fingers poised over the keyboard forever trying to come up with the brilliant first line that will set up the brilliance to follow.
     Instead, make your first attempt the worst query you can imagine. Get it out of your system. Make it really bad. As Anne Lamott calls it, “the shitty first draft.” Then write ten more versions, each one very different. Choose a motivation that you nixed before. Write a boasting version, a funny one, a serious, a long winded. Describe your book differently each time.
    The only must for these drafts is that you write each line with your chosen motivations in mind. It may be helpful to list the top three motivations you chose, then organize all the things about your book and yourself that play to them under each one. You are trying to create an impression by manipulating those fears and desires.
     Work to make each draft radically different. You are only giving yourself material here. If you find yourself getting all wrapped up and perfectionist about it, stop and write a silly query, or one that makes you look like a knuckle dragger.

The essentials

Although every query will look and feel different, they should all have four things -- a hook, book description, voice, and manuscript stats. The order of these elements will vary depending on how you’ve chosen to motivate an agent.

The hook

     Play with openings that set the mood you want an agent to read the rest of your query in. The possibilities are numerous.
     Try a version that begins with why you’re writing to this agent. Most writers go for something in their plot with a lot of flash. But imagine yourself as that agent with thirty queries in front of you. You’ve seen thousands of plot-hook leads and frankly no one’s plot is as unique as he thinks. So what does grab attention? What is the one subject that perks all of our ears? Ourselves. You know this. We are our favorite topics. We can go on for hours. Even shy birds sit and journal about -- yes, themselves.
    So start with a few lines about this perfect agent you’ve selected to query from all the hundreds of agents out there.
     Think about this another way. Let’s say you’re at a conference where your top pick agent is speaking. You’re determined to meet her. You wouldn’t just go up to her and say, “Lucky Violin is about a woman who let her feet ruin her life.” No. You’d introduce yourself, say something about the agent’s reputation or clients. You’d ask how she was liking the conference. In short, you’d ease into your pitch with politeness. A query that starts, blam, into a plot or writing credentials can feel a bit rude.
     On the other hand, a query that begins “I’m seeking representation...” is so obvious. Agents know it’s a query, that you’re seeking representation. What a waste of words.
     Find a way to tell them what you want and why you want it from them right off the bat. And do NOT write, “I saw your listing in Writer’s Guide....” Don’t advertise your laziness.
     Reading books from a targeted agent’s clients can work well. Especially clients that agent discovered and have recently been successful “You represent one of my favorite authors, XXX, and I think the manuscript I’m asking you to look at, shares his XXX.”
    Right off the bat this lead helps the agent identify you with that same sweet success she found in discovering that author and basking in the money and glory that came with it. It compliments the agent without sounding desperate or ingratiating. It conveys a shared literary sense. And, there is always a chance a harried agent will skim the top graph, see a client’s name, and assume the client is recommending you.
    Of course this approach requires you to hunt for agents by doing a lot of research and reading. But it also means all the agents you approach are agents you really want and know would be a good match.
     Beginning with something about the agent isn’t always the best approach, however. If you worked your way through Harvard as a prostitute and have written a novel based on your experiences, you may want to lead with your unusual past. If your plot or theme is fresh and easy to capture in a juice sentence, lead with it. If your writing credits are unique or impressive, try leading with them. If your life experience is related to your book and can be captured in a flashy sentence of two, start there.

Plot

     You need to briefly describe your book. The length here will vary according to how you choose motivations, but at least a sentence and at most a few graphs need to cover the basic story.
     You do not need to describe the plot. You need an impression of the plot. Most plot descriptions tend toward next-then. Think more thematically. Read the back of books and videos. Ask your local bookseller for an old catalogue and study the brief descriptions of works in your genre. Try writing a few based on books you’ve read recently.
     Don’t be afraid to try new formats. If your book lends itself to something other than a narrative, paragraph-style approach, give it a try. I’ve seen book description that was more like a cast of characters work beautifully. Just remember if you do something quirky, it must be brilliant.
    You don’t have to follow the chronology of your book or the action sequence. Squeeze in the sexy hooks you discovered while brainstorming. Load it with those words that create ready-made images. You want a few lines that will inspire an agent to imagine pitching the book to editors.

Voice

     Again, plot twists and strange characters abound. What you are selling is the how of story, not the what. This is your voice, the way you tell your tale. Your query must showcase this. It must hint at the way your mind works, how your sentences get along, and the way your words feel. You may think that because you are writing genre stuff, the voice isn’t as important, but it is what an agent will respond to.
     An agent is not just interested in representing your book; they want to represent a person. Let them know who you are. Again, you are seeking to create an impression. You are that mysterious guy at the party everyone wants to meet. You may not be accustomed to it, but here you need to turn heads when you enter the room. Create a mystic around yourself. Don’t sound too desperate, because cool people never are. Highlight your success, because no one wants to rub shoulders with failure. A person with mystique is engaging, understands their audience, has a persona. Lead an agent to project onto you an impression that works with your manuscript. Agents are even better than you at this. Give them some material to work with, something they can polish up when approaching editors.
     Sometimes it’s the short, fat, bald guy who’s the center of a party. It’s not because he’s beautiful or successful. He’s interesting, dynamic, or intense, or reserved, or outgoing, or intelligent, or simply wise. There are myriad mystiques to choose from. Find yours and hone it with words.

Book stats

     Every query should tell the agent the basics of what you’re hocking. The title, word count, and genre.
     Publishers spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with a title because they know it’s one of the most powerful sales tools. Treat it like this yourself. Take a list of your favorites and ask your local bookseller which they like best and where they would shelve it based only on title.
     Word count is usually easy. But if your book falls outside the 70,000 to 100,000 word average, an agent may wonder if it will be a hard sell. If your book is significantly above or below the average, you will want to balance this negative by playing to desires and minimizing fears in other areas. For example if your book is 150,000 words, do not let even one useless word survive in your query, or one repeated idea. Make it clear that every one of those 150,000 words is valuable. If your book is very short, make sure you query showcases your spare writing style, your perfect word choice.
     Genre should be straightforward, but many authors don’t seem willing to place a label on their work. Resist describing your book as something so different it won’t fit neatly anywhere. You have probably not invented a new genre of literature. Ask friends where it should be categorized. If you still can’t place it, describe it using a mix of genres -- a literary detective story, a sci-fi with an abnormally large heart. Avoid labeling your book mainstream, which just doesn’t convey anything. Work hard at categorizing but don’t appear to be, don’t go on trying to capture every nuance. Just where would you go in a bookstore to find your book.

WIP

If you are working on another book, say so -- briefly. This alleys an agent’s fear of one-hit wonders. Don’t say you have a stack of unpublished previous manuscripts, or failed to publish your earlier work. If that first novel didn’t make it and you can honestly say that you dig it out and rework it from time to time, call it your work in progress. Say, “I’m working on another novel, exploring ...”

Paring down

     So now you’ve got ten queries that focus on a motivational approach and hit all the essentials. Time to pare and combine. You’ll know which ideas feel right to include, which words pack power, which phrases shine. Combine, cut, rearrange until you’ve got three to five versions you really like.
     Edit each for blatant errors. Don’t cover the same ideas twice. Don’t say, “I’ve recently completed a manuscript...” at the top, then go on to say, “Would you like to see the manuscript?” at the end. The words are different but both sentences say you’ve got a book finished.
     Obsess over each word, and phrase, and idea. Give the agent reasons to trust their initial feeling that this book could be great.
     If you say something like any of the following, rethink those ideas or the expression of them.

My book is like XXXX... (you wish)
My book will appeal to every woman’s who’s ever wondered... (naive)
Readers, young, and old will .... (lazy)
Sample chapters and/or the manuscript are available upon request.... (so formal and ordinary).
I’ve enclosed a SASE for your convenience (of course, don’t waste space).
I believe my book to have strong cinematic appeal... (don’t we all).

Ask yourself the following questions:

What are the dominant impressions conveyed in these letters?
Are there spots that make me seem like a loser/failure?
Do I seem desperate?
Does each thought forward the impression I’m creating?
Am I overly formal?
Overly chatty?

Query swap

     Now step back and find a writer friend going through same process. Suggest you swap query writing with him. Don’t give him your versions and don’t ask for his. Write him a brilliant query. Exchange. You may find some nugget or realize you’ve neglected to mention something sterling and intriguing about your background. Work in his great ideas and phrases.
     Bring your queries, hopefully whittled down to three or so, to critique groups. Have them critiqued on Writersnet. But remember that most of your critiquers will be approaching your query based on the standard query advice. Take this into account, but question your deviations from the norm and make sure they work.
     Pare and combine again until you’ve got one query that makes you want to buy your own book. It should make you panic and ask yourself if the book can live up to this awesome query. When this feeling strikes, you know you’ve got a trophy query.
     The hard work is over. The rest is busy work.

Special Problems

    If you have never failed to sell a book and you’re well published and the book is dripping with sexy hooks and fits nicely into an established genre and you’ve had an interesting life, your query will be a simple joy to craft. But for many of us, there are obstacles to overcome -- things about ourselves and our work that must be treated carefully because they could scream loser.
     In general there are three ways to deal with such problems -- hang a lantern on them, hide them, or misdirect attention from them.
     To hang a lantern, you point out and use the problem to your advantage, reversing the problem’s power. If you are currently an inmate, and it bears on your plot or on your promotablity, use it. To hide the problem means you don’t have to say anything about your current incarceration. Misdirection is usually most successful when your voice and insight are so powerful that nobody is going to care where you live.

Lack of publishing credits.

     Undoubtedly this is the most common problem. Many people address this by saying something like, “Although I’ve never been published, I have written two other novels and have taken several writing courses and attended several writing conferences.” This does nothing for your image. It creates an impression of failure. Remember that most of the authors you are competing with have done the same things. You want to set yourself apart.
    Think creatively about your life, about the experiences you drew on to write this book, about the events that led to this book. Often these credits are much more important. The Nanny Diaries was written by two former nannies with nary a published word between them. But they had been inside the palace and seen how the children lived. Use your life/education/career as misdirection from your lack of publishing credits. You may also want to hide the sad state of your publishing credits by not mentioning it at all. There is a mystique around the writer who comes out of oblivion to bring the world a terrific book. However, the few pages you send in your query packet are all the agent will have to judge your potential. Your words must be great.
     Remember, discovering a new voice is a strong motivation for agents. Writers with a lot of published works under them can not play upon this one. Only those of us who are still undiscovered can do this. We have an advantage here; don’t waste it.
     Of course, getting some writing credits before you query is the best way to solve this problem. As soon as you’ve got your book in decent shape, pull out a few scenes or other sections and send them off as short stories to magazines and journals. Although they likely won’t have come out in print before you query, you can say, “My short story, Man with a Banana, will be published in June issue of XXX.”

Previously self-published.

Unless your self-published work won an award or you’ve sold twenty thousand copies, or been reviewed in major periodicals, don’t mention it. Self publishing has a stigma attached. It says, “Hey I failed to sell this two years ago, but now I want you to take on this loser and make it win.” You will have to mention your book’s publishing history to an agent eventually. You can either do this when he requests the manuscript or when he offers representation.

Previously agented.

Let’s say you sent your queries around last year, got an agent and nothing happened. Either the agent didn’t work hard for you or just couldn’t find any interest. The agent has terminated your representation. You still believe in the book. You’ve polished it up, changed that weak ending. Just send the queries out fresh, find a new title. It’s been more than a year, no one is going to remember your query. When another agent bites, you can describe the book’s unpleasant past.

Very young/old.

If you are, say, a nineteen-year-old writer, there is a danger an agent will dismiss you because you’re too young to offer the world much of anything. But your youth can also be used to help create the impression of the whiz kid genius. Either keep your age to yourself or use it to create the young genius impression. Same goes for the very old. An agent could see an eighty-year-old first novelist as a washed-up, out-of-touch codger, or as a wise voice with a life of rich experiences to draw from. Either keep quiet about your age, or use it to create a mystique.

Very different book.

If you’ve written a book that is very different from everything else on the market, you’ve got a difficult task. Remember agents want to feel they are helping change the literary landscape while offering publishers safe books that have proved their acceptability. Your task is to hang a lantern on the experimental nature of your book while proving it has a home. Your voice, the way your mind works, your insights must be apparent in your query. We don’t want to read a weird book unless a genius wrote it.

Lacking sexy hooks.

If your book doesn’t have a stripper, wild horses, affairs, fast cars, or cannibalism, you may have a more difficult time capturing the plot in ways that engage an agent. It’s just easier to grab attention with sex, crime, speed. If you have a more quiet book, you will have to work harder to pull out the universal themes that have spoken to humanity for eons. You will have to present them with intelligence, insight, and precision.

Betwixt genres.

If you have a book that you don’t feel neatly fits into an established genre, think again. Ask a book clerk, where he would shelve it. If you still don’t think it is really, say, a western, describe it as a western with chiclit flair. Find a succinct, knowledgeable way to categorize it. All books can be categorized. There is even a genre called experimental.

Retiree/housewife syndrome.

If you are a retired teacher, do not mention this. There are two million retired teachers querying agents on any day. Unless you taught writing or your teaching experience bears on your book, don’t mention those years in the classroom. The same syndrome can come into play for retired attorneys. Be careful when bringing up these careers. Of course if they are important to your plot or if you were a noted civil rights attorney in your town, say so. If you are writing an international thriller and you practiced international law, say so. Same goes for the housewife. If your book involves a housewife or brings up issues in the home/work debate, hang a lantern. If not, search your past, the sins of your youth, times in your life when excitement was high, to apply misdirection. Or keep silent.

Look-alike book.

If you fear your book is similar to other recent titles in your genre, think through how you can use that to position your book as a tried and true winner AND as something different. Don’t just say, “My book is like XXX but with more humor.” Show the similarities and differences in the way you write, the approach you take.

Format and Packaging

     We all know a query should look professional. This is an easy way to play to an agent’s desire to work with a professional. Just the look of your letter will create this impression. Presto, you’ve satisfied one desire. Use good, but standard paper. Use a standard business letter format, complete with the agency address, date, block or indented paragraphs, a salutation, and a closing. You don’t want to do anything weird because, remember, agents are afraid of weirdness. Resist the temptation to do something unique with paper or colors or fonts. The line between unique and weird is wiggly.
     Do design cool letterhead. Do not include a large fire breathing dragon as your icon. But use a little color. Check out the letterhead on a week’s worth of junk mail. Use your desktop design program and come up with something simple that includes all your contact info. Pick a color that goes with you. Maroon for a serious inquiry into the lives of four politicians. Raspberry for a chiclit. Chartreuse to a breezy, fresh style. Whatever feels right for your book and you. Make sure the letterhead is at the top of the page, that means you will have to get rid of that one-inch top margin.
     Send a great synopsis. Even if an agent’s listing says they don’t want one, send a one pager if it’s good. Synopses tend to be boring so make this one thematic, character oriented, rather than next-then. You don’t have to follow your book’s sequence. You can write it in any tense or person you want. This is an expansion of the few sentences in your query, not a tell everything. If you can’t create a great one, don’t send it at all. Send the first few pages instead. The goal here is to give a bit extra to an agent who may be on the fence about whether to ask for the manuscript. Don’t send anything that won’t encourage that next step.
     Send sample pages. Just a few, not more than the first five if the agencies says it only wants a one page query. The first scene is a good choice. You don’t want to send so much they feel they know the book. You want them to be reading your manuscript AFTER having asked, having made a step, a tiny investment in your work. People are far more willing to get behind something they have invested in or already committed something to.
     Call each agency and confirm their address and ask what they would like to see in a fiction query package. Much of the time, the agency wants to see more than the writer’s guides state. I found it rare that an agency wanted to see less than the first chapter. If calling freaks you out, try calling after hours. Many agencies have a recorded message stating their address and query preferences.
     Don’t send all your queries out at once. Let’s say you’ve identified twenty agents you’d love to have. Send out ten letters. That way you can rethink your query if you don’t get hits before you’ve gone through all your top picks.
     Much has been said about the wisdom of e-mailing submissions. My best advice is to e-mail if the agency says it likes them or has an email submission capacity on their website.
    Record each submission, listing what was in the packet, the date, the agency, and the responses as they come in.

The What Ifs

     You will get three kinds of responses.
     One, a form rejection, which often means your query didn’t get past an agent’s assistant. Two, a personal rejection, which can mean an agent actually read your query.
     Three, a letter, email, or phone call requesting sample chapters or the manuscript. Do not wait to polish up that rough spot. You should already have done that. Craft a brief cover letter, reminding the agent of the highlights of your book and your experience. Be a little cozy in this letter. If the agent used your first name, use hers. You want to assume a smidgen of a relationship in this letter. Send the material priority or next-day mail. You want to maintain the impression of a professional by getting your book in the agent’s hands right away.
     If after sending your first batch of queries, you’ve received no manuscript requests, you may want to revisit your query. Maybe tweak a few words, rethink the order, the tone.
    If the second batch also fails, start the query process again with brainstorming ideas. You may be missing something juicy in your background or your book. Rethink whether you have chosen the best motivations. If several agents wrote personal rejections naming the same concern, pay special attention to how you can remove this concern for the next batch of agents you query. Write five new versions, critique them, fine tune them. Look at them beside your first version. And try again.
     If more than six months have passed, don’t hesitate to resend a query to an agent that rejected it before. Just be sure you’ve changed the query some. Often an agent will tell her assistant to weed out all queries pitching books set in, say, New England, because she’s shopping two such novels at the moment. A few months from now, after making some dough on those books, that agent may be eager to get another New England setting.
     You may also want to rethink the kind of agents you are targeting. More on that later.
     If you’ve received several manuscript requests but no offers of representation, your manuscript is the problem -- not the query. Work on the book.

Agent Changes

     Often an agent will be interested in your work, but suggests some fixes before agreeing to take on the manuscript. Or an agent may agree to represent you but ask that you make changes before he shops the book around.
     Be eager and grateful when that list or marked up manuscript comes back. An agent would not take the time unless he believed in your work and believed it could sell.
     Many of these changes will be easy and obvious. Things you’re embarrassed you missed. Some won’t be. Think these through, rereading the problem spots. Ask friends who’ve read your book what they think.
     Not every suggested change will make your book better, but most of them will highlight a weak spot. Sometimes you will come up with a better fix than the agent suggested. Sometimes you will disagree. Pay attention to what the agent is saying; it is a great indicator of how well she understood your book and what you were trying to do.
     Thank her for them. Do everything she suggests that fits your vision of the book. Do them fast and get them back to her. While you whittle away the hours, she will be getting queries from scores of other would-be’s. Don’t allow time for her excitement over your book to wither.

The Agent Hunt

     Before you send out those queries, make sure you’re sending them to the right agents. Getting an agent isn’t the thing -- getting the right agent is everything.
There are three kinds of agents to beware.
     One, scammy Agents. Skip the agents that charge anything up front. Even those that charge phone, copy, mailing fees before they’ve sold your book are bad choices. If an agent is so down on his luck as to need your measly $100 in office expenses, they just can’t be selling much or for much.
     Two, unconnected agents. There is a hierarchy among agents. The poor ones or the ones with limited connections in the publishing world have to submit manuscripts to editors just like an unagented author would. They have no clout, no editor friends, no weekly lunches with head hauncho so-and-so.
     Three, mis-genred agents. Then there are the agents who are good at selling, but not your kind of book. Agents with connections aren’t connected everywhere. They usually have a dozen or three dozen editors with whom they have built report and have similar tastes. You may go after an agent with lots of clout and a great sales record, but if all that clout and sales are with editors who like mysteries, it’s not going to do hooey for your literary manuscript.
     It can even hurt. If the wrong agent takes you on, then fails to sell because the match didn’t capitalize on his best connections, you’ve already sullied your manuscript. There’s a pack mentality and agents talk. Your climb to publication just got steeper.
     How do you find those perfect agents? Do not look through a writer’s directory and find all the agents who take, say, historical romances. That’s what your competition is doing.
     Do not dismiss an agent because you think she’s too good for you. Even most top agents need to find new clients. They need sales every month, and their established authors are only supplying a new book every few years. Also, agents love the thrill of the hunt. For them the hunt is for a fresh voice, the discovery. Find the agents you like, not the ones you second guess will like you.
     Start a notebook early on, jotting down authors you share something with, agent names you come across.
     Look at the acknowledgment pages of books you like and books like yours for agents’ names. If an agent isn’t mentioned, look up the author’s website or the publisher’s. You can always call the publisher and ask.
     Subscribe to Talking Agents and order a year of back issues. This newsletter from AR&E (Agent Research & Evaluation) details sales and tries to get a handle on what kind of work particular agents are drawn to. Subscribe to Publisher’s Lunch free e-mail newsletter and read through the new deals to see who’s representing what. Reader Publisher Weekly hot deals section on the web.
     Record what each agent you like has done, their nicknames, career histories. As you get a handle on these agents, prioritize. You are looking for agents who take on newbies from time to time, but who also have established authors to free them to take those first-timer risks. Net search the ones you like. Do they frequently show up making film deals? Do they have a reputation for getting six-figure advances? What publishing houses do they usually sell to? Do they mix fiction and non? Find out everything you can about them. Then read some of their client’s books, especially the first-timers they discovered. Try to get a handle on what makes each agent perk up and take notice.
    Look especially hard for agents who made a name from themselves at a big agency and have recently struck out on their own. These agents are not yet listed in the guides and often have holes in their client lists. Also look for agents that aren’t listed in the big writer’s guides or whose listing gives no information. These agents may not be flooded with queries.
     Don’t skip an agent just because they say they aren’t accepting unsolicited queries. Such listing in guides are often months out of date. And many times this is just a ploy agents use to cut down on all the submissions. They often will look at such a query -- if it’s good. If they really don’t want your query, they’ll let the post office return it for them. You’ve lost nothing but a stamp -- okay, two stamps.
     Keep careful notes on the agents. Weed through and find ten or twenty dream agents to start with. Know you want these agents before you query.
     A few agents say they won’t look at queries unless a client recommends the author. Although many of them will anyway, you can try to get a recommendation. Look for connections in client lists. You may find a client lives in your state. Write to him, ask him to look at your work. You may find a client is speaking at a nearby conference, go and meet the client. Ask for what you want.
     You should also web search each of your top agent’s names for conferences they will be speaking at. If you find one and it’s close, go meet your dream agent in person. Bring your fab query.

The end
And remember if you do this well, if that query does its job, it may be the last one you will ever have to write.

P.S. I have done a presentation based on this approach at my local writing conference. I am available to other conferences. I also do a little thing on voice. Just email me. Or if you want to make comments on this approach to query writing, or have suggestions for what I should do with this booklet thing.

If you have used this approach and would be willing to let me use your query in a potential book on the subject, please email me with your query and I'll consider using it as part of the how-to book..