How to Write a Query Letter (with examples of real successful queries) 

What about your novel now?

@@gililevy3541 I'm not going to lie, I had no interest in my novel and, with the busyness of life, gave up. Every now and then, I force myself to send more letters, get more rejections, get dejected or distracted (ADHD is bad for publishing) until I guilt myself into trying again. Really appreciate your reply, though, because you've reminded me that it's time to pull up my bootstraps, re-watch this video and try again :-) How about you? Has this advice helped?

@@randomworldofemily1495 I'm only starting actually, haven't sent letters yet. Hopeful things will be Okay. Good luck!!!! Wishing your book the best! I know it can be tough

@@gililevy3541 A very belated thank you! Any bites? I decided to give it another go, following a UK agent's very specific instructions.

Matt. The worst that can happen is you get no reply. Or even rejection. Many popular authors were rejected many times before finding a publisher who shared their vision. 4 novels in 4 years is impressive. Send them out to the universe, or you'll never know and regret it.

it's better to get rejected and learn from the mistakes, than to never try at all.

Matt Khourie I’ve been rejected by 3 of the 4 agents I queried to, all before watching how to make an actual query so don’t give up! I haven’t and neither should you!

Hi Matt, you can do it. I know you can. It just takes practice and breaking it down to being very short and to the point. :)

Hey Matt, how did the querying go?

Good luck querying.

Agreed!

Hi 👋I write ✍superhero movies to sell

I agree! Examples are a gamechanger.

I really like this

I tried to write a first page for critique thing on her blog, but that was a lot harder. Maybe for next summer.

A fellow organization lover! Lol. Organizers unite!!

I'm American and I've never heard query pronounced this way before. Hearing it made me wonder from where she hails.

Awesome! Query clinics sound fun.

I would say they would likely be very similar. They both serve the same purpose: to get someone interested in reading your story. You definitely don't want a dry, factual query letter.

What I did for the separation idea was try to figure out a motive that stays relatively close with how you wrote. It is like a musical piece... the theme may vary or change throughout the piece, but it is still the theme nonetheless. I hope this helps, a year later.

Intriguing question. I would think the pitch section would describe (briefly) the connecting theme of the stories and perhaps mention a few plot lines from the stories. Or perhaps outline the conflict that runs through the collection - if one exists.

Good question! I struggled with this on the first novel I wrote too. I learned these are the basic types of conflicts almost all stories can be categorized into: Man vs. Self. ... Man vs. Man. ... Man vs. Society. ... Man vs. Nature. ... Man vs. Machine. ... Man vs. Fate/Supernatural. A brief description of what each one means is here: education.seattlepi.com/types-conflict-can-found-narrative-3739.html A story can have more than one of these conflicts (many do), but your story should fit with at least one of these. My main character has a lot of personal baggage, so that's Man vs. Self, and he's fighting a black hole (of all things) so that's Man vs. Nature. Lol I hope you can find your story's main conflict in one of these! If so, it'll help guide you in how to build suspense, twists, and tension into your story by studying other stories with that type of conflict.

@@xzonia1 Thanks!

No problem! :)

I cover all that in the second video "Query Letters Part 2."

So you just go right in to the description of the manuscript first without introduction and put the bio last? I'm very confused lol

Then you should mention 3-4 most important characters and for the series you could mention that it's first book of 6 part series in the last para.

BTW this is a 110,000 science fiction novel for adults... I don't commonly see illustrations in that section of the bookstore, which makes me sad.

Some swearing shouldn't be a problem so long as it's coming from the voice of the character and isn't gratuitous or inappropriate for the genre.

scomorthegreat That was a good fucking question

I swore in mine (the query for Anchor). I don't think it's shown in the video, but there's a "fucked" in the written-out version on her blog. Fair warning: swearing in a query letter will be a instant reject for some agents. But my general philosophy is that any agent who would rejected based on swearing in a query is... probably not going to enjoy my MS very much regardless ;-)

You can go online to find literary agents and the agencies they work for. Most are done online these days whether through an online form or an email you'd send to the agent or agency typically with a brief synopsis, word count, a bio if you have one (like if it were a non-fiction work, what qualifies you to have written the book or if fiction, have you any writing accolades with publishing short stories, part of any writers workshops etc). Queries are always free, if you're being asked to pay, run away and never look back, because they're a scam. The process is simple, but don't be discouraged by rejections or non-responses because there will likely be a whole lot of them.

Have you found the answer? (We're on the same page)

That's a great question with a BIG answer. :) My quick answer is that your pitch captivated them. If you write a great pitch section (where you describe your story) and you targeted an agent that represents your genre and likes your type of story, then you will almost certainly get a manuscript request. I just started a series on query letters. Here is the link if you want to check it out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-v6oUuTQqQLc.html

Yup. If you look at MSWLs you'll find that the vast majority are looking for novels like you've mentioned. It's disheartening to some of us. Wrote my book a long time ago and life happened and now I'm back at it. But the trends are against me. A character is gay, but my protagonist is male and not gay.

Jeffrey www.google.com

I consider it a pitch, a letter of influence with the purpose of convincing the agent to request part or all of the manuscript to review.

People publish all kinds of things.

@@5050TM What a useless reply. SJWs have taken over YA publishing; it's patently obvious. Who is NOT publishing their propaganda crap? That's who I am looking for.

@@voodoogroove8209 Literally all you have to do is search the internet for agents accepting your genre and avoid the agents who ONLY publish "strong female" novels. If your book is good, you'll find an agent. The shelves aren't just filled with "sjw" novels. I will add: No one can just list you out names of agents, especially based on barely any info. You need to either look yourself, or continue to be stuck in pessimism because no one change how many agents want a certain thing by complaining online. It's ineffective and pointless. If all else fails, there is self publishing. I would recommend to write some short stories and submit them around first and create a website to gain a following, if you have not already, before self publishing.

The car accident itself is a seemingly minor story element and happens just before the beginning as a way to set up the hospital visit. Alice herself tries to explain to her mom over the phone on the way there that worrying about it too much is silly. I guess you could say it sets everything into motion though. It's all first chapter stuff and she plays pretty much no part in the story other than some flashbacks. I did have an idea for a bit later on, a sort of prequel starring her daughter with the two in it. On the clones yes, I know it sounds insane but all fifteen remain characters throughout the story. The way it sort of works is they all have something unique to them, mostly in what they do as a means of survival but also in that most of them are either suffering from genetic disorders due to the malfunctioning cloning machine. As the machine produced the clones it began to fail. Even as it tried to correct it's mistakes they sort of piled up as each new clone was finished. It was sort of rapid fire, like a printer. Imagine the seen where the machine rebuilds Lelu in The Fifth Element but it just keeps remaking her over and over but starts to breakdown by the fourth clone while desperately trying to correct it's mistakes with each new clone. For example, despite having all of the same memories and personalities one has an uncontrollable stutter causing her to remain quiet a lot, one has heightened aggression due to a chemical imbalance, one suffers from an astigmatism, one has asthma which is made worse due to the pollution in the city. The fifteenth clone is the most unique in that as the final clone as machine began to fail, she looks like the rest but has white hair and violet eyes and her memories aren't fully mapped and developed like the rest. Her brain works as a sort of biological super computer capable of insane, fast calculative abilities. Only three of the clones are exact genetic clones in every way with no genetic disorders and even they differ from one another in what roles they play in the story. The first clone is the main character and sort of the special clone in that she has enhanced, super human abilities (Think Captain America style). All of them start using nicknames as well. Because of this they all have very different paths and interactions with each other and the world and begin to diverge as people as they experience life in different ways. The first story mainly focuses on clone one and two and the daughter of the woman they were cloned from creating this really bizarre dynamic. At it's core the first book would be largely about the characters interactions amidst the backdrop of a heist themed story. I thought about that quickly written practice query I wrote and decided it needs a lot of revision as it does't get across the first story very well, it more covers the overall story. I had planned it to be an ongoing series. I'm a turbo amateur and i'm learning as I go. Thankfully i've learned a lot over the past few months but i've still got a long way to go. Practice, practice, practice.

Absolutely any advice and or criticism is helpful and I appreciate the time you took to respond to me a lot. I didn't expect it but it's very welcome. I was thinking a lot about it over the weekend. A good mystery or two would be great for the story. The initial idea all started with a story about a person is cloned so many times and the clones are the focus of the story. The first chapter sets everything up with the car accident. The second chapter is when things officially get crazy. There would be a lot of questions and answers flying around over the next few chapters but I want to set up some foreshadowing and unanswered questions too. The first story wouldn't have a main antagonist and instead come down to a heist which itself would spark the next book (fingers crossed) which would have what I hope and pray would be not only a threatening antagonist but a fun if not tragic one. And beyond that we have an even bigger bad but i'm still fleshing that stuff out, I want it to be a good one. I have a lot of lore to keep track of too. And yes, while the focus of the story would mainly follow clone one, clone two and the war vet daughter the rest of the clones would be the B Story. If I can make it work i'd like to continue their stories over more books and the focus might change from story to story. For example, one book might focus on only one character while the next might focus on a couple with a B Story and the next might be full on ensemble. I plotted out a very rough mental outline in my head of what three books might look like and it goes a lil something like that. I think one of the main story elements I want to go in on though is how they all become a family. Not just the clones but the daughter of the woman they were cloned from as well as others. If I can make it work that is. It's so much more complicated in my head. I told myself to just start with this other idea I had, a sort of spooky paranormal story that's like a cross between Kolchak the Nightstalker, Paranormal and Scooby Doo. It's a lot simpler in some ways. But i'm really in love with the clone story. Thanks for your time and the links, i'm going to be reading them after this. Take care.

Forgot to mention that I'm glad to see your videos back.