A query letter is your ticket to enter the world of publishing. It provides you an opportunity to hold an audience with a number of literary agents who are going to make it possible for you to get published. In order for you to be taken seriously, a query letter has to be solid.
A solid query letter makes sure that you are taken seriously and that your book gets the recognition it needs. If you have the manuscript ready for a potential best-seller but do not make an effort to write an engaging query letter, it will not get your book the attention it deserves.
There is a method to write a query letter that will get you positive responses. You can take cues from the following to make sure that your query letter hits the mark.
1. Take a Compelling Start
Your query letter should be designed in a way that takes a prominent and compelling start. It should make the reader stop for a second, and that is where you will get all of their attention focused on you. Once you have their undivided attention, your writing will make an impression.
However, a good query letter will have the ability to carry the strong start you took. You can do your research on query letters and look up some query letter examples to figure out your plan of attack. It is important that you do not miss your chance, and for that, you have to keep the reader engaged.
2. Provide All the Details
Your query letter should be concise; it should contain all the relevant information without dragging it on. It should make the reader feel like they are gaining something from it rather than a feeling of their time getting wasted.
To make sure your query letter avoids such a trajectory, you should take a strong start to grab the attention of the reader and then swiftly move on to talk about your book. You should introduce your book and lay out all the critical details.
These details will pertain to the word count of your book and the genre it falls under. Do a good job of introducing the title of your book to give it a presence.
3. Highlight All the Plus Points
Your query letter gives you an excellent chance to talk about your book; you can use the query letter to highlight all the features of your book. These can be things like what will make your book stand out from others and how it makes use of the storyline.
These plus points can help you paint a picture of success in the mind of an agent. After all, your writing should enable you to convince an agent who is just one individual if you plan to woo the readers with your book.
4. Do Your Research
Before you shoot out a query letter, you should take some time to do your research. Your query letter should not be generic. Rather, it should have a targeted approach. When you are looking to contact an agent, you should know what they like.
You should also know what genre they prefer to work with and what their process is. If you are able to align your query letter in a way that conforms to that particular agent, you will have a far greater chance of a conversion.
5. Show Off Your Writing Skills
Your query letter provides you with an excellent chance to show off your writing skills. It can be a great way to show how skilled you are with your words and how masterfully you can place them. As a writer, you have the ability to mold your words and give them emotions.
Your aim should be to give your query letter a voice that advocates for you; once you are able to grab the attention of an agent with your query letter, your writing should do the talking for you. A well-orchestrated query letter can make a strong case for your book.
6. Point Out Your Marketability
Another thing that you must not forget to incorporate in your query letter is the potential for marketability. To put it simply, your agent has a job to market your book to potential publishers, and you can highlight the strong points of your book to underline its marketability.
This way, your agent will start to think of all the ways to market your book, and that will automatically put you far ahead of your competition. In the end, your goal is to supersede all the other query letters that have landed in the mail for the agent of your choice.
7. Leave No Room for Mistakes
A mistake in your query letter will surely dispose of any chances of a conversion. Your query letter is the only form of contact you have when you are approaching an agent. This makes it far more crucial to make sure that there are no mistakes in your query letter.
A query letter with even one small mistake can put a frown on the face of an agent, and they might not even bother to read what you have to offer. To make sure this does not happen to you, you should make a conscious effort to check your query letter for any potential mistakes.
You can also take the additional step of having your query letter proofread and edited by a professional editor to remove any chance of a lingering mistake.
8. Use Strong Suggestive Techniques
In your query letter, you have to follow a pattern and stay professional. There is an accepted way of formatting a query letter. You start with a strong opening followed by a brief but complete introduction to your book, enlisting all the technical details.
Afterward, you move on to talk about how your book can stand out from other books pertaining to the same genre. This will provide the agent with a faint idea of a road map on how to tackle the matter of publishing your book. Finally, to finish it off, you should urge the agent to consider your book.
