Arguably (and I'm sure arguing it) the most important piece of any manuscript submission is the query letter. Now don't get smart with me, of course you need a solid manuscript to send in, but in order for your publishing company of choice to even look at your story with any amount of seriousness, you've got to grab their attention, lasso it with a rope of intrigue and brilliant writing. They've got to instantly be dialed in to your query letter from the first sentence.
Now, I'm not going to write an entire guide to writing these book maker/breakers, I'll let others who want to put in a lot more effort than me do that, but I will offer a couple pieces of advice. The first one?
- Follow a widely accepted format. You're not going to grab attention with a complicated and hard to understand letter. All you will do is tick of the people you want to be on good terms with. Logic tells us this is not the best course to take, like kicking a sleeping chimpanzee in the mouth that just had its wisdom teeth removed.
- Get to the point quick. Don't use fifteen words when ten will do just fine. You want to be clear, but concise. Tell the story of your book in the summary in full. Publishers want to here it. Though you want to be careful that you don't spoil the end. Leave them wanting more, but wanting it because the story has interested them, not just because they don't know what happens really at all.
- Match the tone of your book. If your submission is non-fiction, then type a business-like formal query. If your book is a humorous fiction piece, then write the piece in a funny way, while still adhering to the basic guidelines for a query letter.
Yup, that's pretty much it. If mine gets accepted 12 weeks from now, I might post it up here for you guys to see. Because by then, it doesn't matter if it's completely barbaric or not, because it got accepted. Assume if I haven't mentioned anything about it, it's because doing so would cause severe emotional trauma for me (it having been rejected) , and possibly you. I'm sure I could find a way to sorrow about it through a blog post, and neither of us wants that.
Tata for now!
TJ Meanea
Works Cited
Most advice for writing these letters came from the following websites. Visit them for more info.
http://markjayharris.weebly.com/the-secrets-to-writing-a-killer-query-letter.html (That one has language) [as in bad language, of course all pages have language you smart alec!]
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/03/secret-strength-of-killer-queries.html (This one is funny)
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