Writing a Query or Covering Letter to a Literary Agent

Writing a Query or Covering Letter to a Literary Agent

What is a Query or Covering Letter?

A query or covering letter [1] is your entry point to the traditional publishing world. In most cases, publishing houses do not accept unsolicited manuscripts or, at least, any manuscripts not endorsed and represented by an agent, especially so for the Big Five publishers.

The query letter is a one-page note asking a literary agent if they’re interested in representing your book ‒ and getting them excited about it. Securing an agent for your manuscript is the first step in your publishing journey if you’re going along the traditional publishing route. Agents may receive hundreds of queries a month, and they might only sign four or five authors per year. This means your query letter is a significant document.

The Challenge

A query letter is about making a good impression and generating interest. The goal is to sell your story, and then yourself. The challenge is to condense the essence of your entire book into approximately 300 to 400 words at most. Keep the letter short and to the point.  It’s recommended that you write no more than a page.

The Format

There’s no standard format that all authors use for their letters. However, a query is a business document and as such should look like a formal one-page business letter.

Set the margins to 2.54 cm (one inch) an all sides. Block format the text, left-justify and use double-space between paragraphs.

Don’t handwrite the query letter. Type it on white paper using a black, 12-point standard font, like Times New Roman, Arial or Courier, nothing unusual, exotic or flouncy.

Format with your address, email and telephone number at the top of the page, right justified. Next, type the agent or publisher’s address, this time left justified.

Add the date below that on a separate line.

Use a personalised greeting where you acknowledge the agent by name.

The Structure

Keep the body of your query letter from three to five paragraphs.

Paragraph One: 

Start with the reason why you’ve written the letter: it’s topic and purpose. Mention your book’s title (in italics or in quotation marks), genre, word count and target audience. The word count is an essential piece of information. Provide a very brief one-sentence summary of the book and why you wrote it.

This paragraph is your opportunity to hook the literary agent and make them pay attention. Your hook should show them how your book is different from the thousands of others in your genre. If you’ve published before, you may want to mention that upfront.

Share any connection you have with the agent or add a referral from an established author or a publishing insider. Personalise the letter to the agent by referencing their existing clients or quoting something the agent has written or said in public.

Paragraphs Two and Three: 

Now that you’ve hooked the agent, it’s time to summarise your story. Provide a somewhat longer introduction to the book. (Do not include too many details here; they belong in the synopsis. [2]) You may need more than one paragraph for this. Explain what your book is about and why a reader will feel compelled to read it.

The ‘what’ element is about information: discuss your settings, your premise, your main characters (no more than three or four) and outline the plot. Show the conflict of the story as much as possible.

The ‘why’ element is about the emotional themes, tensions and atmosphere in the story. Agents want to see the connections between characters, their relationships, etc. Don’t give away the entire plot, though. Leave the agent wanting more and eager to learn about the outcome.

Paragraph Four: 

Add your biographic information, but make sure it’s relevant to writing. Briefly indicate why you are uniquely qualified to write the book and what separates you from other authors; it’s especially important if you’ve written non-fiction.

Mention any critical recognition or awards you’ve received for your previous work. Refer to your writing credentials (e.g. education, courses and conferences) and related writing experience, i.e. your writing history. Detail the names of authors with whom you may have studied. This is a good tactic to use if you don’t have many publishing credits.

If you are writing a series, you should say so. Agents will like the fact that you recognise the series potential of your work and that you are committed to taking the steps needed to develop it.

Paragraph Five:

Write the closing statements. Tell the agent why you have chosen to send the query letter to them. Mention what drew you to them and why you think you would be a good fit as one of their clients. Be as specific as possible.

Indicate that you have understood the submission guidelines and, if you like, list what you have attached in the submission package (given you’re doing so by email). Thank the agent for their time and consideration. Sign off with a simple closing, such as Sincerely, Cordially, Warmly, etc.

What you should do when writing a Query Letter

Use short paragraphs and short sentences, when possible. Make it easy for the agent to read your letter by writing clearly and concisely.

Your query letter should be written in a similar tone to your narrative. Write it so that it embodies the spirit of your book.

Make sure that your hook and summary make up around half of your query letter.

Your query letter must be error-free and written in a focused, professional and realistic style. Show the agent that you can write well.

You can list possible readers demographics, e.g. “Readers of Stephen King and Dean Koontz will be drawn to my story.”

Research agents so you can personalise your query. Show the agent that you put in the time and have targeted them in your search for the right agent for your book. 

Try to indicate why you’re pitching your book to that specific agent. Whether the agent represents other authors you love or the same genre as your book, it helps if your book is a good fit with their area of interest.

Follow submission guidelines. Be careful about reading agents’ individual guidelines; they vary. Their specific requirements will always be spelt out for you at their websites.

Address each specific agent by name if possible. Using a “to whom it may concern” address is unprofessional and careless.

Above all, before you even write a query letter, it’s essential to have a completed and polished manuscript or a non-fiction book proposal with 30 to 50 polished sample pages.

Mention that your book has been reviewed by a professional editor and copy editor. Agents love that; it makes you appear more serious about your writing and it adds more weight to your query letter.

What you should not do when writing a Query Letter

Don’t go beyond one page; it’s presumptuous and unprofessional.

Don’t oversell your book or sound arrogant; it’s rude and agents don’t appreciate the attitude.

Don’t self-deprecate or be overly modest, either. If you don’t believe in you book, why should the agent?

Don’t forget to include your SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope), unless you’re emailing your query and expecting an email response

Don’t turn your bio into a memoir. Only discuss information that is directly relevant to the novel you’re pitching.

Final Thoughts

Aside from the near constant rejection writers face (persevere!), crafting the perfect query letter is one of the hardest parts of trying to get published. Writing it might feel even more daunting than authoring your novel, but it doesn’t need to be. Use guidelines in this post to get your query letter noticed by a busy literary agent and get closer to achieving your publishing goals.

Please review the services I offer to learn more about how I can help you prepare your manuscript and query letter. Contact me at email: renellj@proofperfect.co.nz or M: +64 29 1230 158.

………………………

 [1] In New Zealand, Australia and the UK, authors, publishers and literary agents tend to use the term ‘covering letter’, whereas in the USA and Canada, its commonly referred to as a ‘query letter’. It is the same thing.

[2] The synopsis is a separate document that forms part of your submission package. It is a short summary of your story in its entirety (including the ending and any twists) that follows the same broad structure as your novel. It is usually about 500 to 800 words in length.

Guidelines for Writing a Memoir People want to Read

Guidelines for Writing a Memoir People want to Read

Although based on actual events, memoir is more like fiction than non-fiction. To be publishable, a memoir must make use of fiction techniques that pull the reader along and elicit an emotional response. A good memoir begins with the author’s perspective but doesn’t end there. It leaves the reader with a decision to make or an action to take.

If you are not a celebrity, you need to be able to write extremely well in order to place a memoir with a publisher. Memoirs can be very complex pieces of work.

Memoir vs. Autobiography

First-person accounts of people’s lives are often categorised into two main genres: autobiography and memoir. An autobiography covers the trajectory of an entire life, while a memoir is just one story from that life.

An autobiography spans one’s entire life; it’s much like a ‘historical document’ and is more formal than a memoir because it strives for factual accuracy. Autobiographies often tell stories close to or exactly how they happened, which means they often feature straightforward language and chronological narration. Autobiographies usually cover multiple themes. There’s not just one life lesson learned, but many; not just one significant event covered, but several.

A memoir usually revolves around one or few significant memories; it’s rarely all-encompassing. Where autobiographies emphasise facts, memoirs focus on personal experience, intimacy and emotional truth. These most often concern a specific time, or an event, or series of events, or a choice that changed the course of a person’s life, all of which are tied together with one theme. A memoir is heavily thematic, and this overriding subject is often the moral, i.e. the lesson learned, or a significant transformation of self (e.g. finding out you’re adopted, or losing a leg to a shark attack), as examples.

The requirement for a strong autobiography is a life that’s out of the ordinary in some way, whereas a memoir can be about an ordinary existence told with profound insight; it doesn’t depend on having lived a traumatic, eventful or dramatic life.

Choose a theme

The starting point for writing memoir is to pick a theme, occasionally more than one, from your life that you feel is worth writing about. A theme is a universal idea we all grapple with, something anyone can understand; it answers the question, “What is this memoir about?” Having a theme not only helps your reader connect to your work, but also makes the writing process much easier.

What you shouldn’t do when writing a memoir is tell a bunch of stories tentatively connected in some way. A memoir is more than that. Good narrative non-fiction always connects the reader to a deeper truth. Use your theme to tie events together and include only those stories that illustrate the theme.

Narrow your focus and develop a plot line

Identify one or perhaps a few events in your life to develop the plot line, the story you tell to illustrate the theme, the ‘big universal thing’ your story is about. ‘You’, as the subject, is not what the story is about. The story is about something universal and you are its illustration.

Of course, our lives are not comprised of solitary, isolated bundles of experience. Rather, the repercussions of our life choices and events all form threads which bind together to create experience. But it is necessary to select one or a core few to focus the plot around.

According to highly regarded academic, teacher and writer William Zinsser: “My final [reducing] advice can be summed up in two words: think small. Don’t rummage around in your past — or your family’s past — to find episodes that you think are ‘important’ enough to be worthy of including in your memoir. Look for small self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you still remember them it’s because they contain a universal truth that your readers will recognize from their own life.” [1]

Establish a story arc. The best way to accomplish that in a memoir is by showing how you, the main character, grew and changed as a person. Even though it’s a story about your life, it still has to have some of the elements and structure of fiction to make it compelling. You need character development, a compelling struggle and a resolution.

Your memoir is not all about ‘you’

Your memoir should focus more on a story than simply your own subjective experience. It should be about the lesson you’ve learned and your insights that can be share with others. Readers will become bored hearing only about you; it’s too egotistical. But don’t ram your lessons down their throat, either; be subtle.

A memoir is about something bigger than you. It’s about a part of life we can all connect to. Your story’s details are conveyed in such a way that readers can enjoy the universal elements within your own personal experience.

Don’t begin at the beginning

It’s recommended that you start your memoir from the end or at the point of highest drama. Don’t tell your story chronologically; that’s too predictable. And don’t include every detail of your life. Readers become impatient with memoirs that meander through a backstory to get to the interesting parts. Some memoirists find it helpful to start from the end of their story first. Write about how you got to where you are.

Or, begin your memoir with an incident that is powerful and makes an impact. Even if this means beginning in the middle of the story, you can retell events out of chronological order. Perhaps start with the major turning point, and cycle back to explain how you came to that point later, or simply progress from this point to the resolution.

Be honest and fair

Vanity and self-obsession can ruin your memoir. Don’t embellish try to make yourself look better or appear more interesting, or ignore your own flaws and faults, or fabricate to justify your past. Doing so makes your memoir sound biased or even self-pitying. Memoir demands that you write about what really happened and what you’ve learned. It’s about retrospection, trying to figure things out, about exploring the truth as seen through your eyes.

The value of your story is in its raw and vulnerable honesty. It’s okay to be human and it’s required when writing a memoir. Readers will sense when you’re lying anyway. Your memoir should strive for your personal emotional truths, and it should feel far more personal that an autobiography.

What to keep and what to cut

Carefully choose what to leave in your memoir and what to cut. The most important elements to keep are any concerning transformation, growth or transcendence. It’s a minimum requirement of the genre. Don’t confuse transcendence in this context with a religious or spiritual experience: it’s more about progressing, even evolving.

It is important to understand the turning points (i.e. the events which have inspired the memoir) which are significant to the story and require deep examination to succinctly convey their emotional significance.

Make your book episodic, describing in detail events that are of interest or highly poignant to your story. Cut all meaningless details and the mundane (unless it is an intrinsic part of building the scene) which have no relation to your overarching theme. What this means is that at times you may have to skip forward months or even years in your narrative to deliver only the aspects which are relevant to the wider message you want to convey to your readers. A memoir can have a short or long timespan. The events could happen in days or over a lifetime, but the focus must remain on those events and be tied to the theme.

Have a target audience

Not everyone will enjoy or be drawn to your memoir, and that’s understood. You’re not trying to reach all readers, only those who relate to or benefit from your story. Write for that target audience as if you’re speaking directly to them. Memoir readers are not interested in rambling, self-indulgent pieces. Memoir readers tend to prefer:

  • A sympathetic main character
  • Vividly depicted scenes
  • Emotional tension
  • Increasing sense of drama/conflict
  • A satisfying ending

They like evocative content that provide a glimpse into someone else’s life. They want writing that enlightens them on experiences which they may not have had, and with a moral, a lesson or a message attached.  

Don’t use real names

Whenever possible, use a pseudonym rather than the real name of a character in your memoir. Also avoid sharing easily identifiable information about the ‘characters’ you mention.  This is the one time when it’s better to blur the truth. Using real names can get you in a lot of trouble and become a legal wrangle. You could face a defamation lawsuit even if you’re telling the truth. Just as serious, you could damage close relationships by your portrayal of them.

Editing is essential

Most of us don’t have the objectivity or, perhaps, the skill needed to strip away parts of our story to find the true turning point or the core of our truth. Even though you have distance from the events in your memoir, it’s still a part of your experience.

That’s where an editor plays a role. Because memoirs are so personal, you need a fresh, impartial perspective to help you create a stronger narrative. I can help you fine-tune your memoir ‒ developing a theme, selecting life events, learning writing technique and so forth.  Contact me to discuss your project. M: +64 29 1230 158 and email: renellj@proofperfect.co.nz

Final Thoughts

Keep in mind that a memoir doesn’t necessarily need to be strictly about your own life. It can also be about a person other than the writer, or about a given place, or it can be a ‘hybrid memoir’ combining a personal story with other non-fiction subject areas; it can cross genres, too.

Renowned authors Jeanette Winterson and Helen Macdonald state that a memoir does have to ‘fit the genre’ ‒ it can cover more than one genre if the writer is skilled. Nor does a memoir have to “conform to chronological order; both [authors’] books whip sometimes furiously from past to present, in an order set by a progression of emotions and themes, not constrained by a linear idea of time”. [2]

[1] ‘How to Write a Memoir’ by William Zinsser, The American Scholar, 12 May 2015: https://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-write-a-memoir/#.XcEicDMzYT5

[2] ‘How to write a memoir: Jeanette Winterson and Helen Macdonald’, by Alex Clark and Sian Cain, The Guardian: 4 June 2015: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/04/how-to-write-a-memoir-jeanette-winterson-and-helen-macdonald