The Anatomy of a Successful Query

with guest blogger Jessica Alvarez.

Thank you for having me guest blog on Seekerville today! I’m going on my seventeenth year in publishing and I must have seen thousands of queries in that time. As an agent, I’ve written my fair share of queries too. One of the biggest misconceptions I hear is that publishing is all about who you know. This might be shocking to hear but in seventeen years, I have never gotten a new author through a pitch session. Up until this year, I had never gotten a new author through a contest. One author through a contest in seventeen years! So how do I find new authors? Through queries. Next to having a great manuscript, the query is your single most important tool in finding an agent or editor. 

I’m going to give you a peek at the query that led to Seekerville’s Tina Radcliffe becoming my client. You’ll see where it all began and what she did right. After that, I’ll give you a look at a terrible query to highlight some common mistakes. Let’s dig in and get to Tina’s query:

Dear Ms. Alvarez,

Literary Agent Natasha Kern and fellow author Terri Reed have recommended I email you. I am currently published with Harlequin Love Inspired. My last three-book contract was fulfilled recently with Second Chance Cowboy which will release in December 2016. I have sold seven books to Love Inspired since 2007.

My editor and I have worked together on a concept that I am ready to submit. It is a proposal for a four-book series, called Second Chance Ranch. It is a children’s ranch for orphaned, abused and neglected children. It is owned and operated by the orphaned Maxwell siblings: Lucy, Travis & Emma. 

Her Temporary Cowboy is the first book of the series for Harlequin Love Inspired. Ranch director Lucy Maxwell has spent her entire life caring for others. Second Chance Ranch is her life. Much of the ranch’s funding comes from the foundation of millionaire, Meredith Brisbane. When Meredith’s cynical nephew, Jackson Tucker, takes over as in-house counsel for the foundation, he objects to the donations to the ranch and butts head with the ranch director. Lucy challenges Jack to see where the money goes, and his aunt thinks that’s a splendid plan.  Jack’s planning a visit to the ranch and instead ends up lassoed into being a temporary cowboy for the summer. The gruff city attorney finds himself on a trail ride in the middle of nowhere and being followed around by five-year-old orphan and triplet, Dub Lewis. Working with Jack on a daily basis, Lucy wonders exactly what she got herself into. When Jack’s hardened heart begins to crack, she has to remind herself that he won’t be around for long. No one is more surprised than Jack when he realizes that Second Chance Ranch has irrevocably changed him. He’s fallen in love with Lucy and Dub. He’ll do everything he can to win her trust, and make her open her heart to the possibility of becoming a family.

I’ve been a member of RWA and ACFW. I am a two-time Golden Heart finalist, a two-time Carol Award finalist, and a 2014 Carol Award winner. My 2015 release, Safe in the Fireman's Arms, is the recipient of the Holt Medallion Merit Award and is a Bookseller's Best Award finalist. Additionally, I write short stories and have sold over twenty short romances to Woman’s World Magazine. I also manage a thirteen-author blog, which is a four-time Writer's Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers award recipient. Seekerville has recently hit the two million views mark.

At this time I hope to partner with for someone for long-term career planning. Thanks so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Tina Radcliffe

CONTACT INFO REDACTED

Admittedly, Tina had a leg up when querying me. The first thing she does in her letter is mention that she was referred by a client of mine and another agent. If you have a referral, USE it. It won’t get you an automatic request, but it will certainly grab an agent’s attention. 

The other great thing Tina did right away was mention her publishing history. Some people like to close with that information, and that’s fine, but always include specifics. If I get a query that says “I’ve had several books published in the past” or, even worse “I’ve published books under another name”, I don’t know if they’re self-published, traditionally published, with a vanity press or, in the latter example, even what name they’re under. If the information isn’t there, it could be an oversight, but it makes me wonder if there’s a reason you’re hiding that info. 

One thing to note, you don’t need a referral or publishing credits to grab an agent. The vast majority of my clients had neither. They sent me a regular ol’ query. 

As for the blurb paragraphs, Tina starts off with a bit about the series. Personally, I prefer to save that info for after the blurb. But, in this case, it works with the paragraph above it.

The main blurb tells me title, where it is in the series, and which publisher it’s aimed at—all good info to have. Note, if you’ve written a single-title romance, you don’t need to tell me it’s been written with Bethany House in mind. But, if you’re writing category-length, it’s helpful to know where you think that book might fit. Arguably, the agent reading the query should know, but when I see a query for a 50,000-word romance and you don’t tell me it’s aimed at Harlequin, I don’t know if you realize that it’s category-length and you have limited options. Plenty of writers are unaware that most single-title romance is at least 80,000 words. 

For the rest of Tina’s blurb paragraph, if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t say this is the most amazing blurb ever, but it gets the job done. It shows me an understanding of her market, introduces the protagonists and their conflict. I generally prefer to see a blurb that doesn’t mention the names of secondary characters, but it’s fine here because they’re important to the story.

And, finally, Tina closes it out politely and with her contact info. That’s all you need to do. 

On the other hand, let’s take a look at a bad query (I wrote this myself).

Dear Stephany Gomez:

I am writing you because I’ve always wanted to be a writer. My parents, and friends have always told me what a good writer I am. This book’s about a boy who falls in love with a girl when they both go to the same party. It is 130 pages long and I put it up on Amazon to see if people would like it. I’ve only sold five copies so I think I need you to publish it. 

Thank you,

Jennifer Martin

I know this is obviously bad, but there are slightly better queries that fail for many of the same reasons. First, get the agent’s name right. Mistakes happen, but proofread, please!

The other big fail here is telling me that everyone thinks she’s a good writer. Trust me on this: no query was ever improved by a writer telling an agent that her parents think the book is good. Unless your mother is Nora Roberts, her opinion isn’t worth zilch to an agent. 

Next problem, the story sounds like every other romance out there. You need to make your story sound unique and special. That is the number one reason why I pass on projects. 

The last two sentences fail in every way. Including the page count instead of word count is the mark of an amateur. Also, please, don’t put a book up on Amazon as a trial. Self-publishing is a valid option and if that’s what you want to do, that’s fine, but once it’s up there, your chances of getting an agent or traditional book deal for that same book have shrunk exponentially. If self-publishing fails, your best bet is to sit down and write a new book before querying. 

And the final fail is that she’s addressing an agent as if she were an editor. An agent helps you find a publisher for your book, but doesn’t actually publish it. Not being aware of the difference is another indication the author is an amateur.

What I want everyone to take away from this is that it’s your query that will help get you an agent much more than a pitch appointment or contest win. Get down to polishing those queries and send them out! 

In the meantime, I’ll be answering questions in the comments, so please share some problems you run into with your queries and I’ll do my best to help.  

Jessica Alvarez is a Senior Literary Agent at BookEnds. After ten years as an editor, she joined BookEnds in 2011. She began her publishing career as an editorial assistant at Harlequin where she had the opportunity to acquire and edit a wide array of fiction, specializing in historical romance and inspirational romance. Jessica left Harlequin in 2008 to pursue freelance editing, and completed projects for various publishers, including Thomas Nelson. You can learn more at bookendsliterary.com. 

Seekerville is giving away a $20 Amazon gift card to one of today's commenters in honor of Jessica's visit. So stick around, ask all those burning questions and let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Winner announced in the Weekend Edition.