Writing A Great Query Letter

by literary agent Jim McCarthy

I won’t lie. When I volunteered to write a blog entry for this conference, I thought grabbing “writing the perfect query” was going to be the easiest topic.

Now that I sit down to actually write said entry, I realize that telling someone how to get a query right is nearly impossible.

Step 1: Write an amazing book.
Step 2: Capture what makes the work brilliant in three or four parapraphs.

I mean…I know that’s not helpful. And that’s why so many people writing about the subject focus on what not to do:

• Don’t send something out you haven’t proofread.
• Don’t send to someone who doesn’t represent your genre.
• Don’t address the letter to “Dear Agent,”
• Don’t call me Ms. McCarthy because that just makes me feel weird.
• Don’t cc: the entire world on a single query.

The fact is, if you’re taking part in this, you already know these things. So what can I tell you that will be helpful?

Well, my first recommendation is to read a whole lot of cover copy. Go to a bookstore, grab a bunch of books that you think would appeal to the same general audience as yours, and read the cover flap. How do publishers try to grab a reader’s attention in such a short space? There are a lot of familiar tricks that can prove helpful, and boning up on them can’t hurt.

While you’re there, look at the acknowledgments. Most authors thank their agents (AS THEY SHOULD!! ), and it will serve you well when you decide who to submit to.

Do try to personalize each letter just a little bit. When someone tells me that one of my clients is a favorite of theirs, it’s not going to make me request their book automatically, but if I’m on the fence, it might tip the scales. Flattery gets you everywhere. Unless you’re creepy about it! Gentlemen, telling female agents that they’re attractive is not helpful—it just makes them forward your queries to coworkers and say they’re mildly frightened.

Do try to stick to a page. We know that you can’t capture everything about your book in a single letter. If you could, that would actually be a bad sign. Try to break it down as much as possible—what’s the most central storyline? What characters grow the most? What about your book makes it different and more exciting than the other things we’ll read before and after it?

Write with confidence but not cockiness. Two things I don’t like: queries that tell me how awesome a book is and queries that suggest that the author isn’t sure why their book is special, but they still hope you’ll love it. The query is a business letter more than an artistic expression. We’re looking for clean and concise descriptions that make us curious for more. Dazzling writing and impactful descriptions usually need to wait for the material itself.

Brace for rejection. Every writer gets rejected. Every. Single. One. You have to be ready to go in guns blazing and not let fear and discouragement get you down. I could give you the statistics for what percentages of material get requested or accepted, but they’re not encouraging. But what I’ll say is this: as I brace myself for the 13th anniversary of my joining Dystel & Goderich, I…feel old. Sorry—I distracted myself. What I meant was, after 13 years, I still have a lot of optimism that the best material does eventually rise to the top IF authors remain persistent and use every opportunity to grow. We’ve all heard about people whose first novel gets snatched up in seven seconds and sells the next day, but the only reason we hear those stories is that they’re so uncommon. The fact is, it’s a super-competitive business, so you have to really want it, and you have to keep going until you get it.

So brace yourselves. It’s a bumpy ride, but when you can go to your high school reunion and brag that you have a book out through Random House, it’ll all be worth it!

Jim McCarthy interned for DGLM while studying urban design at New York University. Upon graduating in 2002, Jim realized he would much rather continue working with books than make the jump (as he had originally intended) to the field of city planning.

As an avid fiction reader, his interests encompass both literary and commercial works in the adult and young adult categories. He is particularly interested in literary women’s fiction, underrepresented voices, mysteries, romance, paranormal fiction, and anything unusual or unexpected. In addition to fiction he is also interested in narrative nonfiction, memoir, and paranormal nonfiction.

Jim was raised just outside of NYC and currently lives in Manhattan.