Querying Tips

Let's rewind a little and focus on the very first words in your query letter. In this post, I'll talk about how best to address a literary agent in a query letter, and things to avoid doing.

It's time for Tip Number 2 in my Querying Tips Series. This time, I'm talking about the query letter itself. In this post, my advice is: keep your query letter short.

I want to offer a series of useful tips for any writers heading into the querying process based on things I've seen in the submissions I've received. My first tip in this series is: Follow submission guidelines.

The bio paragraph in a query letter. You’ve done the hard work of crafting your pitch, and now all that’s left to do is the bio paragraph. Easy, right? Well, not everyone thinks it is! I’m here to tell you a strong bio paragraph doesn’t need to be impressive or clever. It just needs to be clear and professional.

Rejection. A horrible word that nobody wants to face, but one which those of us in the publishing industry encounter regularly. At times, rejections will float into your inbox in a quiet email, often disguised in polite words, but that doesn’t stop the sting; at other times, they’ll be lost in radio silence. Both kinds damage your confidence and leave you questioning everything, but I’ve learned that rejection isn’t a reflection of a writer’s work.

What is a metadata paragraph? And why do you need one in a query letter? What should it include? This post takes a closer look.