Email query formatting?

The sample pages are put below your signature and contact information, and it's helpful if you put in a line or other break. The sample is single spaced, with a forced break between each paragraph. Send the email to yourself before you send it out to make sure it looks right.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

What the squirrel said. I normally paste into Notepad to get rid of the formatting and then paste into my email client. I also usually put --Sample Pages-- underneath my signature before pasting in (I've had some agents request both sample pages and a synopsis so I like to indicate where things begin).

I don't indent. Not sure if that's the norm. I've always just considered tabs part of formatting (which I strip out).

Most people don't indent, but it's not a big deal if you do.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

arkady: make sure that the email you sent is formatted as "Plain Text" rather than HTML or Rich Text, especially if you are using a program like Outlook. This will ensure that whatever application they use to read the email will not inflict its own weird formatting on the text of the message. Good luck!

Another question on this. I was sending my email query in the same format that I was using for snail mail queries. Query Shark had a recent post about using email query format. So, would this be putting your contact info under your name at the bottom? And what about the top? Anything above the salutation? The date maybe?

Thanks!

JamieB said:

Another question on this. I was sending my email query in the same format that I was using for snail mail queries. Query Shark had a recent post about using email query format. So, would this be putting your contact info under your name at the bottom? And what about the top? Anything above the salutation? The date maybe?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I've been writing email queries the same way I write professional emails at work: salutation at top, no date (since the email is dated and inboxes are usually organized by date received), contact information (address, phone number,etc) below my signature.

I could be doing it wrong, though. I just figured the rules I use on the job would suffice.

JamieB said:

Another question on this. I was sending my email query in the same format that I was using for snail mail queries. Query Shark had a recent post about using email query format. So, would this be putting your contact info under your name at the bottom? And what about the top? Anything above the salutation? The date maybe?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I saw Query Shark's post. Part of this is fairly agreed upon, others seem to be up in the air.

Query Shark is saying not to include her contact information in the query, since she knows who she is. Legitimate point and I understand her logic. However, as far as being the sender, I would like to have Query Shark's contact information so I know how to contact her by alternative means. It makes my filing simpler.

From the point of view of the receipt, I like having my contact information up top. If I get the contact info for John Doe and then the letter starts off Dear Jim, I can guess as to what might be the reason. It also further insures that I'm not getting a chain email.

As far as your contact information, agreement is that it goes at the bottom after your name.

Date is of dubious benefit as email is date stamped by the computer. And to be honest, I usually don't care when you sent it, I care when I got it.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

Speaking on behalf of the geeks (day job=IT consulting), these are all technically sound suggestions so kudos to all. I like the idea of sending the query to yourself, but remember even that may not reveal exactly what the agent is seeing. They may be reading the email on a browser, in Outlook, on a Mac, who knows. That's why plain text is best, but not quite perfect.

Can someone repost the url to Query Shark's email query format post?

elroy said:

Can someone repost the url to Query Shark's email query format post?

Click to expand...

http://queryshark.blogspot.com/2009/01/96.html

I have a question on email queries. When I pasted in my first three chpaters the page numbers and header did not show up and the text was all out of line. What am I doing wrong? Or do they try to read through all that?

Merchant Seaman said:

I have a question on email queries. When I pasted in my first three chpaters the page numbers and header did not show up and the text was all out of line. What am I doing wrong? Or do they try to read through all that?

Click to expand...

Don't worry about the page numbers in an in-line paste. Save the file as Rich Text Format (.rtf) and it'll paste clean.

Thanks for the info.