Addressing query letters

Taylor

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How should you address the agent in query letters?

I'm inclined to just put their name, so it looks like:

Dear Jane Paul,


But is that too informal? Should I be using "Mrs." or something like that?

Thanks!
 

MKrys

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I didn't do the whole Mrs. /Miss thing because I worried about offending someone in the case that they weren't married or had been divorced. I did as you have and addressed the agents by their full name minus a title.
 

Miss Plum

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I always write "Dear John Smith," etc. I've had my rejections and requests, and no one has ever complained about the way they were addressed!
 

heyjude

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I didn't do the whole Mrs. /Miss thing because I worried about offending someone in the case that they weren't married or had been divorced. I did as you have and addressed the agents by their full name minus a title.

I always use Ms. to avoid that.

Dear Ms. Agent,

...
 

Miss Plum

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I didn't do the whole Mrs. /Miss thing because I worried about offending someone in the case that they weren't married or had been divorced. I did as you have and addressed the agents by their full name minus a title.
Plus, it's not always clear from an agent's name what their gender is!
 

Mustafa

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I always use Mr. or Ms. But I always research the agent well enough to make sure you know their sex. It probably doesn't make a lot of difference if you use the full name. I also format each of my query letters so that they look like a formal letter, exactly how they'd look if I was mailing them out
 

Terie

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It's really pretty easy: If you're absolutely, positively, 100% sure of the agent's gender, use Mr or Ms, as appropriate. If you aren't, use the full name.
 

HoneyBadger

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I always use Mr. or Ms. But I always research the agent well enough to make sure you know their sex. It probably doesn't make a lot of difference if you use the full name. I also format each of my query letters so that they look like a formal letter, exactly how they'd look if I was mailing them out

Don't do this.

ORIGINAL
(author)
(address)
(city, state, zip)
(phone)
(email)


(date)


(agency)
(address)
(city, state, zip)

Dear Query Shark:


You've utterly wasted the first 14 lines of your email with information I don't need to see right away. DO NOT DO THIS. Put all your contact info at the end. You don't need to list my address. I know where I work.

You don't format an email query the same way you format a paper query.
You don't cut and paste the entire paper query into the email and just send it.

Queries by email have a specific form. Follow it. If you don't have a clue what it is, look it up!
 

Mustafa

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I suppose the same could be said with any formal letter, and yet that is the format one uses (with some differences to the one above for email) when sending a business letter, which is how I typically look at query letters.

I forget what blog I found the exact opposite information five years ago when I was looking for my agent. But perhaps it just said your letter should be professional, and I took that to mean everthing from tone to format. Regardless, it didn't seem to hurt, since I did sign with an agent. And when my agent sent proposals to editors, sometimes she'd send a very similar emails (though when she knew the editor personally the format was quite different), and again, that didn't stop her from selling three novels for me.

Alas, perhaps times have changed? I am on the query-go-round again, so maybe I need to rethink my methods if that's bothersome for agents.

It's common for business email in other industries (as I write about a dozen a day in my day-job).

Thanks for the link though.
 
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HoneyBadger

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Yes, times have changed tremendously. The number of agents who read queries on smartphones or tablets as grown, and if you make an agent scroll down (while thinking you don't know much about publishing today right now this second), you've just given them a tiny little "no," even if they don't know it consciously.

Any tiny thing that could annoy or show that you're not professional (which I'm not saying you are; you clearly want to be professional, which is fantastic, but email is email, hard letters and hard letters and most everything I've read says agents want you to know the difference.) is a no-go.

Here's another Janet Reid post on the matter.

If you are querying by email you do NOT put the agent's address OR YOURS, at the top. E-queries do NOT follow the standard business letter format you learned in stenography 101.

...

A lot of agents are reading queries on their smart phones, and every time an agent has to scroll down, you increase the chance they won't.
 

Mustafa

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Yes, times have changed tremendously. The number of agents who read queries on smartphones or tablets as grown, and if you make an agent scroll down (while thinking you don't know much about publishing today right now this second), you've just given them a tiny little "no," even if they don't know it consciously.

Any tiny thing that could annoy or show that you're not professional (which I'm not saying you are; you clearly want to be professional, which is fantastic, but email is email, hard letters and hard letters and most everything I've read says agents want you to know the difference.) is a no-go.

Here's another Janet Reid post on the matter.


good advice. Thanks.
 

IceCreamEmpress

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I tend to be "Dear Ms. Jones" for Leticia Jones, "Dear Mr. Smith" for Henry Smith, and "Dear Chris Davis" if I don't know Chris's gender.

Business emails should begin with a salutation, not with a date (which is in the email headers) or with both parties' snail-mail addresses (which is a convention for snail-mail, because snail-mail might get misdirected).