Free E-book: 21 Query Letters That Sold

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to introduce myself again because even though I've been a member of this wonderful community since 2005, I stopped being active a few years ago as life got busy, things piled up, blah blah blah... you know the spiel.

I've spent a decade as a freelance writer/journalist and traveled through four continents during that time, and now that I'm a little bit more "settled" I'm getting back into some of the communities that I loved and that meant so much to me.

Anyway, I wanted to let you guys know that I've just published a free e-book with 21 query letters of mine that sold to publications such as The New York Times, Time, Girls' Life, Ms., The Writer, Writer's Digest, and many more. You do need to sign up for the newsletter to get your free copy, but of course, if you hate it, you can always unsubscribe and send a stern letter.

Here's the link: http://www.mridukhullar.com/journal/ebook-queries/

I hope you'll enjoy both and I'm looking forward to becoming part of this community once again and getting to know all the new members.

- Mridu

Hi Rennet,

Glad you found the e-book useful.

Turnaround time-- There's no really fixed time. Some editors respond within hours, some never respond at all. For a situation like yours when time matters, I usually include a line or two at the bottom of my pitch just mentioning that I'm only here for 4 more days so would need to know fairly quickly if they're interested. I'm pretty upfront with editors and that does make a difference.

Did everyone get the download link okay? If not, please let me know and I'll make sure I forward you a copy. (It should arrive in your Inbox once you've registered and confirmed your subscription. Sorry, I have no control over the two-step process; it's to avoid mailing list owners from adding people without their consent.)

Thank you so much, Melina! I'm incredibly happy to be back and am looking forward to getting to know everyone. I learned so much from these boards when I was first starting out.

Thanks for checking it out! Let me know if you have any questions, feedback, etc.

Hope you find it useful.

Hi Brad,

Glad you liked the book.

To answer your question, nope, I have no journalism background or qualifications. When I started in 2002, I was a college student studying engineering. I did eventually graduate but by the time I did, I was already making a full-time living with my freelancing, so I continued doing that. (I'd make a crappy engineer, I'm sure.)

In my opinion, journalism and education background does not matter at all. You almost never mention it in your queries and if editors like your ideas, they don't care anyway. I think your background actually gives you an idea of how to market your work and hit the right spot with editors. Should you mention it in your queries? I think there's no harm with a couple of sentences when you're pitching magazines, etc, so that editors know you have some writing background. When pitching newspapers for hardcore journalistic stories, assuming there's no conflict of interest, I'd leave it out.

Hope that helps!

Dennis, I just got your e-mail. The link is in the e-mail you've responded to, so I'm a bit confused. Can you not access pdf files or did you not see the link? I'll reply to you offline as well.

Thank YOU all for the great feedback. So happy you found it useful.