"March 30, 2005
The Agent Company, Inc.
100 west 10th St., Suite 10
New York, NY 10023-4366
Dear Mr. Agent,
I found you agency listing at Publisher’s Market Place, and visited your web site. Both your agency and your web site have the professionalism I have found lacking elsewhere. drop in some praise about them (we all like some praise)(and it shows you did some research) At Publisher’s Market Place, I noted your sale of the novel "BREED", by Owl Goingback to Signet Books and thought you might be interested in representing my current work. compare your book to something they have already agented--again shows research and that you didn't pick them willy nilly Below, please find the details of my novel, "TITLE OF YOUR BOOK". If interested, sample chapters, detailed and expanded synopsis, or complete manuscript are ready to be printed and mailed. this says the book is done, the synop is done, anything they might need is done and is ready to send--shows you are a professional who knows the needs of an agent or publisher.
TITLE: YES, I use this--I put a heading in just like an outline, in fact the query is formatted like an outline--"YOUR BOOK TITLE"
PLOT: This is where you put that one line plot summary
GENRE: Novel, Native American Mysticism with time travel.
WORD COUNT: About 91,000 words---finished
EXTRA INFO: this is where you need those novels to compare it to, not published by an author reped by the agent The novel combines the feel of Orson Scott Card's "PAST WATCH" with a mix of William Sarabande's "THE FIRST AMERICANS SAGA"---with a twist of light horror.
DESCRIPTION/SHORT SYNOPSIS: this is where you put in that very short synop/blurb about the book, give away the end--yes give away the end, they want to know you can wrap up a good story.
AUTHOR BIO; PREVIOUS PUBLICATIONS: self explanatory--yes? If no previous publications, then list schooling, what have you, relevant to your novel.
CONTACT INFO: Include every way they can get ahold of you.
SASE enclosed or I can be reached at
[email protected] (personal e-mail), or through Wild Child Magazine at
[email protected], or at (111) 123-4567 (TX number)---any time, day or night. If the machine picks up, the greeting will say you have reached Written Solutions Inc., leave a message. I check my messages frequently throughout the day.
Thank you for your time and consideration,"
I was copying and pasting query letter advice from a bunch of sites (this was from AW) into a Word doc to print off