Writer's Relief's video: Welcome to the Writer s Relief Writer s Caf Q A: Query Letters and Cover Letters

Welcome to the Writer’s Relief Writer’s Café Q & A: Query Letters and Cover Letters What is a query letter? Query letters are used to querying agents about a book. The standard parts are the header, intro sentence, book blurb, author bio, closing sentence and sign off. A query letter should only be one page. What is a cover letter? Cover letters are used when submitting short stories, poems, essays to an editor of a literary journal. The standard parts are the header, intro sentence, and author bio. Nothing else! Editors don’t want to see summaries of your stories or the inspiration for your poems. A cover letter should only be one page. Mark’s question: Apart from tweaking the information on the particular book being pitched, how "wrong" is it for much of a query letter to be pretty much the same? Basic template of query letters stays the same, book blurb changes, any new bio info/publications should be added. Reminder: You can’t send new query to an agent until prior query is rejected Stephanie’s question: Is it best to have a finished and edited manuscript prior to sending a query? Yes it should be completed, unless it’s nonfiction, in which a proposal is used. Memoir is creative nonfiction, treated similar as fiction by agents, so needs to be complete. Dalia’s question: Can you give examples of good pitches and query letters... and any typical mistakes? Common mistakes: being more than one page; using crazy/cute fonts (stick to Times New Roman!); saying you’re the next big thing/acting like it; giving away the ending!; jamming in every character in the book (talk about as few as possible!). Read: http://writersrelief.com/2009/10/09/top-query-letter-mistakes-avoid-these-amateur-errors/ Aleisha’s question: Might be a silly question but once you’ve written your query letter, how do you find agents to send it to?! The answer is RESEARCH – A LOT OF RESEARCH. You can do it yourself, your you can hire someone like Writer’s Relief (WRitersRelief.com). That’s what we do. We help author’s target the agents/editors most likely to be interested in publishing/representing you. Tiffany’s question: There are so many aspects to describe about my book, how do I write a query or cover letter that will make them excited to read it? What kind of information do I need to cover in the letter? You have only about 200 words, so you want to stick to the main story arc and the main character. We have an article you may find helpful about how to write a killer book blub: http://writersrelief.com/2009/10/08/how-to-write-a-killer-book-blurb-for-your-query-letter-what-literary-agents-want-to-see/ Suchitra’s question: How do I write a query or cover letter for a collection of poems and short stories? This is a tough one, because not many agents are interested in short story collections or poetry collections unless the writer is very well known. You may want to consider self-publishing or contests. And it’s important to try and get your work published in literary journals. That will show agents that your writing has merit and an audience. We have articles about writing specifically for collections: http://writersrelief.com/2018/04/05/query-letter-genre-essentials-pitching-a-book-of-poetry-writers-relief/ and http://writersrelief.com/2009/08/12/how-to-write-a-query-letter-for-a-short-story-collection/ If you’re interested in our services, you can learn more at our website WritersRelief.com. And submit to our Review Board. http://writersrelief.com/review_board/ Visit the Writer’s Relief website for many free writer resources. Writer’s Relief helps writers of short stories, poems, and personal essays submit to literary magazines. Writer’s Relief also helps novelists, memoirists, and other book authors submit to literary agencies for representation. We also help writers self-publish their books. Self-Publishing Relief can help guide you from completed manuscript to finished book. Self-Publishing Relief also offers marketing support for writers. Learn more here: http://selfpublishingrelief.com/ Call Writer's Relief today! (866) 405-3003 (toll-free) https://youtu.be/lyUamDPnpZc