250 words

It takes you weeks months years, but you finish your manuscript. You double and triple check all 70,000 - 80,000 words of it. You send it to critique partners and hold your breath while you read their comments. Okay, not so bad – just need to revise the whole thing! And you do one, maybe two revisions. You can recite the first chapter from memory. You dream about your characters at night. You’ve done everything you can do - it’s finally ready to go out in the world.

And then you start writing the Query Letter.

You’ve heard of this thing but how hard could it be. I mean, you’ve already written 70,000 words – what’s another 250?

It’s the 250 words that will sum up the essence of your carefully crafted baby. It will be informative but not boring. It will be fresh! And exciting! It will entice an agent to request the full immediately!

It will be the hardest 250 words you ever write.    

There are entire websites dedicated to helping you get it right. (Great posts here, here and here) You read every Query Shark post and make a pact with yourself that you won’t make those mistakes. Or wind up here. You scour agent’s websites looking for their pet peeves and hope to find a fun fact to throw in that shows you really did your research.

But there comes a time when you just have to go with your gut. The query letter that got the attention of my agent broke a few of the hard and fast rules. I wrote it from my protagonist’s point-of-view. My query gave the protagonist’s backstory leading up to where the manuscript starts but doesn’t mention what happens next. Two big no-no’s.

But it worked. My query did its job. Sarah requested a partial, then a week later asked for the full. The offer for representation came a day later. Within a few days, I had four offers! (If you really want to know what that feels like, check out this)

My best advice - query widely. An awesome query is not awesome to every agent. Make a list of agents you love. Do your research. Send out a personalized, well-crafted email per the guidelines of each individual agent. 

And then get ready for the fun part...The Wait! (and you thought writing the query was hard!)