I’m coming to the finish line of this three day retreat. Well fed with both food and ideas to keep me going. Here are 10 thoughts if you have a Query in your writing future. They come from the panel of agents from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency:
- Really good manuscripts never get read when you present a bad query.
- Make us care about your story.
- Don’t include editorial comments.
- Put genre first so we know what we’re dealing with.
- No reason to submit exclusively unless an agent has specifically requested you to do so.
- Follow-ups are okay after 6-8 weeks.
- Do mention if there is series potential or if it is the first book of a trilogy.
- If it is a humorous story, it is fine to reflect humor in the query – just not from the character’s viewpoint.
- We need more queries telling us about stories with science and technology!
And finally #10… Don’t query unless your work is in absolutely top notch form. But also don’t wait forever.
Have a great Memorial Day holiday!
You promise ten but only give us eight. Maybe one more would be don’t promise more than you can deliver! 😉 (Just kidding here, Greg.) Thanks for all the sharing from your conference.
Yeah, I was a bit cross eyed by the time I got to that post. It has been updated properly. Thanks for pointing out the omission.
Haha, Rosi!
Greg, I’m really enjoying your series about Big Sur in the Rockies. Thank you for sharing what you’ve been learning.
Great tips! The query letter gets you in the door. So glad you’re having a good time. Am anxious to hear how your personal sessions went with agents.
They went quite well. These are great people just searching out great stories. I’ll have a final update later this week. Thanks for commenting.
Great tips, sounds like an amazing workshop!