Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [queries]

This tag should be used for questions about query letters, which are short and formal letters that writers send for example to publishing houses to propose an idea for a literary work.

This tag should be used for questions about query letters, which are short and formal letters that writers send for example to publishing houses to propose an idea for a literary work. Such a query letter is intended to be the first step of getting into contact with the potential publisher and should convey who the author is and what they are writing about. The potential publisher can then decide whether they want to get to know the author and their work better by contacting the author.

When asking a question about query letters you should mention where you are from so that answers can be tailored towards your specific environment and you should mention what kind of writing you are interested in, such as or .

34 questions
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4 answers

Are agents too busy for new clients? What should I do next?

Most publishers insist that first-time writers approach via a literary agent. However, all the literary agents I have contacted claim to be too busy to take on new clients, as they receive hundreds or thousands of submissions every year. I used the…
user3517
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5 answers

Where can I find sales numbers for books?

I'm a writer, working on a non-fiction book proposal. Finding public, free sales numbers for comparable titles is nearly impossible. BookScan is a subscriber service run by Nielsen. "Above the Treeline" is a subscriber service that collects sales…
user1135
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2 answers

How can I know that I'm not plagiarizing?

New to the web. I just recently started to write again. I won a few highschool prizes writing short stories. Around the same time, I began to play Roleplaying games and to write different stories for different games. Lately, I have been thinking…
Tiklis
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4 answers

Can you pitch an outline?

Here's my question: can you pitch an outline of a novel to an agent? I.e. you have two to three chapters complete to a high standard and at full outline of the rest. Would any agents agree to represent a book based on its premise ahead of its…
peanut
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2 answers

Waiting for response to full MS

About three months ago, an agent that I had queried responded with a request for the full manuscript of the novel that I had written to her about. It's now been nearly three months, and I haven't heard anything back. What's a reasonable amount of…
JSBձոգչ
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Querying for a setting-heavy speculative fiction novel

I'm an attentive follower of Janet Reid's Query Shark, and I've learned a lot. But Reid doesn't represent speculative fiction, which seems to present wrinkles of its own. Particularly, Query Shark often stresses the importance of quickly introducing…
Standback
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1 answer

What are typical response rates to non-fiction queries?

I've begun sending out queries to agents for my recently completed non-fiction manuscript. A decade ago, I sent out queries frequently, for children's books, directly to publishers. After a while, based on my response rate, I could gauge how good…
Chris Sunami
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Should one invest in a professional editor before querying?

Let's say you have completed a novel. Since you're not totally naive, you have also complete a few drafts, where with "few" I mean at least more than two. You are at a point that your book seems good; while it could certainly be better, you - the…
Liquid
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Are idioms in query letters a bad idea?

I am writing a logline sentence of a query letter for my novel and used the idiom 'cat and mouse' as follows: A military bioweapons collector is forced to engage in a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with his Russian counterpart as he seeks a cure for the…
Richard Stanzak
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Include book cover in query letter to agent?

I'm emailing a few agents about a novel I wrote. Typical query letter, attaching a summary and the first three chapters, as they request. I happen to have commissioned a book cover for the novel, which I think looks great. Would it be a good idea to…
ggambetta
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How do you write a fiction or non-fiction query letter to an editor?

What do you put in the letter? What if you have no experience, or only very limited experience. Should you write about yourself in the third or first person when explaining your experience?
Slick23
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How to summarize prolonged plot

I'm trying to write a summary of my book's plot for a query letter to literary agents, but my plot is extremely hard to summarize. The reason is that the plot is fast-paced, erratic, and constantly shifting. Why do I still believe in my novel?…
Yehuda Shapira
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Ensemble cast novel - pitch and synopsis

My mystery novel features an ensemble cast of seven characters. Since I can't talk about all of them in the short span of the query letter, I've decided to focus on the antagonist. He's the main driving force behind the plot and despite appearing…
undecided
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What is the "Proposal" Part of a Query Letter?

I'm trying to follow query guidelines that include a query letter, proposal, outline, author bio, and sample chapters. What is the 'proposal' part of the query letter? I have not been able to find an answer in the references I've examined so far.
James McLellan
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How to know the quality of query letter critiques?

Having nearly completed the second draft on my 135,000 word novel, I am now seeking critiques of my query letter before I submit them to agents. I did find a forum at AQ Connect - Query Critiques but I don't know how good it is. How do I know if…
Richard Stanzak
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