The query letter is the time-honored tool for all writers seeking book publication. But it is so much of a sales piece that you should be able to write it without having written a single word of the manuscript. For some writers, this represents a completely different way of thinking about your book—it means thinking about your work as a marketable commodity. To think of your book as a product, you need to have some distance to see its salable qualities.
Before you begin the query process, you should have a finished and polished manuscript ready to go—or a full book proposal.
Novel writers should also prepare a synopsis, which conveys the narrative arc of your novel; it shows what happens and who changes, from beginning to end. There is no single “right” way to write a synopsis, but we'll discuss the best ways to produce one.
What you'll learn in this session:
• 5 elements of every query letter, and how to order them
• 3 components of a compelling novel hook or nonfiction concept
• Common mistakes and red flags that appear in typical queries
• Why a shorter letter is more likely to succeed
• What to say about yourself if you're unpublished
• Why the synopsis is important to agents and editors
• How to avoid dreaded "synopsis speak"
Who should attend:
• Writers who are new to the query process
• First-time novelists and memoirists with a complete manuscript
• Nonfiction authors with a book idea
• Writers having trouble with their query or synopsis
• Writers who can't get any manuscript requests after querying