It feels like I’m jumping off the deep end by already discussing the query letter, here. But hey, plopping you in the middle of the writing journey and path to traditional publishing was my idea, so here we are! And I am editing the query letter.

The query letter is the story pitch you send prospective agents to get them interested in reading your book. The agent will go on to find a publisher, editor, and ideally accompany you on your long-term author career. When you’re querying, or pitching, each agent will ask for something slightly different: some may require you to send in the synopsis first thing (more on that in another post), others may just want to see the first two pages of your book pasted into the body of the email—but the one constant is the query letter.

I’ve taken to referring to this in my head as the pitch, because I work in PR and we are always pitching journalists to get them interested in the story behind the product. In the query letter, you’re trying to get the agent interested in the story behind your description. Also, “query letter” sounds kind of British and, like, purposefully snobbish and opaque.

Read the rest of this post on my Substack newsletter: Follow that story.