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Friday, October 19, 2012

Query Letter Crusaders



Writing a 50,000 word novel: easy peasy (Well, not exactly).  Writing a one page query letter: Impossible.
Anyone else feel this way? Have you  spent hours and hours perfecting your query letter, only to get feedback that it’s boring or too much like a summary or too gimmicky?
Yeah, it happens to the best of us.
I’d say don’t stress about it, but your query letter might be your only chance to make a first impression for agents.
So do we panic now?
Of course not (Okay maybe a little).
I’ve started a new yahoo group to help with the querying process. Basically, it’s a bunch of people serious about their query letters and serious about helping others with their query letters.
While we might not have any query experts, we have eyes. Eyes to see and evaluate queries. We have several people set up to be mock agents. (You can sign up to be one too!) Basically, you send your query package to them and they evaluate it. It’s sort of like sending it to a real agent, but
a.       none of our mock agents can represent your work and
b.       the mock agents give feedback.
Here’s the link:
Join us!

10 comments:

  1. This is a great idea! We all could use help with those evil queries.

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  2. Good idea. There's a website called AgentQueryConnect. One of its main forums is critiquing query letters. Might want to take a look at it if you haven't already.

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  3. What a great idea! I'm off to join :)

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  4. Query letters ARE tough, especially for epic fantasy! It's definitely a process, but once that pitch is done I feel very accomplished. ;)

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  5. What a cool idea! My CP and one of my betas are awesome at rewriting my queries. :D

    If you think writing queries is tough, you should see writing blurbs for books. I'm taking a workshop on writing them. Man, it's tough!!!

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  6. Did you intentionally make the title similar to "Cutie Mark Crusaders"? Because if so I think you're really cool now.

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  7. Awesome idea! Writing queries are definitely hard, but the more feedback you get, the better your query will be. Best of luck with your writing journey!

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  8. Queries can be tricky for sure! Query Shark is my absolute favorite agent blog on the matter. I once spent several weeks reading through several years of her blog posts, and my life as it pertains to queries changed forever. No joke!

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  9. Nice idea. Good luck with it! They're definitely one of the hardest things to nail.

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  10. This is a great idea! Why is 50k words so easy compared to 250? :)

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