Why you don't get published.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Q & A 43 Queries that say nothing
I'm curious whether queries always need summarize the story. What do EE and his colleagues make of queries that read, roughly, "I'm writing to ask if I can send my [insert genre here] novel your way. Here are the books I've published before. Thanks for your time and consideration."
The best you can hope for from Evil Editor is that he's not feeling as evil as usual, and places a note inside your SASE saying, Tell me all about your book, and we'll take it from there. Then you send me the query you should have sent the first time, and another SASE, which I use to send you the rejection slip I should have sent the first time.
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5 comments:
What if one of the books you had published before was the DaVinci Code? Would you be amenable then?
Why would any editor respond to such a query. It doesn't tell them anything about the piece you want to sell to them. If you're not going to summarize (which I don't recommend), the query should at least state the word count and genre and a quick pitch of the novel/short story.
What if one of the books you had published before was the DaVinci Code? Would you be amenable then?
My reaction would be, You wrote that, and you're sending out your own query letters? Is working with you so trying that no agent will take you on? Do you have such disgusting personal habits, such a grating personality, that no one in the business will work with you? Is this book you're trying to sell so wretched no self-respecting publisher will touch it? Is that why you've been reduced to querying Evil Editor? Okay, then, as long as we're being up front with each other, send it on.
Man, it's hard to be humble in this business.
Sheesh! What a lot of horrible things to say about my friend Dan! ;)
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