A Successful query letter

[williemeikle]

This query got me a sale at one of my favorite genre publishers. The art of query writing is a black one, but at least you know this one worked.

Dear ...

Four hundred years ago a Scottish cargo ship fell prey to a Wendigo at an early settlement on the Hudson River. Now a team of archaeologists have uncovered the boat, and let loose the evil. Manhattan is soon overrun by an ice storm like no other before it. There are things moving in the storm. Blue, cold things, with razor sharp teeth.

I am seeking a home for the horror novel "Hunters Dock". The novel is 79,000 words, and is complete. The first three chapters and a synopsis are attached.

While it may not be a traditional "Zombie" novel in the Romero style, nevertheless the pale things that haunt this book are indeed undead, and the book is similar in tone to recent zombie big sellers such as "Day by Day Armageddon" by J L Bourne (Pocket Books 2009) or The Lifeless by Lorne Dixon (Coscom Entertainment 2009). And best-seller Jonathan Maberry has a new novel, Rot and Ruin, coming in September 2010 from Simon & Schuster which seems to cover similar post-apocalyptic zombie acion.

The main concept in Hunters Dock of an ancient evil being disturbed and returning to wreak havoc never really goes out of fashion, as currently displayed by the recent successes of J A Konrath, in particular his ebook "Origin" (Kindle edition 2010)

The story also has echoes of any number of disaster movies, with its theme of chaos and destruction coming to modern Manhattan, with antecedents in the Emmerlich and Devlin blockbusters 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, and even Godzilla

I am a Scottish author, now living in Canada, with nine novels published in the genre press. I also have over 200 short story credits in the genre press, the most recent sale being to the Cthulhu 2012 hardcover anthology coming this year from Mythos Books

Yours Sincerely

William Meikle

[Steven Lake]

Yeah, Query letters have always been a real barn burner for me. I have an easier time writing the blasted book than I do actually writing the query letter to sell it. It's kinda frustrating really. But thanks for providing this excellent example for others to do.

One thing that might not be a bad idea to get some people together in here who've had some experience with what makes a successful query letter, and then maybe write a good, detailed tutorial complete with examples so others can write their own and have better success at getting their books out there. I say that because when submitting to a publisher or agent, a book can quickly be deep sixed if you don't have a good query letter with it. My first attempt at submitting via query letters got all my attempts deep sixed because the letter sucked. The odd part was, I followed the outline given to me in what was supposed to be an "authoritative" book on getting published. Hint, hint. (*rolls eyes*)

[neilmarr]

Just follow this for a while -- read, mark, learn: http://queryshark.blogspot.com/ Cheers. Neil

[Steven Lake]

Yeah, already have him bookmarked.

[kcmay]

Congrats, Willie! Hope it's as successful as your other books are!

[Billjr13]

Congrats Willie! Thanks for your example. Hope you sell a million books

[Music&Mayhem]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Just follow this for a while -- read, mark, learn: http://queryshark.blogspot.com/ Cheers. Neil

Thanks for the link. I went. I read. I laughed. Good comments by Query Shark on some rather, um, underwhelming queries.

Any blogs on how to write a Successful 1-page synopsis?

[bthrowsnaill]

I notice that the query letter spends a lot of time comparing the novel being put forth to contemporary novels in its genre. Is this a critical part of the query letter? Or can a story stand on its own merits without such detailed comparison to its contemporaries?

[Kemp]

Comparing and expressing the potential market is one thing that (supposedly) many agents like. As long as it's not, "This novel is the next Twilight, Harry Potter, and the Hunt for Red October all in one amazing package!"

Putting a simple comparison to another work, especially if it's an apt comparison to an author that the agent has represented, shows that the author has done research and understands his/her potential market.

Then again, every agent has quirks about what he/she likes. This also leads me to assume that, when they make this known, so many query-folk overdo it that they get sick of said quirk.

[williemeikle]

Originally Posted by Kemp

Comparing and expressing the potential market is one thing that (supposedly) many agents like. As long as it's not, "This novel is the next Twilight, Harry Potter, and the Hunt for Red October all in one amazing package!"

Putting a simple comparison to another work, especially if it's an apt comparison to an author that the agent has represented, shows that the author has done research and understands his/her potential market.

Then again, every agent has quirks about what he/she likes. This also leads me to assume that, when they make this known, so many query-folk overdo it that they get sick of said quirk.

Yep. This particular publisher asked that any query should include information on where the book might fit in the market. And it can't hurt to show that you've done some homework :-)

[kennyc]

Cool! I wrote an article for The Writer called "Writing Killer Queries" back in the mid 90's

probably still mostly applies. I need to bone-up on it myself.

Thanks for this!