There is so much going on in the world right now.
Last Saturday we celebrated a wonderful, joyous family event. Yay!! The
Olympics Opening Ceremonies are tonight. London feels like my second city so I’m
especially excited about this one. Kristen Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson.
The list goes on. But at this moment the only thing I can feel is angst about
the Query Letter.
Workable first drafts of the synopses are
finished, and with all of the out of town family gone I can no longer put off
the inevitable task. When last we met here in Blog-land I was crying about
writing the synopsis, and now that I’m working on the query I’m looking back on
that other task rather fondly.
I was so
blissfully naïve when I first started writing last summer. Aww. I had a couple
of ideas for books, and how fun it would be to write them! I knew little or nothing about synopses, queries, platforms, marketing, et al. My romantic notions of
what it is to be a writer were dashed when I first encountered these terms. But as I’ve said in the past, I’m not
one to let a challenge deter me. So it’s been a few days of searching books and
looking online for information on, and examples of excellent query letters. But,
as in the case of the synopses, no two sources agree with one another. What’s a
fledgling writer to do?
At the moment it looks like I will take the best
of several sources and be true to my own voice. I think I’m beginning to see a
way through. But I have a favor to ask my readers. I would love to run a few
successful query letters here in my blog, perhaps one a week or so. If you
would be willing to share your successful query letter please email me: monica.knightley@gmail.com Of course you will get plenty of mentions of
your book and where to purchase it! And you would have the wonderful feeling of
knowing you’ve helped the newbie writers out there.
Thank you, and happy writing!
Monica,
ReplyDeleteI love your column! That naivete was blissful, wasn't it?
Then we discover all the OTHER stuff we writers have to do. Whaddya mean, run a business? Whaddya mean, I'm in sales now?
Never did I ever want to do either of these, but I do want to make a career of writing, so here I am.
I am also sending you my very first query letter to my publisher, Samhain. I have NO IDEA if it is a good query letter, but it WORKED. And it was also the last query letter I wrote, so I haven't had any practice at it, lol.
hugs,
Cathryn
Writing a synopsis and then the query letter was almost harder than writing the novel itself! I sweated bullets over it, finally wrote something I thought was good enough, crossed my fingers and hit "send". I think my heart tried to pound its way out of my chest when I knew it was on its way :-)
ReplyDeleteI email you with one of the versions of my query for Rayven's Keep. It must have been okay because I got two requests for a full manuscript and I only submitted it to four different people.
Good luck with your query. I hope it garners you a request for a full manuscript!
Elizabeth