I guess this is the best place to post this. Alerted by Google to a thread about her here on AW, my agent, Helen Heller, thought it would be helpful to clarify what she looks for in a query letter, and she wanted to address the issue of why she (and others) do not respond to queries.
Here it is!
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Getting my attention is hard! That's because we get a lot of unsolicited queries every day...and well into the night!
Every agent has foibles, and I'm no exception. If a query starts out 'what if...' I will delete it immediately. That sounds high-handed and it is. But I'm allergic to that phrase and all the others like it. I don't like being 'pitched' an idea because I believe ideas are easy and good writing is hard. And it's the writing I care about. So I'm not going to be enticed by a hook. Also, you're asking me to take my attention away from a manuscript that I'm working on or a phone call I need to make in order to imagine some event that means nothing to me.
What catches my attention is the person behind the idea, not the idea itself. Yes, it has to be a gripping premise. But that's a given. I'm starting from the position that the author I want to work with has a great imagination and an unusual idea but I need to know who that person is, what his/her background is, whether s/he can write. I don't want to be told I'm being offered the next Da Vinci Code or whatever. I don't want to be subjected to material that reads like a piece of direct mail advertising.
My ideal unsolicited query does not address me as 'Helen'. I'm 'Ms Heller' until we know each other better. It doesn't make imaginative demands of me. It doesn't bang me over the head with claims of untold millions to be mine if I handle it. It's sober and reticent and tells me the author's background and any and all publishing info. By the way, self-publishing does not count. My ideal unsolicited query does not offer me children's illustrated story books or screenplays, neither of which I handle.
As to replying: well, we don't, as you know. I try to reply when I've asked for a partial but a lot of the time stuff kind of takes over and I forget. And I'm sorry about that! We do try to get to queries quickly. So if you send something off and don't hear from us, please assume it's not right for our list. We do get an awful lot of queries here and we just don't have the time to spend--and I know you're saying 'it just takes a second!' But that's a second I may not have
One last thing: anyone who sends me an unsolicited query--and I suspect there are many other agents like me--has about 10 seconds of my time. If an author attracts my attention in that 10 seconds , then I will read through the email (by the way I prefer email) and perhaps ask for the material. If the author turns me off in that 10 seconds I won't even read the rest of it. This does sound a little...er...evolutionary. But publishing is a punishing and Darwinian business.
Here it is!
********
Getting my attention is hard! That's because we get a lot of unsolicited queries every day...and well into the night!
Every agent has foibles, and I'm no exception. If a query starts out 'what if...' I will delete it immediately. That sounds high-handed and it is. But I'm allergic to that phrase and all the others like it. I don't like being 'pitched' an idea because I believe ideas are easy and good writing is hard. And it's the writing I care about. So I'm not going to be enticed by a hook. Also, you're asking me to take my attention away from a manuscript that I'm working on or a phone call I need to make in order to imagine some event that means nothing to me.
What catches my attention is the person behind the idea, not the idea itself. Yes, it has to be a gripping premise. But that's a given. I'm starting from the position that the author I want to work with has a great imagination and an unusual idea but I need to know who that person is, what his/her background is, whether s/he can write. I don't want to be told I'm being offered the next Da Vinci Code or whatever. I don't want to be subjected to material that reads like a piece of direct mail advertising.
My ideal unsolicited query does not address me as 'Helen'. I'm 'Ms Heller' until we know each other better. It doesn't make imaginative demands of me. It doesn't bang me over the head with claims of untold millions to be mine if I handle it. It's sober and reticent and tells me the author's background and any and all publishing info. By the way, self-publishing does not count. My ideal unsolicited query does not offer me children's illustrated story books or screenplays, neither of which I handle.
As to replying: well, we don't, as you know. I try to reply when I've asked for a partial but a lot of the time stuff kind of takes over and I forget. And I'm sorry about that! We do try to get to queries quickly. So if you send something off and don't hear from us, please assume it's not right for our list. We do get an awful lot of queries here and we just don't have the time to spend--and I know you're saying 'it just takes a second!' But that's a second I may not have
One last thing: anyone who sends me an unsolicited query--and I suspect there are many other agents like me--has about 10 seconds of my time. If an author attracts my attention in that 10 seconds , then I will read through the email (by the way I prefer email) and perhaps ask for the material. If the author turns me off in that 10 seconds I won't even read the rest of it. This does sound a little...er...evolutionary. But publishing is a punishing and Darwinian business.
