Query Letter Booboos Straight from the Lips of Literary Agents

It's been a while since I popped in. I am reformatting the second edition of the  The Frugal Editor from e-book formatting to paper and ran across this paragraph. I really like it and thought you would, too.  The topic here is the editing of your query letters, but most of the information could apply to any writing you do.

Stay away from words based in Latin with lots of syllables. It isn’t only the long ones that can make you sound as if you have no personality, never took a writing class, or are not a publishing professional. So your book is titled, not entitled. You live somewhere, you don’t reside. You buy a book when you’re talking to your neighbor. Why suddenly flaunt the word purchase? In a TV interview, Meg Ryan was asked what word she loved. She screwed up her face as only she knows how and turned the question around. She said she hated the word enjoy. “What’s wrong with liked or loved?” she said. Who would have guessed? This anecdote shows that we can’t avoid everything that makes every editor (or actor) peevish, but we can try.

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  Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

Backwards Editing: What a Concept!

This is the tip I offered in a mini-column (for lack of a better word) for a listserve I belong to. It's Word_Mage. You may subscribe by sending an e-mail to Word_Mage-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.


This is Book Expo America (BEA) week so I'm keeping this short. It is one of those tips some of you may know and use or one of those tips some of you may know and not use 'cause you get in a hurry! In any case, it's an important reminder.

For the most accurate self-edit possible end the process I outline in The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success with a backwards edit. Start at the back of the book and read each sentence aloud. Yes. Backwards. Doing that keeps each sentence unconnected to other sentences and to other ideas so your expectations of what should be on the page are minimalized. That way your brain won't fill in corrections when they aren't there. This works as well for query letters and media releases as it does for full manuscripts.

By the way, The Frugal Editor has a couple of chapters on writing the kind of query letter that won't make an agent or other gatekeeper roll her eyes. Many of the helps I list in those chapters come straight from the mouths of 20 of the nation's top agents (and, yes, the agents are identified, complete with URLs). And they're all agents who cared enough to help me help you. Not a bad start for finding a compatible agent!

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits and consults on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Writing Picture-Perfect Query Letters

So, last week we talked about "Five Editing Myths Waiting To Trip Up Your Campaign to Market Your Work." This week it's "Five Things to Avoid for a Pristine Query Letter." I posted last week's editing tip on this blog, too.

BTW, did I tell you all that The Frugal Editor won its second award. It is top publishing book for Reader Views Literary Award in addition to USA Book News' Best Book in the writing category. This article includes just a few of the things I gleaned from the chapters on editing query letters. Many of the ones in the book and this article I got from my interviews of many of our top agents . I was really pleased how many agents were willing to help me help you. (-:

Five Things to Avoid for a Pristine Query Letter

We are selling our work when we approach any gatekeeper, an editor, an agent, a contest judge. Here are five little things to avoid so you'll look like the professional you are.

Don't tell the gatekeeper you always wanted to write. You can think of something more pertinent to your cause (and something more original!) than that.

Don't use the verb "quote" when you want the noun "quotation." Some stylebooks will tell you that it's OK, but agents can be a picky lot. Use zero-tolerance grammar rules for your queries.

Don't pitch more than one book at time. You want to give that one your best shot.

Don't call your novel a "fictional novel." By definition, a novel is fiction.

Don't overdo exclamation marks, question marks, the use of sentence fragments. (Yes, fragments are acceptable when they're used for a good reason but limit them, please.)

Here's one last suggestion for fiction writers 'cause they're so often neglected when it comes to marketing. Avoid using italics for internal thought. Yes, it's being done more and more but it is often a crutch that fiction writers use to avoid writing great transitions and point-of-view; the best agents will recognize it as such.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.


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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits and consults on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com.