Heard of Query Shark?
No? You don’t know what you’re missing.
Query Shark is a website, run by literary agent Janet Reid, who critiques real-life query letters written by wannabe authors.
If you’re writing a book and hope to get an agent, you’ll need to write and perfect a query letter. Query Shark will be your best friend through the process.
On another of her websites, Reid offers a query checklist and 6 reasons for instant rejection.
In spite of her warnings, the vast majority of queries received are still unacceptable.
In addition to those reasons for instant rejection, I’ve compiled a list of 25 things Reid hates to see in queries.
If you want to be bitten by the Query Shark:
- Don’t follow explicitly stated submission guidelines
- Ignore previously rejected queries to avoid similar mistakes
- Leave your common sense at home
- Begin your query with a rhetorical question
- Invent an uninteresting, cliched, insubstantial or illogical plot
- Put your contact details at the top of an e-query
- Speak in generalizations instead of specifics
- Be wordy. Take twice the number of required words to make your point
- Write a query that lacks focus, and include completely irrelevant information
- Write a book with an unacceptably high or low word count
- Make your query too long or too short
- Don’t address the plot action early in the letter
- Use awkward or unskilled writing, possibly foreshadowing more of the same in your manuscript
- Incorrectly categorize the genre of your book
- Write your query in the voice of one of your characters
- Don’t break up the text of your query into manageable chunks for easy reading
- Use poor grammar
- Forget to proofread
- Try to put a full synopsis of the book in your query
- Forget to treat your query like a business letter
- Use passive voice
- Cite self-published books as one of your writing credits
- Begin your query with a quotation from your book
- Use redundant language
- Use language that tells instead of shows
Here are some examples of queries that worked (after considerable revision).
What do you think?
- Are any of these reasons for rejection are unfair?
- Are any of these mistakes completely unforgivable?
- Have you had any personal learning experiences with the querying process?
- Can you recommend other resources on how to write an effective query?
Thanks to Janet Reid of Query Shark for providing a valuable service to writers, and for her no-nonsense advice on how to craft the perfect query letter.
So, are you game enough to submit yours?