Where the term comes from
Wikipedia defines a query letter as a formal letter sent by a writer to literary agents, magazine editors and sometimes publishing houses to propose writing ideas. It is the standard format for unrepresented authors, so querying is often a writer's first professional contact with the publishing industry. The agent decides from the letter whether to request the manuscript. Wikipedia gives a typical length of about 200 to 400 words covering the topic of the work, a short description of the plot, a short author bio and the target audience.
Jane Friedman is blunter about the purpose: the letter exists to get the agent or editor to read or request your work. She lists the parts as housekeeping (genre, word count, title), a story description that is the most important element at 150 to 300 words for most narrative works, comparable titles, which most agents require, and a bio note of 50 to 100 words. Her advice is to keep the whole letter to one page, roughly 200 to 450 words.
An example
Tobias Renwick has written a cosy mystery set in a seaside bakery. His first query opens with three paragraphs about why he started writing and how long the book took. His revision opens with the story: Hester Quill, a baker who sleeps three hours a night, finds a stranger's wedding ring in a batch of dough and must trace its owner before the town's tea festival, or her rival will be blamed for what the ring means. Next comes a single line giving the title, the genre and an honest word count, then two recent books with a similar tone, then two sentences about himself. Nothing in it explains the theme.
Common mistakes
- Opening with the author's life story or why the book matters.
- Retelling the plot to the last page, which is the job of a synopsis.
- Writing well beyond a page.
- Choosing comps so famous that they say nothing about the book.
- Sending the same letter to everyone without reading each agent's submission guidelines.
How to check your manuscript
Before you query, make sure the book is finished and revised, then write the story description first and the rest around it. Check that it names a lead, a goal, an obstacle and a cost, as a logline does. Ask someone who has not read the book what they would expect to happen next. For choosing books to compare, see comp titles, and for revision before you send, how to revise a novel.
In Musael, share and beta readers lets you give a reader a reading link, so you can learn how someone outside the book describes it before you write the pitch.