Query letter

A query letter is the one-page pitch a writer sends to a literary agent or acquiring editor to ask whether they want to read the manuscript.

The conventional shape is four short parts.

A line saying why this agent — a book of theirs you admire, a stated wish list you match. Then the pitch itself, roughly 150 to 250 words, written like flap copy rather than a summary: who the protagonist is, what they want, what stands in the way, what it costs them, and the impossible choice they face. It stops before the ending. Then a metadata paragraph: title, word count, category and comp titles. Then two lines of biography, and only what is relevant.

The usual failures are recognisable from across a room. Summarising the entire plot instead of pitching it. Describing what the book is about thematically, which tells an agent nothing about whether it is a story. Opening with a rhetorical question. And a word count well outside the range for the category, which quietly says the manuscript itself is not ready.

Query only a finished, revised novel. Non-fiction sells on proposal; fiction does not.