How to Write a Great Query Letter ... What They're Not Saying

There are likely thousands of articles and blog posts out there offering advice on how to get an agent's attention.  There's also no shortage of agents at conferences, explaining what to do/not to do quite passionately.  I've read and listened to my share, and after a while you start to shake your head because either people are stupider, en masse, than you can comfortably contemplate, or it is just far too easy.  Some of the commonest advice boils down thus:

• Address queries to a particular agent - this means, don't send out a blast email query to every agent whose email you could find, without personalizing nor, perhaps, even researching to whom you are sending.  Choose to whom to submit by researching, and know your audience - and create each submission for its recipient.
• Corollary to addressing a particular agent - spell his or her name correctly.  Seriously, getting a name wrong is a pretty basic insult to avoid in an attempt to get someone's professional attention.
• Follow the agency's submissions guidelines - if an agency as a whole or a particular agent prohibits attachments, or specifically says they like to see word count, or requires the use of an electronic form, counting yourself as the Special Snowflake who doesn't have to conform to simple guidelines is a dealbreaker.  Just do it.  It's the low-low price of admission.
• Content - keep it to a page or less.  Don't yammer about the money you're going to make an agent.  Don't cast the movie.  Don't be a braggart, and don't be an apologetic milquetoast either.  Get the synopsis done, introduce yourself as a prospect, include what is required/allowed, and get out.  With THANKS for time, attention, etc.  (Yes:  this kind of thing actually needs to be said.  Sad, isn't it?)
• Mechanics - anything you send represents your writing.  If it's not free of typos, misspellings, outright construction errors, and precious formatting, it will speak very very VERY poorly indeed of your skill in the field of writing.  If it lacks energy and momentum, the assumption will be:  so does your manuscript.  Your main character, setting, and major dramatic question should be clear in your query. (Again, yes:  this kind of thing actually needs to be explained.  Ad naseum, yet.)

A lot of it is professionalism and common sense, and of course - unfortunately - it's all too necessary to advise professionalism and simple common sense, particularly in a field so dominated by dreams.  People as a whole aren't super with the self-awareness thing, and self-awareness is unfortunately very necessary when it comes to successfully presenting that self to others in patent bids for attention.  Know your assets, know your work, be confident without being a tool, go forth, and conquer.

The thing is ...

I have heard, personally, and read countless times:  "If you can get these things right, you WILL GET ATTENTION."  I've heard agents say, if you get these things right, you're ahead of 95% of the queries they see.  It is a song oft-sung, and it has a pleasing melody.

It gives a fat whack of us confidence that that's all there is to the magic.

Then we send out several dozen queries, all conforming to these general standards, and - not at all astonishingly - do not receive 100% requests for full manuscripts.  Incomprehensible!

No.

The unspoken fact is this:  the advice above constitutes only the minimum, and only the beginning.  Regardless of how many times I've heard that properly created queries are an extreme minority - and the "if you get this right you are better than ninety-some percent of the queries we see" figure is an often-heard quote, I can tell you - the full scope of a slush pile still leaves that magical ten, or five, or one percent of acceptable queries at a prodigious figure.  If an agent receives one to two hundred queries every week, you're still up against ten or twenty other competent queries in that week.  And you would be beyond fortunate to find an agent who took on even as many as five new authors in a year.  And not all of those new authors' properties even SELL.

So what they're not telling you is that there is still a lot more than just getting it mechanically, professionally correct.  There's actually making a connection with the agent - sparking their imagination with your story, your character(s).  There's the imperative of how good a story is, how artful your words are, how important it is to tell what you have to tell.  There's the chemistry, simply, of getting the right work in front of the RIGHT agent.

The little-known fact is:  any given agent might be the right one at one time and the wrong one at another.  I've had personal experience with this - an agent I'd love to work with was intrigued with my subject in 2011 - and, indeed, was a guiding force in my revisions.  I got priceless feedback, and significant correspondence with this query.  A year later, revisions done, this same agent was very frank in saying this wasn't his current area of interest, and it may take a very long time for him to read it again - if he ever does.  Even with my work in a better place, the agent himself wasn't in the sweet spot where my work would hit the target for him professionally.  Because it's not about "what I like" with agents, and most of them will tell you that very candidly.  The market can exert its demands, and any human being may be subject to fatigue with repetition.  "I loved Work X so much, but I knew I could not sell it" is hardly an uncommon phrase in agents' blogs.  This business - is a business, it's not always about "liking".

You can't make lightning strike, all you can do is set up a lightning rod and prepare, prepare, prepare.

And, keep the faith.  The work is the thing.  Give it a good vehicle, but it has to speak for itself.