Don’t Act Like an Amateur When Querying Literary Agents

Welcome to another #WriterWarnings! Since most of you are likely polishing up your novels from NaNoWriMo, it’s time to talk about what NOT to do when querying agents.

When submitting/querying to literary agents, be as professional as possible. Do your research in order to submit to an agent who represents books in your genre.

Research query letters, synopsis, and summaries for query letters before ever writing a query, and especially before submitting to an agent.

Avoid sounding apologetic, desperate, or unconfident in your query. If you don’t sound confident and passionate about your book, why would the agent ever give it a chance? Your query letter is the selling point of your book. Selling/pitching requires a certain amount of confidence.

Thus, to help you sound professional and confident in your query, have several people give you feedback on your query letter. If you don’t get honest feedback on your query or sound confident and professional, an agent is likely to pass on your work. Perfect your query letter in terms of the hook and in terms of confidence and professionalism.