Young Writers Society

Hey all!

So I have decided to take on the daunting task of writing my query letter. I know the basics: tell what your novel is about, word count, bio, seduce the agent (kidding), but I'm not sure if there is a word limit? I've read a few articles and it says it should only be around 500 words...

Is it okay for it to be longer though? My novel focuses on 4 main characters so I really feel I should include a little bit about all them in my query letter. But doing that will make it over 500, closer to 600 or 700.

Has anyone had any experience with this or know any reputable websites that I can look up information on?

-Nicole

It might be okay for it to be longer, but it had better be an extremely good query letter for you not to get a form rejection.

Agents get a few hundred query letters a day. If you don't follow their guidelines exactly, your letter gets rejected (because if you can't follow clear instructions, why bother). If you send them a book in a genre they don't represent, your letter gets rejected (see "can't follow clear instructions"+ they don't have the connections to sell it). If they don't get interested in a few paragraphs, your letter gets rejected (because they have dozens of other letters to read that day).

They do this to cut down on the sheer volume of letters they get, so they can devote their attention to the queries that they actually have a chance of representing. Therefore, if they end up seeing a letter that's too long, you're halfway to rejected already because a good author should be able to cut it down to the bare minimum. These agents have seen a lot of stuff, and they know a book with multiple PoVs and 4 MCs can have its summary fit in 500 words. Why do you deserve that much space, when other authors can cut it down to something that's within recommended limits?

That being said!

Query Shark is a godsend. Be sure to read the whole archives— there's a lot in there, and it's all fantastic advice.

Query Quagmire has a lot of what not to do in humorous anecdotes that help authors figure out how to be sellable but still themselves.

Writer Beware is an epic resource to spot scammers. Also documents a large number of scams.

Writer's Market Guide to Literary Agents can help you avoid sending the query to the completely wrong agent. That link is to the 2015 edition, the most recent, and I would not rely on anything that's over 2 years old. If you do, double check a lot more to make sure that the information presented is still accurate.

There are more websites here, and I've overlapped a fair chunk from that list.