Product Description

Provides professional guidance for all writing-related correspondence, be it a query to an editor, a request for a celebrity interview or a book proposal.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71961 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

How t Write Attention Grabbing Query & Cover Letters
Beyond fundamentals of letters, this valuable resource has great guidance on what to say and not say, to whom, and when, in pursuit of publication. This being my current (and not previously accomplished) aim, I am deeply grateful for the assistance in not shooting my chances in the foot.

Outdated
I wish I'd read the other reviews here before I'd bought this book. I wouldn't have bought it.

The biggest problem, not mentioned in another review: The book was originally published in 1996 and doesn't reflect the changes the internet has caused in the industry.

I regret buying this book
I'm a novelist, and this book did not live up to my expectations. Most of the book was written for non-fiction writers.

I've read other query letter guides, which advise authors to

- avoid using opinion to describe your own work (such as 'fast-paced')
- avoid using adjectives and adverbs to describe the story

And Mr. Wood agrees. In the short section on novel queries, he includes three examples of query letters that got the attention of their new agents or publishers. Two of them broke these rules.

Mr. Wood proposes that we write a query such that editors and agents sit up and take notice, yet he does not explain how to do this without breaking the 'commandments.' So, if he agrees with the rules, but includes examples of query letters that break them, what's an author supposed to think? My conclusion is that Mr. Wood has no better idea than I do what constitutes a good query letter.

I'll continue my search for a good book on writing query letters. This is not it.