Suppose you have a great idea for a nonfiction magazine article or book—how to prepare delicious high-fiber recipes, for example. You can see your article being placed in a given magazine, or your book being traditionally published through a commercial book publisher. You’re confident your idea is a good one, and that you can prepare a winning manuscript.
But before you start writing your manuscript, you must write a query letter first.
A query letter to the right editor pitches your story idea, demonstrates your familiarity with the publication and publisher, and your credentials to write it. Equally important, a well-written query letter demonstrates your writing skills and professionalism to the editor.
A query letter also saves you time. You begin working on your manuscript only after your editor gives you the go-ahead. If your editor rejects your query, however, you can submit the query to another editor or rethink your idea. (With fiction, however, editors expect to see the manuscript before deciding whether to accept it.)
A successful query letter has several key elements. First, in addition to all your contact information, it has the correctly-spelled name of the editor and his magazine or publishing house. You’re reaching out not so much to a magazine or publishing house, but a person at that magazine or publishing house.
Second, it shows your familiarity with the magazine or publisher. Submit your query to someone who publishes on your subject matter. One magazine with which I worked received many applications, which the editor showed me. Some letters were handwritten. Some letters had ideas for articles that the magazine wouldn’t consider. Many letters were poorly written. None had the editor’s name.
“There’s a lot of unqualified people out there,” he said.
Third, it offers a hook which leads into your story pitch. For the high-fiber recipe example, you might begin with a story about a person who had cured his health problems by including more high-fiber recipes in his diet.
Fourth, it specifically says what you’re proposing to write, and when you expect to submit it. For example, are you proposing a 1,500-word article, with artwork, by the first of the month?
Fifth, it summarizes your credentials to write the article or book. If you have published elsewhere, preferably about this topic or a related topic, this is where you would put it.
Be sure that your credentials are appropriate for the story you are proposing. Once I interviewed a person for a writing position. I asked whether he had experience in writing the kind of documentation we produced. He said no, but he had written a couple of romance novel manuscripts that had not been submitted or published anywhere. You want to avoid situations like that.
Finally, ask if the editor would be interested in proceeding. If you’ve got a good idea, you’ve presented it well to the appropriate editor at the right publisher, you’ll be way ahead of the game.
