Query Series: Troubleshooting
After getting to know the magazine, coming up with a great story idea and drafting your query, you’re almost convinced you’ve got a sure thing on your hands. But before you press send, check for these rookie mistakes.
Hey, Love UR Mag
Though query letters are almost always sent electronically, they’re not a casual e-mail to a pal. Your query is ultimately a job application, so imbue it with the same professionalism you’d use when sending your resume. Where’s the happy medium between professional and pretentious? Using contractions is fine, LOLs and emoticons are not.
To Add to the Complexity…
One of the most important rules of the query letter wasn’t obvious in my previous post, because I had commentary interspersed with sample paragraphs. A query must be one page or less. That includes everything from the salutation to the closing and signature. If your query doesn’t fit on one page, your letter (or idea) is flawed in some important way. Narrow your focus.
Looks Good from Here
This may be heresy coming from a blogger, but don’t trust what you see on screen. Print your query letter before proofreading it. Something about seeing your writing on paper makes it more concrete. And the errors are therefore more obvious. If you’re lucky, your printer doesn’t balk when fed recycled paper. If not, perform an alternative form of carbon-footprint penance. But whatever you do, don’t skip the printout.
Not a Moment to Lose
Stop! Don’t press send! Wait at least 24 hours before you send what you currently consider the final draft of your query. Because you seek a writing assignment, typos, grammatical errors, or mistakes introduced during cutting/pasting are particularly bad form. So read the query again tomorrow. If you find nothing to change, press send. If you change anything, print it out and let it sit at least a few hours before you read it again. Yes, this takes time. But it’s incredibly unlikely that anyone is going to beat you to the editor’s inbox with the same idea.