Ingrid Sundberg took some very thorough notes from a talk by Jill Corcoran on Queries: How to Get an Agent Salivating to Read Your Manuscript. Jill has attended last year’s NJ SCBWI Conference for the last two years. Jill represents Chapter Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adult novels, and is a huge fan of humor.
Here’s a bit of Ingrid’s notes:
Writer turned agent extraordinaire Jill Corcoran, of the Herman Agency, spoke at the 2010 Southern California SCBWI Writer’s Day about how to get an agent to request your manuscript. The following are her tips, personal preferences, and insight to help ensure your inbox is full of requests instead of rejection letters.
What’s a Query Letter?
- A query letter is a simple letter to get an agent to read your book. That’s it.
- It’s a pitch.
- It’s a business letter. So be professional.
- The purpose of the letter is to entice an agent to request your full manuscript (that’s your objective).
- Sometimes an amazing query letter will have a book that doesn’t live up to the query.
Read the rest here.
