How to Write a Query Letter: The Secret Sauce That Landed Me 8 Offers from Literary Agents

If you’re looking to land a literary agent and get traditionally published, I'm going to teach you the four-part structure you need to include in your query letter, plus the secret sauce I used that helped me to get 26 full requests and eight offers from literary agents. 

The query letter example I'm going to show you is the one that I wrote for my second book, which got me a six-figure two-book deal. (This is not the query letter for my first book, which got me eight offers from literary agents, but I do have a sentence-by-sentence breakdown of that in my online course Query Bootcamp, so check that out if you want more query letter writing advice).

And make sure to grab a copy of my free Query Letter Toolkit, which includes the full query letter template I am about to teach you below!

Breaking Into The Publishing Industry

Before I get into the query letter template, I want to share more about why the structure is so important!

Literary agents are flooded with query letters. Even the smallest deviation from the norm can be a red flag and might mean that your query letter that you've worked so hard on — and your book that you've worked even harder on — gets thrown in the trash!

The publishing industry is tough and literary agents are really judging a book by its cover, or rather—its query letter, (sorry, terrible joke!), so you want to make sure you include all of the elements I'm about to share.

Let’s get started!

The 4-Part Query Letter Structure

Your Query Letter Subject Line

You want this to read Query for: and then the literary agent's name, your book title in all caps, and, in parentheses, your genre. 

Here’s what that looked like for my book:

Now, onto the four elements!

Element 1: The Intro

You want to start out your query letter by personalizing it to the literary agent and letting them know that you're not just mass bcc-ing a bunch of agents. You want to show that you did your homework and you really think this particular agent is a good fit for your book.

(Some people include this personalization at the bottom of their query letter. That is fine as well, but definitely make sure to include it!)

You can mention an author or a book that the agent has repped or maybe a part of their wish list and why your book would be a good fit for them.

Next, you want a quick transition line, such as “I would love to offer WE SHIP IT for your consideration.”

Element 2: The Hook

And now we are at the most important part of the query letter: the hook. 

This is the part that actually pitches your book. It’s called the ‘hook’ because your goal is to hook the literary agent and make them need to read more!

But you don't have to include every single element of your book — that would actually be a bad thing to do. You want to give descriptive information so that the agent knows what's going on in your book and so that they're not confused. But the most important part is that you leave them intrigued and wanting more. 

Your hook is generally around 150 to 200 words, max. And it's really a test of your skills as a storyteller. Do you know how to synthesize what you have written into a really compelling summary, such as the blurb that you would find on the back cover of the book?

Your goal with the query letter is to get the literary agent to ask for your full manuscript. If they love your hook, that's what they're going to do!

1. Your Hook’s First Line

The most important part of your hook is the first line. Often this is where you're going to either include, or maybe lead up to, the inciting incident of your book. Because the inciting incident is the reason that you have a story at all. Think about The Hunger Games. There wouldn’t be a story without Katniss’s sister Prim getting chosen as tribute!

The way that I started out my query letter was:

The last place type-A overachiever Olivia Schwartz wants to be is on a cruise.

This gives a taste of what the inciting incident is going to be and also provides some defining details about our main character. Remember — you don’t want to tell the literary agent everything, but at the same time you want to make sure you include enough information to make your story stand out.

My inciting incident isn't some huge galaxy-ending inciting incident — it's not nearly as huge as the scene in The Hunger Games — but it is huge and galaxy-ending for the main character, Olivia. 

Your inciting incident really needs to be earth-shattering for your main character, even if it's not earth-shattering for anyone else.

2. Defining Your Main Character’s Old World

Next, you want to make sure you include some background info about the current state of your main character's life before this inciting incident, so the literary agent has a sense of why this is so earth-shattering.

I wrote:

Especially with her parents — and all the unspoken things between them since her older brother's death. 

Now we know why Olivia getting forced into close quarters with her parents for a week on a cruise ship is such a big deal.

Next, I established things a little bit more by telling what my story is about:

But when her parents win a free Caribbean cruise, it's all aboard for the Schwartz family.

We have the inciting incident, some revealing information about the main character, and we know why this is such a big deal for her. And that’s it! That's my first paragraph of my hook. 

3. Your Main Character’s New Plan

Next I get into the main character's plan and how they're trying to avoid this new world that is being thrust upon them: 

Olivia plans to spend the week holed up in her cabin with her research and her highlighters in her quest to get chosen for a prestigious medical internship.

This is some more defining information about our main character. She's not just some random teenager—she's a type-A overachiever. And not just any type-A overachiever but one who is trying to get a medical internship at 16. The type of person who goes on vacation and still breaks out her books and studies (not that I would know anything about that…).

4. Make Sure to Include Conflict!

You really want to ensure you get conflict into your query letter. You don't have to say everything that happens; you don't have to give anything away; but generally there should be some huge game-changing conflict that happens around a quarter or a third of the way through your story.

My query letter continues:

But then she meets Sebastian. He's everything Olivia’s not — charismatic, oddly interested in the cruise’s teen programs, and not afraid to take risks.

In my book, Olivia meeting this charming love interest is the first conflict she encounters after entering her new world (the cruise ship).

5. The Secret Sauce: Create an Emotional Heartbeat

Here it is. The secret sauce!

For the first time since her brother died seven years ago, Olivia feels like she can have fun.

Why is this the secret sauce? Because we are hitting on the emotional heartbeat of the story.

This isn't just a book report. We're not just saying things that happen. We're talking about why these events are so impactful for our main character. And we’re also going right back to the opening, by talking about her older brother's death. We don't yet know much, and we're not telling the agent everything — not even the name of the older brother or how old he was or how he died — but there’s enough here that—if you have a heart—you're thinking “Oh! I really want to know more.” 

6. End With Intrigue!

I finished my hook with: 

But there's a lot bubbling up under the surface on this cruise. And when past secrets begin to come to light, Olivia must face all the truths that she's ignored for so long: about herself, Sebastian, her brother, the past she thought she understood, and the future she thought she wanted.

We’ve got the literary agent hooked now! 

We haven't said what's coming, we're not confusing them, it's not just a bunch of rhetorical questions, and we're showing that there's a lot more to this book. They’ll just have to request the full manuscript in order to see how things play out!

Remember: This is your main goal of the query letter. To get the literary agent to want to read more and request your full manuscript. 

Element 3: Include Good Comps

Comps are books or other forms of media that you are comparing your book to, and you want to include two of them in your query letter. Your book isn’t supposed to be identical to your comps, but they should have something in common—similar thematic elements, settings, tones, etc. You want to show your literary agent where in a bookstore your book would be placed.

As a reminder, these can go before the hook or after.

In my query letter, I include them after:

Element 4: Add In Your Bio

You want to finish with a short one- or two-line bio. You can put anything you've published before, but don't worry if you haven't published anything. You just want one or two interesting details about your life, especially if they relate to why you are the person telling your story. 

My interesting detail was that I graduated with a degree in love and learned how to add all of the feels to my romantic subplots after founding a matchmaking startup. 

You’ll close out your query letter with a brief and friendly sign off like this:

Perfecting Your Query Letter

Query letters are so easy and fun to read! But actually sitting down and writing them takes a whole lot of work. Make sure to get tons of feedback on your query letter. Send it to friends and family; find people on social media to read it; share it with people who have read your book and people who haven't. 

Keep improving it—because this is your big shot with literary agents!

I’m Rooting For You!

I really hope this helped and best of luck on your querying journey! If you want even more resources—including the full text of this query letter, my query letter madlib generator, my top query letter writing resources, and my query letter template—make sure to grab a copy of my Query Letter Toolkit.

How I Got 8 Offers from Literary Agents in 1 Month (For My First Book?!) + My Query Stats

After I sent out query letters for the first time for my debut novel, I got eight offers from literary agents. But don’t be fooled: it was a long journey to get there, one filled with a lot of tears and self-doubt.

When I was starting out, I just wanted to know step-by-step how to get a literary agent—and how long the process would take.

So that is what I am setting out to teach you in this post.

I’m going to share the top five things I did that got me from clueless new writer to published author with a six-figure advance.

But first I want to get into exactly how long each part of the process took me—from first draft to fifth draft to landing an agent to signing a contract for a two-book deal with a major publishing house.

I’m also going to break down my exact query stats: how many agents I queried, how many requests for the full manuscript I got, and the total time that it took—from sending my first query letter to signing my offer letter for agent representation.

And I’m a hugeee fan of free resources, so you’ll see tons of those throughout!

How Long Does Getting a Book Deal Really Take?

When I first started writing, I wanted a clear roadmap for how long it would take for my book to get out into the world. I was starting from zero, with no fancy writing background, no MFA, no innate “natural gift” for writing.

I started writing in 2017 and queried my very first manuscript in 2020, right as the world was shutting down due to Covid (do not recommend!). And I love sharing my querying story with other writers because I didn’t have the traditional background that many published authors have. I think it’s so important for writers out there to know that you don’t need a certain background to get a literary agent.

Before I started querying, I read every “How I Got My Agent” blog post. Those writers shared their extensive backgrounds in writing: they’d gotten MFAs, studied English in college, and had written eight or 10 books before even getting an offer. And I felt so behind, like I would never catch up.

Because I didn’t major in writing in college or get an MFA. I didn’t start a journal when I was 12. I didn’t write every day for 10 years, and I didn’t write other manuscripts before I began querying. Instead, my journey involved a massive and public career failure, a ton of self-doubt and insecurity, and a lot of trial and error.

I hope my story inspires you and that these tips help you get closer to landing an agent and getting your story out into the world. Anyone with any background can get a literary agent; the only prerequisite is that you’re willing to put in the work. And I’m not going to sugarcoat the truth—it’s a whole lot of work.

Now let’s get into what that worked looked like for me.

2017: Getting Started as a Writer

I first started writing in the summer of 2017, after I had burnt out from running startups. And let me tell you, my first draft was rough.

Writing a book was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I can’t even begin to explain how much I doubted myself, how much I hated my earliest sentences. I spent hours simply staring at my computer screen without writing a single word. I repeatedly questioned if I was mentally prepared to deal with the highs (some) and lows (mostly) on a consistent basis, if I had the talent, patience, and resilience that this industry demands.

Fiction didn’t come naturally to me. I started writing for all the wrong reasons—out of a desire to prove myself in a new career path—and my early writing was terrible. At the end of my first summer of writing, I gave up.

2018: Take 2

But in the summer of 2018, I tried again. And then gave up again.

And then I read this lifechanging advice from Ira Glass, which I am about to share with you.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit … It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”

- IRA GLASS

2019: Third Time’s the Charm

In 2019 I finally committed to writing. And, slowly but surely, I got better. I ended up throwing out everything I had written in 2017 and 2018 and starting over. I did, however, keep the same cast of characters that I had spent weeks researching and painstakingly developing.

It took six months, from March to September 2019, for me to write the first “real” draft of the book I would end up querying. I only spent around 10 hours per week writing.

Then it took another six months, from September 2019 to February 2020, for me to write a second, third, and fourth draft of the book. This time, I spent around 40 to 50 hours per week writing and editing.

2020: Putting the Finishing Touches on My Manuscript

I worked with a line editor for three weeks on the final line edits in March of 2020. I was working around 80 hours per week, because as you might remember—a global pandemic had just started and I was trying to block out the world.

From mid-March to mid-April, I wrote approximately 30 different versions of my query letter and got tons of feedback. And in April of 2020, I began querying literary agents!

Writing a Book Takes a Long Time—Like, a Really Long Time

All in all, that was two years of writing part-time and one year of writing full-time. And one of the biggest things I learned was that writing a book takes more time than you would think.

I’m someone who can easily work 80-hour weeks because I love getting things done. One of the hardest parts for me with writing a novel was that that was not the case. If I wasn’t in the right headspace, if I was doubting myself or my words, I couldn’t write. This meant that there were multiple years when I only wrote in the summers. And out of those summers, I only spent a few weeks here and there, and a few hours during those weeks, actually writing. It was not linear. But the more I wrote, the more confident I became and the more consistent I got with my writing.

That said, if I was giving advice to a new writer now, I would say try not to do what I did, which was write sporadically. As Neil Gaiman once put it, “If you're only going to write when you're inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelist.” Novels benefit from disciplined writing sessions, full stop. Learn not to rely on external stimuli to get you “in the writing mood.” Instead, do as Hemingway did and end every session knowing what you’re going to write next. That way each of your writing sessions can flow into the next. If you make time for writing every single day, and make it a priority, you’re going to see improvement so much faster.

Top 5: My Advice for Writers Who Want to Get a Literary Agent and Land a Traditional Big 5 Publishing Deal

Now that I’m able to look back, here are the top five pieces of advice I wish I’d had at the start of my writing journey.

1. Get Constructive Criticism on Every Draft

The first—and most important—thing I did that helped me get a literary agent was that I started getting constructive criticism on each of my drafts.

When I first started writing, I was too nervous to share my writing with anyone because I didn’t think it was any good. But by not sharing my writing, I wasn’t getting any better. When I finally started putting my writing out there and getting feedback, my novel began to improve.

One of the most helpful, and hurtful, pieces of feedback I received was that my protagonist was a complete narcissist. It felt like a knock on both my writing and my personality, and it sent me spiraling. But using that feedback as my guide, I wrote a new and stronger draft of my book that fixed a lot of my protagonist’s flaws.

If you find yourself only getting positive feedback, you will keep writing in a straight line, rather than improving. Constructive feedback can be hard to find, but here are four ways to get it:

• The Free Route:

  Find and work with critique partners—and check out my free Critique Partner database if you are in need of some!. If possible, find at least one critique partner who has more experience than you. Being a good critique partner takes work, but make sure to give at least as much as you receive. Be meticulous and precise with your feedback. For example, instead of saying, "Chapter three was boring," specify exactly what you found dull about it (pacing? plot? character development?) and suggest revisions. And, of course, make sure to point out what is working and include praise. We writers are sensitive people! Agree in advance on the timeline for the critique and what you are looking for. Maybe it’s cheerleading, or notes on grammar or pacing. Personally, I’m a fan of the voice note exchange, which allows both partners to quickly provide feedback on their own schedules.

• The Cheap Route:

  Hire beta readers from Fiverr. For around $40 to $80, these readers will review your book and send back a critique. Initially, I was concerned that this feedback would be biased. But my reviews were rarely sugarcoated. Instead, they were extremely constructive and helpful. I used Fiverr for each draft of my book.

• The Investment Route:

• Hire a developmental editor, but only if you can afford it. And remember that paying a professional editor will not get you a book deal. But a great editor can definitely fast-track the learning process, which the editor I worked with certainly did.

• The Free (But Selective) Route:

• Apply to mentorship programs. If you’re at a stage where you’ve put in the work—written a few drafts, had critique partners and beta readers—to make your manuscript as strong as it can be, I recommend applying to mentorship programs. These programs can be really selective, however. So if you aren’t chosen, that doesn’t mean that your book isn’t going to be selected by a literary agent. (I was rejected by the one mentorship program I applied to, only weeks before I landed 8 offers from literary agents!)

2. Learn From the Experts (a.k.a. Books)

The second thing I changed? I finally started studying writing as a craft, rather than just winging it.

After a year of writing some very bad prose, I decided to get serious. I read every writing craft book I could get my hands on. If you are writing with the goal of becoming traditionally published, I do think it’s important to learn how plots are structured, how they work technically.

In addition to craft books, I also read dozens of Young Adult books. I thought I was familiar with Young Adult books, but really I was only familiar with the YA books from when I was growing up in, ahem, the ‘90s and early aughts. I hadn’t read any recent YA books, which was a huge mistake. So I read and read and read, and I read outside of my genre too.

But I didn’t just read the books—I ripped pages out. I retyped my favorite passages to feel out the rhythm. I used an array of colored highlighters to understand how different story elements were utilized.

My favorite fiction books became my guides. By reading through them over and over, I instinctively began to understand what good writing sounded like, the cadence, how it made me feel—and what tools the writers were employing to make me feel that way. For a while, this knowledge made me feel like everything I was writing was garbage. So if you’re in this boat too—congrats!—you have developed an ear for good language. If you can identify good writing, you can learn to write good writing too.

Before I started on each new draft of my novel, I would identify a few key elements of my writing that I wanted to improve. I would then pick out one book that did this particular element exceptionally well and study it. Here are a few aspects I focused on:

• Secondary Characters: How are secondary characters written? I counted how many scenes secondary characters appeared in and how much time was devoted to their story arcs.

• Character Description: How are characters described? I focused on what types of physical descriptions were used and when.

• Emotional Beats: How do you explain how a character is feeling without just saying “heart-racing” over and over? As I read, I highlighted my favorite emotional descriptions and added them to a list.

• The First 10 Pages: How does a writer capture the reader in the first 10 pages? I zeroed in on how writers distributed backstory, action, internal dialogue, and dialogue in the first 10 pages of a novel. Every book did it differently, and they were all layered. I had no idea how to do this myself, and that’s totally normal. In fact, my first 10 pages didn’t come together until I had written the whole book, and I revised them at least a dozen times.

3. Find Your Community

The third thing I did was that I stopped going at it alone. I’d always heard about people having writer friends, and I was so jealous—but too scared to actually put myself out there or call myself a real writer.

But finding your community is essential to surviving in this industry. The ratio of hard work and no acknowledgment to actual success and recognition is insanely unbalanced in the writing world. I would estimate it’s about 10,000 hours of hard work to every 10 minutes of success. The only way to survive with these kinds of odds—and not just survive but thrive and enjoy writing, even without an agent or a book deal or 50,000 followers—is to find your people.

Entering the querying trenches finally gave me the courage to reach out to writers on social media. I connected with a few writers who soon became my closest writing friends. I just wish I hadn’t waited so long. Although my friends and family were supportive when I signed with my agent, no one celebrated like my writer friends.

Check out my free Writer Toolkit for free information about my favorite writing communities!

4. Make a Professional Author Website

I put off making a writing website forever because it seemed really overwhelming. I also didn’t think I was a “real-enough” writer to have a website. But before sending out my query letters, I spent a few hours creating an author website. 

I had so many writers ask about it that I ended up creating a free template for other writers. One of the agents that offered to represent my book specifically mentioned how much she loved my site. She thought I had hired a web design firm to make it!

5. Don’t Jump the Gun

And finally: I’m generally an impatient person who starts a project and then a few days later decides it’s done and in need of validation. But this time I waited, and I worked and worked on my manuscript until I truly thought it was the very best it could be.

As writers, we are all too eager to cross to the finish line after putting our hearts and souls into our work. Because of this, I think that many writers query too soon, before they have made their book the strongest it can be.

But remember—it’s the manuscript, not the query, that prompts an agent to offer representation.

Every time I finished a draft of my book, I thought: I have done it! This book is perfect. But I was too close to my manuscript to see its flaws. Originally, I’d thought that I could get the story out onto the page and then work with an agent to make my draft read more like a book.

But the idea that a literary agent will see potential in your manuscript and work with you on edits? Unfortunately, that is rarely the case anymore. This industry has gotten tougher and tougher. Agents expect you to have already worked with beta readers and critique partners and to be querying a clean, tightly structured, and well-paced book. They are looking for fully polished manuscripts that are more or less ready to be published books.

A Note Before I Get into My Query Stats

Before I share my query stats, I want to acknowledge—if you are writing your book and about to start querying or currently going through the query process, just know this process is difficult. It was tremendously hard for me, even with how lucky I got with agents.

If you’re not seeing similar results, that’s okay! My results are not normal. You only need one offer, and even for the very best books that offer can sometimes take a long time to get. There are so many authors who had less success with the query process than I did but who ended up having more successful books.

Remember to keep your head up, to try not to take rejections personally, and no matter what—to keep writing.

Now—Time for Those Stats!

I queried 50 literary agents over 4 weeks, between April and May of 2020.

13 literary agents requested my full manuscript.

I got my first offer for agent representation 1 month after I began querying.

After that offer, I notified all the other literary agents who had my full manuscript or who had not yet responded to my query letter and asked them to get back to me within 2 weeks.

I got 13 more full requests for my manuscript after that.

From there, I got 7 additional offers for representation, bringing the total to 8 offers. Most of those came either at the start or the end of that 2-week window.

In total: 4 weeks of querying; 2 weeks between my first offer and accepting an offer; 50 queries; 26 full manuscript requests; 3 no responses; 21 query rejections; 17 rejections on the full manuscript (which all came after my first offer); 8 offers; 1 likely offer but an eventual pass due to timing.

If you want to read the query letter I used, grab a copy of my free Query Letter Toolkit!

And Finally…

Good luck to everyone who is writing and querying and working toward finding an agent. If you’re feeling sad and hopeless, you’re not alone. We write because we are sensitive people. Our sensitivity to the world around us makes us great writers, but it also makes us insecure and unnecessarily hard on ourselves.

The publishing industry is opaque. It’s so easy to feel disheartened because so much of the process is outside of our control and agents share so little feedback with writers.

Leveling up is within your control, though. You can aim to make one new writing friend a month. Or read five new books and improve in one area of your writing. Or create your author website. Or apply to mentorship programs.

And remember to enjoy the process as much as you can. Don’t wait until you have a literary agent to celebrate. Celebrate the completion of each draft. Celebrate each sentence that you brilliantly crafted out of thin air. Celebrate that you are doing this amazing, brave, difficult, and important work.

Best of luck out there. I’m rooting for you and your story.