HOW TO WRITE A QUERY LETTER | Book Query Template

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Looking for feedback on your query? My query review package includes a critique and unlimited reads for a flat rate of $100. That means you can revise and resend your query for more feedback as many times as it takes for us to make it shine. Email me at mischubooks at gmail.com!

[@Redskirt]

I've watched a lot of writing/publishing videos and this is the best query how-to I've seen. Thank you for this! You want the messy, right? Adia Beldenet expects years of ordinary Princess duties before she'll have to take the throne, but the day she gets home from college, her father reveals that the greedy nobles are plotting a coup and will probably try to kill him. Now Adia must find a way to protect her father and save the kingdom despite his insistence that the sketchy mercenary army he's hired will do the job, or else she could lose her father, her future, and even her life. So glad I found your channel! 🙂

[@terryscarborough729]

This is so wonderfully helpful Thank you!! Jane was a failure at everything she tried, even her favorite class, art, until her discarded drawings came to life in the medievalish world which she and her sister and their friend enter on their raft, and where children quickly change into grownups who don't even want to try doing the things they love anymore, and Jane's own sister Maddy has changed into a grownup. Now Jane must use her art to help her sister and all the other changed children find their way back to childhood, or the evil lord will remain in power and soon there might be no more children at all, and Maddy could be lost forever.

[@heathermacdonald6404]

Here for my daily fix before I begin writing. Have a good day, Michelle! :)

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Yay! :) Happy writing, Heather!

[@melodymomper5190]

[June St.Clair] was [celebrating another birthday without her father] until [she got an unexpected call from her estranged grandfather telling them that June and her mother's lives were in danger] happens, and [ later that night they are attacked by a monster from Japanese monster who corrupts her mother's mind to do anything he says forcing June to find her grandfather and move to Japan with him]. Now [June] must [learn about her families connection to an ancient organization of Japanese Warriors called the Hogosha to try and save her mother] despite [having to find the lost Imperial Regalia while navigating a different culture and language] or else [ she may never get her mother back and leave Japan]. My goodness was this ten times harder than you would think it'd be. I had to force myself to leave it a long clunky sentence but it also forced me to really think about what information was important in my book. Thanks for sharing this wonderful formula!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Melody, you knocked this out of the park!!! Amazing job! It's weird how hard it is to let it be 'clunky,' right? But now that you have the story beats down, you can make it all pretty and voicey. Amazing job!!

[@jhagen22]

This was awesome! A great way to think about the bones of a query letter. I will definitely incorporate this into my next one. Thanks!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

I'm so glad you found it helpful! Thanks for watching (and good luck with the query!!) :)

[@PickaGodandPray]

I cannot believe this video has so few views??!!! And no one has responded. Okay I'll go first. It's not perfect but I seriously adore your videos. I'm so glad I found them!!! Please continue! Claudia Von Shezel, a cruel Duchess, was wrongly executed for the one crime she didn’t commit. Just as the executioners axe cut through her neck, she woke up four years in the past. Now with memories of the future, Claudia vows revenge on the five people she blames for her rightful downfall, even if she has to be nice to accomplish her goals. As a proud Traonian noble, Claudia, was raised to reject magic and gods, yet the strange voice that has begun haunting her dreams is demanding freedom. Despite her anxieties that she possesses magic or somehow managed to contract a god, Claudia forges forward towards gathering power, influence, and money. When her maid is killed, Claudia is prompted by the Voice to preform blood magic. Giving the God Xas a body after a thousand years of sleep in return for it allowing her to relive her life. Xas demands that Claudia help it destroy the seven other gods that inhabit the world. If Claudia is found to have magic or conspiring with gods she would be striped of her title and sentenced, again, to death. Xas, also holds her life in its hands as blackmail for her assistance. Stuck between two death options, Claudia plans to stride forward with her head held high. Nothing will stop her from her goals, not even the lingering guilt that she may be wrong. AGAIN!!! Oh my gods thank you for your videos!!!! Seriously informative and easy to digest!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thank you so so much!! 😄 I was so hoping someone would try this one eventually! I LOVE reading pitches. Okay - first line. "For the one crime she didn't commit" made me LOL - I already love this character. "Memories of the future" is a killer premise (and I'm a sucker for anything with time travel), also "even if she has to be nice" is hilarious--and does an amazing job of giving me an idea of the conflict Claudia's going to be struggling with. There's a lot of great detail in the second paragraph - is there a way to work in a small mention of magic/gods in the first paragraph? While the actual traveling back four years is clearly some sort of magic, I read it assuming it was magic in a world where magic doesn't exist, then I read the second paragraph about magic/contacting gods and that gave new context to the execution. That should be a super small fix to make! Claudia performing magic she's been raised to reject to give a god (who she's also been raised to reject) a body because he gave her a second chance - YES. Omg. Conflict all over the place. I love it. Said god demanding she DESTROY ALL THE OTHER GODS -- AGAIN, ALL THE YES! My only other suggestion -- and I think this would be an easy fix, too -- is in the last line, you mention Claudia's goals. But it took me a minute to remember what her goals are. I thought wait, to kill the gods? Maybe to find a way to release herself from Xas's debt? Then I went back to the first paragraph and thought OH, right, revenge on the five people responsible for her future death!! It would be so cool if you could work in a tiny bit about who they are and how they fit into all of this. Obviously, you don't want to describe each of them individually in the query - but are they royalty? Peasants? Resistance fighters of some sort? Is there a word or phrase you could use to sum up their place in this world? That would really help me see how they fit into this epic plot. Claudia is taking huge risks to follow through on her plan, and I love the idea that as the story progresses, she's rethinking her decisions and maybe even concluding that those five people were right in taking her down. It would be great to give them a bit more shape/presence in this blurb. This story sounds seriously rad!! 😆

[@PickaGodandPray]

@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor Oh! Oh my Gods! Uh THANK YOU for replying! Im floating on air! I will take your critique and think about how to better reword my Query!!!! Your explanation was straight forward and clear. I cannot explain it exactly but what you said has made more sense than most blog posts I've read! So thank you again!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

@@PickaGodandPray ​ Jojo G Thank YOU for posting it, seriously! I know it can be hard to share this stuff (especially publicly). I'm so so glad this was helpful - and keep me updated on your progress! Not just saying this, I would 100% pick this book up, it sounds awesome. 😃

[@itsshortforlizard1582]

I love your videos! So helpful and fun! I love your style and personality Okay, I'll give this one a try. David is desperately trying to prove himself as the newest (and youngest) supervisor of Green Gables Grocery, when Claire bulldozes her way into his life, uprooting the order and structure he worked so hard at and propelling a freight train of chaos into his world. But, for some godforsaken reason, he likes her. David must learn to balance the responsibilities of the job while taming the wild Claire, or accept that one or the other ultimately needs to go. A little more revision and I think I've got something. Thank you for this video! Querying is right around the corner for me

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thank you so much, Liz! This story sounds SO fun - I love the image of super responsible David and "bulldozer" Claire! You've done an awesome job of boiling this down to a few succinct sentences, which is honestly the hardest part of writing a query. So now you can weave in a few more details to make it even more tantalizing. What I most want to know is: how exactly does Claire fit in when it comes to David's job? Does she work at GGG too, or is this more about David balancing a love life with work? Another tidbit that would be cool to include would be the stakes of him losing the job - I mean, losing a job IS high stakes, of course, but for David, what exactly does it mean? Would he be unable to pay rent? Is he saving for something? What would the loss of this job mean for him personally? And finally, I would LOVE a specific example of exactly what makes Claire so wild. Is there a scene in the book you could hint at in the query (she makes him go skydiving, she breaks into the grocery in the middle of the night because she needs milk...what kind of 'wild' are we talking here?) Please keep me posted on your progress! It's so exciting that you're close to the querying stage!!

[@EfiLovesBooks]

As helpful as all this is (and it IS helpful), the outtakes at the end make the video!

[@aguideto....8738]

A great video, recommended in our writers group. Thank you! Here’s my first stab… albeit I’m a bit of a rebel and mixed the last two bits the other way around. Welcome any feedback. Alex blames himself for Jacob’s death and rarely leaves his room, until he makes a discovery at an abandoned mansion and his life is turned upside down. With the power to move through time, he just might be able to save Jacob. But when Alex’s ancestor, Lady Eliza, enrols him into the secret Time Academy, he realises things might not be that simple. When disaster strikes, Alex and Eliza find themselves stranded in a world ruled by a powerful Empress. A world where Alex’s family never existed and the Empress is always one step ahead. Now, Alex and Eliza must defeat the Empress, restore the timeline and save Jacob before it’s too late and the world they know is gone forever.

[@sherrylalonde5719]

Ok, so here's my seriously ugly query formula. This isn't my actual query (God forbid!) but this exercise has helped me remember what the important plot points were and to stop getting bogged down in detail. Thanks for this, I know I'll be using it in all my writing from now on:) Del has mixed emotions at being back in her hometown but is looking forward to proving herself after being away for a decade. She’s a sought after professional now who has worked at many famous gardens in Britain. She’s been asked to restore the garden at Sumner Hall, the ‘big house’ she remembers from her childhood which is now being donated to Heritate Trust. Accidents, vandalism, theft; everything is going wrong and ruining her plans for redemption and then the unthinkable happens - a body is found in the old ice house, throwing her plans out the window and drawing her into solving the forty year old mystery that has implications reaching back not only to the Sumner family but to her own father, and secrets he kept from her. Now Del must solve the mystery despite everyone who would prefer it stayed buried in the past or else she could be the next body in the garden!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Oooh Sherry, this sounds like exactly the type of murder mystery I'd pick up! I love it - and thank you so much for sharing! I'm happy you like the formula; it's so handy. :) This is an awesome start to your query!! All the important stuff (stakes, conflict, goals) is here, I think really it's just a matter of drawing out a few details. The thing I most want to hear more about is -- why does Del need to redeem herself?? I know, I know, that's not something you want to completely give away in the blurb, but it would really help to give it a little bit of context...especially if there's a "who" involved. This thing that happened in the past - did Del do something, or was something done to her? Who was involved (family member? best friend? lover?) Was she a child, teen, young adult? You don't have to give away the farm; just a little tease would be perfect! Once that's in there, the stakes will automatically seem even higher, and the conflict will feel even richer. One other thing I would consider adding - a hint as to who the murder victim in the ice house is. I love that the old mystery you referenced is tied back to her father (good old buried family secrets, my fav) and I'm curious to know how this victim might be connected. Again, just a few tantalizing hints - don't worry about spelling it all out! You've done a fantastic job of boiling what sounds like a big mystery with lots of backstory down to these key plot points, and I wouldn't want you to clutter it up. :) Overall though, fantastic job!!

[@soussousol5256]

Great.I'm trying it and let you konw how it goes in another comment.

[@annehanovich5280]

Here was my plugged-in info, followed by the "finished" product: [Seventeen-year-old Katrina Quinn] was [poised for a performance career travelling and playing piano] when [her Dad was discharged from the Navy under mysterious circumstances], causing [her to miss the National Piano Competition and suffer from crippling performance anxiety]. Now [Katrina] must [reinvent herself as a performer] despite [her dad’s spiral into alcoholism and PTSD-induced mental health issues] or risk [losing both her dreams and her dad]. Musically gifted high school junior, Katrina Quinn, pours her life into a career playing piano. Her aspirations crumble when the Navy discharges her dad under mysterious circumstances. This forces Katrina to miss the National Piano Competition, triggering a downward spiral of crippling performance anxiety. Now Katrina must reinvent herself as a musician while simultaneously supporting her dad as he struggles with alcoholism and PTSD. If she fails, she risks losing both her dreams and her dad.