Question 1

What goes in a query letter?

Accepted Answer

A one-page pitch to an agent containing three things: **what the book is, who you are, and why you are writing to them specifically**. It is a sales document, not a summary.

**The structure that works:**

**A personalised opening.** One line establishing why this agent — a book they represent that is comparable, something they said they were looking for, a specific connection. Generic mass queries are recognisable instantly and are treated accordingly.

**The metadata.** Title, **word count**, genre and category, and one or two **comparable titles**. Word count matters more than writers expect — a manuscript substantially outside the expected range for its genre signals inexperience before anything else is read.

**Comparable titles** should be recent, commercially published, and reasonably successful without being enormous bestsellers. "Like *Harry Potter* but for adults" reads as naivety; two apt mid-list comparisons read as someone who understands the market.

**The pitch — two or three paragraphs.** This is the substance. Introduce the protagonist, what they want, what stands in the way, and the choice or stake that drives the book. **End on the central question, not the answer.**

**This is not a synopsis.** It should make someone want to read, not explain what happens. Withholding the ending is correct.

**A short biography.** Relevant publications, competition placings, professional expertise where it bears on the book. **If you have none of that, say nothing rather than padding** — no credentials is entirely normal for a first novel and is not held against you; inventing significance is.

**A brief close**, thanking them and noting what is attached.

**What sinks queries:**

**Not following submission guidelines** — the most common and most avoidable failure. Guidelines are a test of whether you can follow instructions.

**Describing the book's themes or your intentions** rather than its story.

**Claiming it will appeal to everyone**, which signals no understanding of positioning.

**Rhetorical questions** as an opening.

**Querying before the manuscript is finished** — for fiction, it must be complete and revised.

**Non-fiction differs**, using a **proposal** with chapter outline, market analysis and platform.

Question 2

What makes a good title?

Accepted Answer

It has to do several jobs at once — identify, intrigue, and be findable — and the balance between them differs completely depending on where the title will be encountered. What a title must achieve:

Question 3

What is a non-fiction book proposal?

Accepted Answer

A document that sells a book before it is written — which is the fundamental difference from fiction, where a completed manuscript is required. Non-fiction is generally sold on a proposal, so the

Question 4

How do you write a good opening?

Accepted Answer

By giving the reader a reason to continue within the first paragraph — which usually means a question, a tension, or a voice worth following, rather than the explanation most first drafts begin with.

Question 5

What is a comp title, and why do publishers ask for them?

Accepted Answer

A comparable title is a recently published book you name as similar to yours — and it is the single most misunderstood element of a submission, because writers treat it as a compliment to themselves

Question 6

What is an info dump, and how do you avoid one?

Accepted Answer

A passage delivering a large quantity of background information in one undramatised block — and it is a problem not because readers cannot absorb information, but because they have no reason to want

Question 7

What is the difference between literary and genre fiction?

Accepted Answer

Less a difference in quality than a difference in what the book promises the reader — and in practice, a marketing and shelving distinction that determines how a book is edited, sold, reviewed and

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