Meet Cally Taylor, author of Heaven Can Wait which is hitting the book shelves as we speak.
As my guest today,she’ll be showing in detail, how she wrote her query letters. Do ask any questions for Cally in the comments box and I'll try and catch her for answers. She has more dates in her tour of the blogs so look out for her.
Cally Taylor:
I can finish up the post by talking how I ended up getting signed to the Darley Anderson agency.
And then I realised I’d already included all of that information in an interview I’d answered for Caroline Smailes!
Uh oh, I thought. Now what?
That’s when I realised there’s something I’ve never revealed to the internet before – the cover letter I sent to Darley to accompany my synopsis and first three chapters!
Before I started subbing to agents I scoured the internet for examples of cover letters. There was so much advice out there – much of it differing – that I came away feeling more confused than before I’d started searching.
I’m not claiming that my cover letter is the perfect, or best, way to write a cover letter but it worked for me. From the six submissions I sent out to agents I received:
· two requests for the full
· two personalised rejections
· one form rejection
· one agent I never heard back from!
The breakdown of my cover letters always followed this structure
- Greeting
- How/why I decided to choose the agent (if they represented an author I was a fan of I’d say so. It shows the agent you’ve done your research and not just fired off the same letter you send everyone!)
- A short paragraph about my novel, giving the word count and a few details (I chose to use a blurb style to try and gain the agent’s interest. My synopsis contained the full details of the plot)
- A couple of lines describing the readership the book was aimed at
- A paragraph about the potential market for my book (I have no idea if this is a good idea or not but as my book was very different from anything on the market I felt I needed to try and convince the agent that it might sell! If you’ve written normal chicklit – i.e. not paranormal – you won’t need a paragraph like this because an agent already knows it sells!)
- A paragraph about my writing background
- Very brief paragraph about my second novel (I inserted this to show the agents I’d already started work on a second book in the same genre and that I wasn’t a one-trick pony!)
- What I was enclosing (this depends on what the agent asks for in the W&AYB or their website)
- Goodbye
Okay, so that’s the theory. Here’s the letter:
ADDRESS
DATE
Dear Darley
I am looking for an agent for my chick lit novel Heaven Can Wait, complete at 80,000 words. I decided to approach you after seeing your entry in the Writers and Artists’ Yearbook and discovering you represent chick-lit. I’m also a big fan of Carole Matthews and particularly enjoyed her last book, “The Chocolate Lovers’ Club”.
Heaven Can Wait is an 80,000 word supernatural novel about Lucy Brown, a twenty-eight year old woman who dies the night before her wedding and ends up in Limbo. Lucy is desperate to become a ghost so she can be reunited with her fiancé Dan but before she can attain ghost status she must return to earth as one of the ‘living dead’ and find love for a total stranger in just twenty-one days. Can Lucy complete her task on time or will her best friend Anna get her clutches into Dan first?
The novel would appeal to women in their late teens to early forties who enjoy chick-lit and films like Ghost and Just Like Heaven.
The supernatural seems to be extraordinarily popular at the moment with television programmes like The Ghost Whisperer, Supernatural, Most Haunted and Dead Like Me achieving huge viewing figures. I’ve also noticed a big market in the States for paranormal women’s fiction and a gap in the UK market for this type of fiction. I’m hoping my novel could fill that gap.
I have been writing fiction for three years and have won five short story competitions and placed in many others including the runner up prize in Woman’s Own magazine’s in 2006. Take a Break Fiction Feast and My Weekly have also published my short stories. Full details can be found on my website www.callytaylor.co.uk
I am currently planning my second novel [BRIEF DETAILS OF NOVEL 2]
I enclose my synopsis, the first three chapters of my novel and a stamped addressed envelope.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my work.
Yours sincerely
Cally Taylor
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Okay! So that’s it. I hope at least one person reading this guest post found it useful! Thanks for reading.
Cally
Blog: http://writing-about-writing.blogspot.com
Author of “Heaven Can Wait” (published by Orion paperback, out now!).
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