The Query Letter That Got Me My Agent

Posted byLouise BeechPosted inUncategorized

Back in the day when I was trying to get an agent, a publisher, a fishmonger, anyone who might even consider reading and publishing one of my novels, I worked tirelessly to perfect the dreaded Query Letter. Two words that strike bowel-weakening fear and dread into even the most thick-skinned writer. I wondered, what should I say? Even more importantly, what should I not say? What should I include? Not include? I don’t know if it was an inept query letter that meant it took me eight years to get a book deal, or just that my novels didn’t fit into the right box, as I was repeatedly told.

Eventually, ironically, at the end of 2014, when I FINALLY got a book deal with Orenda for my debut novel How to be Brave, I didn’t need one. When I saw on Twitter that Karen Sullivan was starting up her own indie publishing house, I rather riskily and cheekily (two adverbs in one sentence, to show that it generally isn’t the done thing) tweeted her about my book, and she said she liked the sound of it, and to send three chapters and a synopsis over. The rest, as they say, is history.

Then, during the lockdowns of 2020, I wrote two books that I knew I needed an agent for. One was a memoir, and the other was a dystopian thriller. Yes, I sort of lost my mind. So, it was back to the dreaded Query Letter. Even though I’d had six, almost seven, books published at that point, I knew I still needed the killer letter to hook me an agent. I drafted and re-drafted, drafted and re-drafted, drafted and re-drafted. Which is all good and well, but now I needed the right agent to send it to. Then I saw this on Twitter. Good old Twitter. It’s changed my life.

Not only did Emily’s banner (three beautiful pictures of my idol, Marilyn Monroe) speak to me, but I loved her general demeanour, and that she was looking for what I had to offer. So, with trembling hands, I tried her out with my edited-a-million-times Query Letter. She responded very quickly, and very keenly, and now she is my agent. So, would you like to see the letter that got me my agent? Of course you would. I’m not saying it’s perfect, or the only way to write them, but I’m sharing in the hope that it inspires or helps you. Good luck.

Published by Louise Beech

I remember sitting in my musician father's cross-legged lap while he tried to show me the guitar chords. I was three. His music sheets fascinated me - strange language that translated into music. My mother taught French and English, so her fluency with words fired my interest. I love all forms of writing. My short stories have won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting twice for the Bridport Prize and being published in a variety of UK magazines. My first play, Afloat, was performed at Hull Truck Theatre in 2012. I also wrote a ten-year newspaper column for the Hull Daily Mail about being a parent. My debut novel, How to be Brave, was a Guardian Readers' pick for 2015. My third novel Maria in the Moon was described as ‘quirky, darkly comic and heartfelt’ by the Sunday Mirror; The Lion Tamer Who Lost shortlisted for the Popular Romantic Novel of 2019 at the RNA Awards and longlisted for the Polari Prize 2019; Call Me Star Girl longlisted for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize and was Best magazine’s Best Book of the Year 2019; and I Am Dust was a Crime Magazine Monthly Pick. This Is How We Are Human was a Clare Mackintosh Book of the Month. Daffodils, the audiobook of my memoir, and Nothing Else were released 2022. End of Story (as Louise Swanson) and the paperback version of my memoir, Eighteen Seconds, were released in 2023.

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