August 12, 2010
To whom it may concern,
Hello, my name is Lindsey Sablowski. I have written a book called The Magic of Light. I have been revising and adding to this book for four years now. The book is young adult fantasy fiction that would be best for middle school children and above. The word count of the book is 88,160 and there are 152 pages. I would appreciate you taking the time to consider representing my book.
The Magic of Light is the story of two young teenagers, Trisha and Keith, who discover they have magic. The two join together with others to free magicians who have been kidnapped and to ultimately stop the Dark King from causing chaos. Some of the main characters include Keith, Trisha, Prince Nicholas, Bob, and Rachel Terims. This group of un-advanced magicians must get past their fears and learn to fight. It is not before long that they realize they must fight the Dark King and that fight alone will determine who lives on in the magical world and who does not.
I am a participant of National Novel Writing Month, ScriptFrenzy, and WriteOnCon. I am also an active member of Inkpop, a widely known writing website for writers of YA literature. I enjoy writing and have gotten two short stories published in the Howard High School
Thank you for considering my book for representation and I look forward to hearing back from you.
Sincerely,
Lindsey Sablowski
3 Comments:
Lindsey - First of all it was very brave of you to post your query! So good for you. Here's what I have to say:
Most of the first paragraph is unnecessary. Start with the story itself. The agent knows you are writing for representation and that you are a writer. You don't need page number count or how long you've been working on it.
Something like-
In THE MAGIC OF LIGHT, two teenagers, Trisha and Keith, discover they have magic powers when (fill in the blank). Now, these two fledgling magicians must face the most powerful sorcerer of all time and their greatest fears (I'm making this part up but you get the idea) in order to free X, Y and Z. If they fail, they will lose their place in the world of magic forever.
THE MAGIC OF LIGHT is a paranormal YA of approximately 88,000 words.
Then, I'm not sure if I would mention Nanowrimo or scriptfrenzy. The rest looks great for the bio!
Honestly, just cut the beginning because those reading it will be skimming for the important stuff and if they see too much extraneous info they may be turned off. Then in the summary (which I probably totally massacred) use the VOICE that you use in the book to hook us. It takes practice, I know it took me forever to get that down, but it's so worth the effort! GOOD LUCK! And keep us posted.
I agree with the above comment. It reads like an infomercial where you're trying to sell...idk...something you don't really care about. It's just...stagnated and too much irrelevant information such as the fact that you've been revising the story for years.
She said everything I'd recommend. Don't mention Nanowrimo, all the online websites you're apart of, just keep true to the STORY you're trying to sell. Make us WANT to read it. Lisa said everything I'd say. It is pretty good so far. You have a base upon which to start at least. The hook'll take a while to get but once you've got it, hot damn there'll be nothing that can stop you! XD
Keep us posted like Lisa said, I want to see your query rise to the potential I know your book holds.
I'll be posting my query so far to my blog. You can read it and tear it apart to your pleasure. =D
Keep writing.
I wish you the best, of course.
Sheron Parris
Thanks for the comments, girls. Now that you mention it I do see what you are saying. I've never jumped right into the summary of the book, but now that you point it out I really should.
I'll keep you posted as always and probably will have a new query up later that you can feel free to comment and critique. Thanks!
Post a Comment
I love comments, so please take the time to leave one. Thank you!