On Mastering Query Letters with Leslie Lehr

In this episode of Talking Book Publishing, hosts Kathleen and Adanna sit down with Leslie Lehr, an experienced author and writing consultant, to demystify the art of crafting effective query letters. Leslie, a successful author with a diverse career journey, shares her insights and experiences, from novel and screenwriting to becoming a well-known expert in developing compelling query letters that capture the attention of literary agents.

She discusses the importance of understanding the structure of a query letter, the critical components that make a query letter stand out, and the evolving nature of the publishing industry. Leslie also previews her upcoming webinar, where she will dive deeper into the techniques and strategies for writing successful query letters, providing invaluable insights for new and seasoned writers. She will give more in-depth information on September 14 with Unlock the Secrets to a Killer Query Letter. (more information here)

Listeners will learn about the essential elements of a query letter, the differences between fiction and nonfiction writing, and the common mistakes to avoid. Leslie emphasizes the practicality of understanding your book's unique selling points and how to convey them succinctly in a query letter. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to take their manuscript to the next level and break into traditional publishing.

We’d like to hear from you. If you have topics or speakers you’d like us to interview, please email us at podcast@talkingbookpublishing.today and join the conversation in the comments on our Instagram @writerspubsnet.

Transcript

00:00:02 SPEAKER_02

Hello and welcome to Talking Book Publishing. I'm Kathleen Kaiser

along with my co-host Adana Moriarty and today we have Leslie Laird

with us who's a woman I've worked with with a client on query letters

and found her so amazing and what she did and very knowledgeable and I

thought Since she's doing a webinar in September for us, I thought

let's have her on as a guest and talk more about it because I think

query letters are a stumbling block for most writers. So welcome,

Leslie. Thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you. So first off, before

we get started on the query letters, you have had a very interesting

career. So I like people to know a little bit more about your

background. Can you tell us a little bit about how you how you sort of

come to where you are?

00:00:57 SPEAKER_02

You're a published author. You've done quite a number of things. So

give us some background, please. Well, I actually never intended to be

a

00:01:04 SPEAKER_01

I actually never intended to be a writer. I think that's a lot of our

stories. I grew up in Ohio and I did have two college professors for

parents, but I tended to vent in essays. And I wanted to come out to

LA for the film business and found that every time I wrote an essay,

it would turn into a story. I did go to film school at USC and won a

student Emmy with a production there, but I wanted to make movies. And

in between, I was constantly writing. I was writing screenplays and I

thought, why is that movie getting made? If I could write a better

story. And I wrote screenplays, but then I had my first child. And

when I was home, I was like, here's my chance to write a book. I'm

going to try and write a book. And I actually started writing, venting

with essays about how frustrating it was to be a mom at home. I

thought I was just a big career woman. And those essays actually

became my first book, nonfiction humorous book. And that led to my

second book. And then I thought, okay, this is really great. If I

could have a career at home and work and write, and I wrote my first

novel and gave myself a year. And I thought, if this book hits, that's

it. And the book, and at the same time, I had been writing screenplays

and I sold a screenplay and kind of the same year that my novel won

this huge literary prize it did not change my life because i was

shocked at how financially writing a novel is not you know the end all

but it did open my eyes to an amazing amount of other authors and i

was able to I was flown to new orleans to get this big prize and there

was a hurricane and so we're not leaving we went back and i ended up

meeting all these authors and seeing how these brilliant people who

i've been reading books from all my life. Lunchtime would be like

grading papers and working with other writers and i thought that's

that's pretty interesting and that's a way to. actually find meaning

when you're writing your own stuff as well. And so I started teaching

novel writing at UCLA, and I started working with other writers, kind

of as a way that so I could write whatever I wanted. You know, I was

not the kind of person who wanted to write a million sci fi books or a

million this or that I kind of wanted to write things that matter to

me that had meaning. And so I would write novels, and I would turn my

novels into screenplays. And I Outside of school, I took a seminar

from a man named John Truby, who 20 years later, I actually married

because I was teaching his theories all over the country at different

conferences. And now that's kind of our love language. And we write

very differently. So I'm a very heavy structure person, which I was

doing long before we married. But I love working with writers. I have

what people call x-ray vision when people You know kind of talk about

me because i can see the structure and that tends to be people's

weakest parts so i get to write and whatever i want and then sell it

meanwhile i'm working with other people's. you know, other people's

stories of all kinds. And that's what's so fun for me, because I still

love to read, I still love stories. And I also that first novel that

won a literary prize. So I've written like seven or eight books. Now.

I write whenever I want to sell it, and it's great. And some turn into

scripts, and some turned into, you know, TV and I have a project in

development hell right now, just wrote the screenplay, so it may be

going out working on another novel. But I actually was asked once, why

don't I pick a major? And he meant stick to a genre. And I don't want

to do that. I want to write what fascinates me. I generally tend to

write about women, but I would say at least half of my clients are

men. It's really about structure and selling. And that first novel

that won a literary prize when I got flown around the country, I

overheard the agent who I got because of that prize that I won showing

somebody my query letter and talking about how this is how you have to

write it. And the way she described it made it sound like I just

whipped it off in one day. And I had spent like, three solid full-time

weeks working on this query letter and doing all this research. And I

also am a student. I am constantly reading blogs on writing and seeing

what other people think. Every day, I feel like I'm a better writer

than the day before, but I can see other people's work so well. And

that was like 25 years ago, that query letter. And so since then, I

have helped people and I've written query letters for people all over

the world, all over the map. And I find what's most interesting is

people don't always know what their book is about. So writing the

query letter can be a way to focus it. Although I do recommend that

people wait until they're pretty much done. Because the thing about

query letters is, if you want an agent to traditionally publish, you

need one. And yet, it's not like, will you marry me and be my agent?

And agents only make money if they can sell your book. And that's why

it's so hard to get an agent because they're essentially working for

free unless they sell a book. And that's why query letters are so

important. So that's me what I do. I'm just really grateful. You know,

in my professional life, I pretty much sit down today I'm working with

a manuscript with a man in Denmark and another man who's a

cardiologist who's writing a book and wants help with this thing. I'm

helping somebody else with a query letter. And I am pretty much just

like in the playground of words and stories all day long. So I got

really lucky with my career. Well, it sounds like you worked at

building it, too, though. I did, yeah. I mean, I work really hard. In

fact, I was taking an exercise class this morning on Zoom, and I was a

little late. And my teacher was like, oh, Leslie's just working again.

I'm like, yeah, you know, I was up early. I'm working on my stuff. I'm

making notes. I'm working with clients. And the thing about writing is

it's not a 95 job. You know, you don't go home from the bank and

you're done. I tend to work weekends, either on my stories or other

people's stories. whatever stories in my head, it's really fun. I get

to do a lot of things. And yeah, it's a lot of work, but there's a lot

of joy in it. And I do find at this stage of my career, helping other

people tell their stories. It's like, I can help people skip months

and months and months and years of rewriting and drafts just because

i've been doing it a long time i know what makes a good story i know

the genres and i know what they need to do to attract an agent to get

it ask for a sample and then the book is is their deal you know so

yeah it's it's definitely a business it's not an easy one i'm

constantly i don't advertise anymore so much i i'm definitely all over

social media but i tend to get more jobs by referral people who've

worked with me and i have a lot of clients who are on the bestseller

list and clients who are selling their work in different places. Many

of them don't want me to mention their names because, you know, people

think you do it all yourself, but it really is craft that involves a

lot of practice and. And it's people deserve to get help to skip ahead

so that they can get to the place to get their stories out in the

world, because I believe everybody deserves a voice. You know, we're

here one time in our life and we want to make a difference. And I

think our

00:08:29 SPEAKER_00

stories can do that. Hmm. I think that too. Yeah. What, so, I

00:08:33 SPEAKER_00

I mean, you know, somebody comes to you wanting help with a query

letter and then, I mean, you guys work together and then you turn it

back to them or do you help them send it out? I mean, what does that

process look like in your daily life when you're working with clients?

00:08:51 SPEAKER_01

Well, I work with in different ways. So I work as a consultant and,

you know, by the hour I can help someone develop their story or break

down a story that they already have and show them what they're missing

or what they need. With query letters, I, I tend to, I can help

somebody on an hourly basis or read it back and forth, but generally

it takes so long that I just assume right at myself. So I can even

say, Hey, I need a query letter. And I'll say, give me a synopsis,

give me an outline, give me some sample pages. And then i'll go back

and forth with some questions but i can give you a credit letter that

the thing about credit letters is it's a completely different scale.

than writing a book, whether you're writing nonfiction or fiction or

memoir. A query letter is a sales tool. And the beauty of it is for

agents, if you have a good query letter, they can use it when they

then seek an editor. They can use your bio. You can use your bio. I

use a bio for my recent query letter for some book events I have

coming up this fall. And I just kind of shift them around, you know,

but it's that basic bio and the synopsis. In a query letter is very

difficult to write. It's the stumbling block for most people because

it's written very different than any part of your book. And the first

paragraph of a query letter is the hook. Agents get hundreds of query

letters, you know, every week and they just need to skip through it,

skip through it. And while query letters have not changed over the

last 25 years, obviously publishing has, and the way agents work also

has, and many people do it online. And so you need to be able to

adjust and also have a sample. And I do recommend that. Well, and also

in nonfiction books and in memos these days, you need a proposal, a

full on proposal. I actually just finished working with somebody in

Norway, actually on her nonfiction book proposal, but She still needs

a query letter, because you've got to hook the agent into wanting to

read more. And that's the whole purpose of a query letter. It's not to

say, will you be my agent? It's like, will you read a sample of my

work? It's like being on one of these dating sites, and you don't want

the agent to keep swiping. You want him to say, oh, yeah, let's have

coffee. That's a good example

00:11:12 SPEAKER_01

a good example

00:11:12 SPEAKER_02

of what it's like, I think. Yeah.

00:11:15 SPEAKER_01

I actually was teaching a novel class in the writer's program at UCLA

years ago, and I had the novelist Carolyn See, who wrote this

fantastic book, The Handyman, one of my very favorite books. Her

daughter is Lisa See, who started out with detective novels and now

writes these Asian women novels, major bestseller, and she came into

my class as a guest speaker. And I almost got in huge trouble because

she just swore like a sailor. And she was saying, you write a prairie

letter, you don't go in a bar and say, do you wanna, the F word, you

know, you don't just go there, you have to do this and this and this

and this. So I've always kind of used her sample of, you know, it's

not a proposal. It's all the stages of dating and you want to put on

your best clothes. You don't want to have typos, you know, you want to

have your paragraphs perfectly. And you know it also great letters

take a lot of research you need good comps and then of course the most

important thing you need is the premise line and. I miss lines are

really hard very difficult you really need to be able to break your

book down to the essence of the story and that's where the biggest

stumbling block i find people are writing their own letters so.

00:12:30 SPEAKER_01

I work in very many ways i can work by the hour or by the letter or a

full manuscript or a jumpstart package i do which is a series of hours

where i will give you assignments that will help you structure the

book and we go back and forth. So i'm just all about whatever you need

i'm here i generally talk to people first as you know kathleen. I try

to say, Oh, free 10 minute chat. And I'm, it always takes way longer

because I want to know about the story and I want to know if we're

good fit. And then I want to figure out what's, what's best. And I got

plenty of clients. I really get to work with whoever I want, whatever

stories I want. And, and I want to know, I want the person to know

what's, what are they comfortable with? I mean, can we solve this

problem in an hour? Do you want to do a package or you want to wait

and send me the whole thing or Let me look at your letter you got see

what's going on and i can i can fix it up for you cuz i'm obviously

i've been you know i've written a lot of books a lot of genres nonfiction

and fiction and my recent you know is the best sellers is.

Non-fiction memoir so it's kind of a hybrid so i'm kind of all over

the map and what i can do. I mean there are definitely things i don't

like to do and don't don't do i want to horror crime. But pretty much

everything else I can find a way in and help you write it in a way

that I know will get to the public. And the problem that I find most

people having is some people are really good writers and don't have

their stories together, or they have a great story but really don't

know how to write it. And even in my own work, once I sell it, I have

to know that my draft, that's my draft. And what the business of

selling it to a publisher in whatever the market is on that day is up

to the agent and the editor. And that's their draft. I mean, there's

things that I am not thrilled about in pretty much every book I've

published, but I have that draft. And the one that's out there is the

professional one that's out for the world. And it has enough of the

gold. The nugget that I feel is the most important in that book. I

mean, we do have total control. We can say yes or no, but sometimes no

means it won't get published. But we have to just make sure that our

goal in writing the story, what's the most precious to us, is

expressed. And that's what is the most important to me in helping

people get their stories written and getting an agent if they want to

be

00:14:56 SPEAKER_00

be traditionally published. I find this whole process fascinating

because I feel like that, you know, we write and we end up with a

manuscript and then the rest of it feels mysterious. You know what I

mean? It's like, well, how did that person get that publisher with

that book? And, and, you know, like we all know the steps, but I do

feel like that the whole thing is sort of a mysterious

00:15:23 SPEAKER_00

process. And that's one of the reasons why we started the podcast was

to like demystify, you know?

00:15:30 SPEAKER_01

Well, there is a lot of mystery to it, not in the steps to get there,

but in who makes the bestseller list. And in fact, I think, you know,

Zibby Owens, who does a Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books podcast,

she has a new bookstore out here. I mean, there's a lot of great

bookstores, but she even found that there is not a mystery, but

there's certainly, well, I came up on the West Coast, right? I'm from

Ohio, but I was writing by myself. I ended up being a single mom. And

I couldn't go to Bread Loaf and all these prestigious things on the

East Coast. I mean, now I can host. I've done a lot of panels up

there. But I was never able to get away from my children. I had full

custody to take advantage of a lot of these things. And there's a lot

of groups and agents that come out of the Ivies, certain schools that

are kind of a clique who get these prestigious agents, who have the

connections to all these best things. Yeah, the mystery part is, maybe

it's not a mystery. I think there's definitely favoritism in terms of

which publishers pick which books are going to be the best sellers.

And yet, they're generally pretty good. I mean, although I got to say

there's the top 10 in the New York Times right now. I mean, I'm

constantly reading, I want to keep up, but there's some books I don't

like. It's not my taste. It's subjective. But there's a lot of books

that are really great and don't get the chance out there. So I think

there is mystery in terms of there's luck. But I think that all we can

do is put out the best material we can, the best stories. And then we

have to build a team to promote it with people like you who do

marketing. And I generally will. Nowadays, you have to hire your own

publicist, even if you have a great publisher. And you have to do the

social media and in your query letter, I have so many people who say,

yes, the other day I was this person had the last paragraph. I'm going

to have a website and then I'll do this and that. And I just said,

that's irrelevant. Everyone says they're going to do that. If you have

5,000 or 10,000 followers or a million on TikTok or whatever, yeah,

mention what you have now. And there's no proof it will sell books.

They don't know. They just like to hear it. But if that's your

intention, it's irrelevant. What you want to do is sell a story that

people care about, written in a way that's professional. And that's,

that's the best we can do. And sometimes it's the process and knowing

that we've accomplished it. And as we were speaking earlier,

independent publishing is now very respected. It's no longer called

vanity publishing. And my goal and part of my complaint is that now

anyone can write a book. You can hit print on Amazon and well, KDP

publishing. You can hire people and i can refer you to people who are

great who can help you do that. But it means there's a lot of really

bad writing out there there's a lot of stories is a lot of overlap and

it makes the competition harder for the rest of us who are ready

trying to write quality books so. I work with people to use advanced

pros

00:18:31 SPEAKER_00

of stories

00:18:39 SPEAKER_01

people to use advanced pros techniques to have stories that work plot

wise. that still say what they're trying to say. And, you know, every

book I write is going to be every book everybody writes. We're going

to copyright it. Our book is going to be in the Library of Congress.

That matters. It's going to last much longer than we are, except for

maybe the plastic gems, you know, that made by Fisher Price and stuff.

They'll probably be here longer than we are. But I think that our

books matter. And rather than just putting stuff out that's just, you

know, It's important to write well and to write a good story as well

as you can. And we can only hope that we can get on the bestseller

list and make those connections and do the best that we can. So for

me, the mystery part isn't in the writing. There's, you know, both

craft and practice and inspiration, but in, is it going to be a hit?

There is some mystery

00:19:35 SPEAKER_00

there. Oh yeah, for sure. I think, I mean, the whole process is, you

know, there's steps to it and, I didn't know that when, you know, when

I was first dreaming about writing a book when I was little, you know,

like a teenager, whatever, you know, you think you're going to write a

book and, and it, it has to be this, you know, miraculous thing to get

it published and, you know, have the world see it and get it turned

into a movie and, and all of this stuff that it's like, you know,

magic. And now in my daily career, it is, It's so much work and it's

so much focus and you have to be willing to to do those steps and to

put in money into it and, you know, treat it like a business or you're

not going to do it. Like, yes, you can print on Amazon, you can press

a button, you can upload your stuff. But like if you don't do all the

other things, even if it's the best written book ever, it's not going

to get noticed. It's not going to sell. Nobody's going to know what it

is just because it's on Amazon. They have millions of books on there.

Yeah. And there's a lot of people

00:20:45 SPEAKER_01

And there's a lot of people who are just excellent at marketing and

it's about the quantity of what they're selling rather than the

quality of what they're trying to say. And it's, you know, there's a

lot of businesses out there who do those various steps and some are in

it just because it's today's business that they want to be in

somewhere in it because they care about the stories. And, and I even

find I've, seen in the last, gosh, I guess, probably since beginning

of COVID, there's a whole lot more people who are saying they'll help

you write the book. They'll take a training class on how to do that,

but they've never actually written a book. They don't, you know, they

don't, they're just, that's their business. They're going to help

people write books. But I do find the most helpful thing and probably

what helped you, Adonna, and the biggest problem I've seen when I

teach workshops, and even when I talk to clients, is that people don't

read enough. I mean, if you're a reader, you're going to have a much

better time just knowing how the stories work. writing a story and a

lot of people not a lot but some people when they start young and

write a story because they're such avid readers they can write a story

and it's going to work because they know intuitively you know what the

structure steps are and then they can learn how to do better and

better when their stories get more and more complex but I find that a

lot of people who want to write a book don't really read books and And

not only is that this loyal to other people who are trying to make a

living or you know what to share the wealth here but you're it's a

huge disadvantage so i am a

00:21:48 SPEAKER_00

a much better

00:22:13 SPEAKER_01

not only is that this loyal to other people who are trying to make a

living or you know what to share the wealth here but you're it's a

huge disadvantage so i am a big, i believe in reading and i think

anything you read is good you know.

00:22:30 SPEAKER_02

I find I've been reading a lot of sort of political commentary

nonfiction. And it's such a different space than trying to write

fiction. And it's like I had just like, okay, I've got to get a couple

more new fiction books in here and just be reading to get that rhythm

back. It is and you'll find though

00:22:49 SPEAKER_01

though and what I find even with people whose speeches I'm listening

to or people who are Writing political commentary you find the ones

that are most effective are telling a story so that the keys to

telling a story are are always the most effective because people think

in fact i was listening to another podcast ten percent happier the

other day. What's in here is a newscaster real skeptic on spirituality

but he had a woman on talking about how we think with our people. Feel

things with their emotions before with their reason. And so as we

write, the things that affect us emotionally are kind of precede the

narration of the story and the events. And so even these politicians

that you're reading the nonfiction, it's like the good ones are

storytellers. This is why like, I mean, when I was dating, when I was

young, I remembered all I had to do and I was broke and I was in

college and really was read the sports page that morning. And then I

could go to happy hour and get like, you know, free drink and a free

hot dog. Because the sports page, though, was so full of stories. It

wasn't just statistics. It was stories of people and how they got

good. And I grew up as an athlete, so it was very fascinating to me.

But you'll find the successful politicians are the ones who can tell a

good story that's credible. And on the other hand, Kathleen, I do hear

you in terms of nonfiction books. When I'm writing a nonfiction book,

if it's straight nonfiction, it's really more like homework. And

people grow up learning how to write a thesis sentence, and then

supporting the argument, and then a conclusion. And in fiction, it's

completely different. If you write the thesis sentence, story's over.

Who cares? They already know the ending. You have to invite them into

the question and then build up into the answer later. So that is a

different thing. But a lot of narrative nonfiction, like memoir now,

is a combination where you do the summary and scenes. So it has to be

exciting. But then there's a certain amount of analysis that you do if

you're you're breaking out to talk about the bigger picture and not

just your life. I mean, there's a lot of different woven sort of

stories like that. But I hear you. I personally read mostly novels,

but I also read a lot of magazines and a lot of journals. So I get

kind of the

00:25:06 SPEAKER_02

the hybrid. Yeah. But I think right now, I think Rachel Maddow has

been amazing in taking the way she tells a story. Her stuff's being

made into movies. Her podcast is now a movie. I haven't heard that.

She is a genius. Yes. Well, Spielberg took Ultra One. He's he optioned

it to make it a movie. And in September, she's doing a documentary

from another story, a series of stories that she did. Wow. Well, I

00:25:35 SPEAKER_01

mean, she's a storyteller. She is. And that's what good historians

are, too. I know a lot of men won't read fiction because they feel

like it's just make believe. Although for me, that's the emotional

truth. And it's a framed story in real life, like anything can happen.

But in a story, it has to happen because of a reason. And I find

comfort there. But a lot of men like to read, like the Civil War, they

like to read about different parts of history, their buffs, you know,

World War II. But what they're into it is the story. And depending on

who the storyteller is, you're going to get that, the shape of, you

know, what you believe, even science journals. And my dad was an

infamous climate denier. He's no longer with us. But he's like, I

mean, he would scientists will use statistics to prove their point.

And that's a story. You know, the world we are really influenced,

influenced by story. And the best nonfiction also also does that. But

I do find for me writing nonfiction, it's like you can sell it, get

the query, sell it from my last book, I had the whole manuscript

written, but my agent would only send

00:26:32 SPEAKER_00

I do find

00:26:41 SPEAKER_01

the proposal out, which had samples, but it was also marketing and

comps and much more of an analysis in the market. And a whole nother a

whole other thing to learn how to write. But people don't have time to

read the whole book. They want the proposal. And so it was then by the

time if I did revisions or people who sell a proposal and get paid to

write the book, which is pretty much an ideal situation, it's

homework. You've got to write what you said you were going to write.

Whereas in a novel, I'm a huge plotter. I believe in really strong

outlines in terms of what needs to happen so that you know how it's

going to end. And then in between, there's the magic. You know, so

there's a combination. But I'm with you. I like the stories, but it's

completely different if it's just facts or if it's story and how

they're putting it together. And you can really start hearing who's

good at it and who's not when you listen to people. Yeah. I have some

00:27:35 SPEAKER_02

some favorites, and every time I see their books coming up, I preorder.

Yeah, that's great. That's great for

00:27:42 SPEAKER_01

authors, because then they know there's a market there. Yeah.

00:27:45 SPEAKER_02

Well, especially those who write series because you get involved in

the character and the secondary characters and they become a part of

your life. And when you pick up the next book, oh, there's all your

old friends. Yes. Once you're

00:28:00 SPEAKER_01

building, if you can build some good characters that people care

about, you've done all the heavy lifting at

00:28:00 SPEAKER_02

if you

00:28:06 SPEAKER_01

heavy lifting at the beginning. And then you can just keep writing

stories about them. So that's a great, a great way. And people love

series and people who are good at marketing take advantage of that

because, but also I, I have a couple of clients. And then one,

actually I taught years ago who we helped, she was developing one

story into series of YA books, and now they're very famous kind of

fantasy YA books. But when you do a series, there's also a way where

you plan out so that there's an overall story question. And yet each

book, you can do another character or you can do the same group of

characters focusing on one. And then there's a new story question like

Bridgerton, right? Similar only everyone's and we're dying to see the

next episode because we already kind of know those people. We already

know the story world, which is the most difficult thing to build. And

like you said, if you're dealing fantasy or sci fi, that's really

tricky to have a story world where the reader understands the

guidelines and the rules. And then in it, you can really play with

what happens

00:29:09 SPEAKER_00

next. So very true. Switch our focus a little bit so we can talk

about, because Leslie's going to be doing a webinar for us in mid-

September. And I just wanted to be able to chat about it before we run

out of time today. So

00:29:24 SPEAKER_00

yeah. Leslie, do you want to? talk a little bit about what the webinar

will be like and some key points that, you know, or takeaways that

they'll get when they when they join in with

00:29:36 SPEAKER_01

us. Sure. And, you know, it's it's I obviously I could talk. I mean,

I've talked very letter seminars the last whole day. We have an hour

and I know that we want to have time for question and answers. So I

whatever you guys want me to talk for an half an hour or 40 minutes or

45 minutes, I have written an outline i can expand or compress

whatever is the most convenient because i do want people to be able to

ask questions sometimes people will have specific questions about

their stories that i can't always go into but sometimes it's something

that will highlight something that everyone wants to know that maybe

i've misunderstood that taken for granted that people know like what

does it mean a comp what does that stand for is a complimentary is a

comparative what's what's the purpose of that so what i will do is is

actually define the purpose of a query letter and how to adapt your

query letter to online submission forms that a lot of agents are using

now. I'll talk about do's and don'ts of query letter writing. I'll

talk about the four major parts of a query letter. A lot of people

talk about the hook, the book, and the cook as the three parts, but

then there's a very critical last line that you gotta say. I'll talk

about the expectations that we need to have. And a little bit about

how to write those parts, what's important in a bio, what's not

important, how to write the synopsis that's so tricky, because that's

going to be expanded ideally to a one to two page synopsis for later

that a lot of agents will also ask for. And then also the critical

first paragraph, what you need to have, and even how to engage people

with that first sentence. So I will introduce people to how important

they are and what the purpose is. And then I'll kind of go through how

to write it. And then I'll talk about do's and don'ts. That's pretty,

pretty much what I'm going to talk about. And then if anyone has

questions about it and query letters are the same for fiction, they

are very similar for nonfiction, even though you also have to write a

nonfiction book, I mean, a proposal. But if you want to try a whole

other topic, but you still need a credit letter. And if you want an

agent and a lot of people will try and get an agent or won't find the

right agent or will ultimately decide they're pretty good at marketing

and they want to invest the money. Also, traditional publishers, you

don't get a huge

00:31:43 SPEAKER_02

and a

00:31:55 SPEAKER_01

don't get a huge royalty. They do all the hard, heavy lifting of

paying for the printing and the distribution. So they have to repay

all those sources where you might decide to use a query letter and end

up publishing it yourself, but you will use those parts of that query

letter no matter what. And of course, you know, the prestige. So

sometimes there's more money in independently publishing, depending if

you're really good at it. I am not, I would rather have a regular

agent and traditional publisher. So I believe in writing a really good

query letter and We'll talk about how to do that. I mean, the goal of

a query letter is to have an agent ask for a sample. That's the goal.

It's that first date you want to be married. You don't know how the

marriage is going to work out, but before you get the proposal to get

an agent who is the only person who can get you to many of the

publishers, especially the big five, but also the imprints who are

prestigious, even some of the university presses. You want them to be

interested in your story. It needs to be a compelling story and you

need to be the unique person who can write it and they need to know

enough of that story, but not necessarily how it ends so that they're

curious and ask you to read more. So that's, that's what we'll be

talking about in a little more detail than I just said. Saturday the

14th.

00:33:19 SPEAKER_02

Yes, that'll be Saturday the 14th at 11am pacific time and you can go

to WPNwebinars.com if you want to sign up. And even if you're not able

to attend, we do send out the recording of the webinar, make it

available to everyone who signed up for the webinar. So this is

critical.

00:33:43 SPEAKER_00

And any educational material that like Leslie is willing to share from

her session would go with the recording. Yes, I will have a handout.

00:33:53 SPEAKER_02

Yes. Okay, beautiful. Well, there's a lot here. This has been

fascinating with all the things that you've done. And do you have you

have some such a history of being able to give people this is what

happens and this is what happens because you've been there. Yes, that

is, I think, so very important. And it's one of the reasons why I

wanted you to do the webinar and be our guest today is because going

through, you know, with the client that I had with you, it was like,

Oh my God, this woman really gets into it. I love this, the depth of

what you wanted. The questions that you asked were really right on.

And I thought, OK, she knows what she's doing here. This is fabulous.

We found a good person. So in fact, you've sent him back to writing.

Yes, I hope he's still working on it. He had a really good story.

Yeah, he had a really good story. He needed to work on the writing.

And you pointed out some really glaring things in it. It was fabulous.

Opportunities, I like to call them opportunities. They were

opportunities, yes. Opportunities is a hot word right now. So anyway,

the How to Write a Killer Query Letter is the webinar. It's September

14th. Go to wpnwebinars.com to sign up. And I'd like to thank Leslie

Lair. This has been actually a lot of information in the last 40

minutes. And I'm talking about writing, so. You obviously love it.

That's the passion that we need. So yeah. Well, thanks so much for

joining

00:35:34 SPEAKER_00

us, Leslie. It's been great. And I think people are just going to get

so much from your webinar session. Like, because again, like query

letters is one of those weird things where you're like, I don't even

know what that is supposed to look like. You know, I will show you a

00:35:52 SPEAKER_02

show you a week from Saturday. They're going to break down the

mystery. That's right. All right. Thank you. And, you know, people, if

you want, you can find us anywhere and just come back and subscribe to

our podcast, TalkingBookPublishing.com. Thank you so

00:36:12 SPEAKER_01

you so

00:36:13 SPEAKER_02

much. Thank you.