I’ve been connected to the publishing industry long enough to have some opinions about query letters that can charitably be described as Old School.
For instance, I still think the industry standard is to capitalize all book titles in query letters, not just one’s own, but it increasingly looks like I’ve lost that battle as people follow the lead of Publishers Marketplace deal announcements and capitalize their own title and italicize comps.
One hill I’m willing to die on, however, is that I believe the “nuts and bolts” in a query letter (word count, genre, comps, whether the author has series ideas) belong after the plot description.
Now, I’m absolutely cutting against the grain here. If you look at Writers Digest’s recent roundup of query letters that worked, nearly all lead with the nuts and bolts. Quite a few agents are on record saying they want the nuts and bolts up front as well.
There are undoubtedly some advantages to leading with the nuts and bolts, especially that they help contextualize the plot description, particularly when it might be ambiguous whether a plot is Young Adult or Adult.
However, I’d err on the side of weaving the genre into the personalization. Nuts and bolts? After the plot description. Here’s why.
The plot description is by far the most important element in a query letter
Putting the “nuts and bolts” after the plot description (or book description for nonfiction) keeps the plot description front and center. To me, that makes sense because the plot description is the most important element of a query letter.
At the end of the day, agents just want to know if you have a book they can sell. A lot can be finessed when it comes to your writing credits, word count, and all the rest, but everything flows from the agent understanding the book you’re querying.
You want the agent to read the plot description. I personally believe in putting it right after the personalization.
Elements in your nuts and bolts may be polarizing
Here’s the main reason I’d recommend putting the nuts and bolts after the plot description: you might inadvertently raise red flags that puts an agent in the wrong mindset to read the plot description.
What if the agent is a word count stickler and they think yours is too short or too long? What if they happen to loathe one of your comp titles?
If they’ve already read your plot description and feel engaged by it, when they get to the nuts and bolts maybe they’ll be more inclined to look past one of their “rules.” On the other hand, if you’ve already violated a rule in the nuts and bolts, they may apply a more skeptical eye to your plot description.
I know where I land when it comes to putting an agent in the right mindset to say “yes.”
Trust your instincts
There aren’t hard and fast rules here, and you’ll find a near-infinite number of opinions about how to approach query letters, even among industry insiders. You’ll ultimately have to just go with the approach you feel most comfortable with.
The difference here is marginal, and in a perfect world the order shouldn’t matter entirely. But when I have queried my own projects, I know where I landed: nuts and bolts after the plot description.
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Art: Diagram by Pearson Scott Foresman
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