query letter to lit.agent--feedback needed
by rekless 14 Replies latest jw friends
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JeffT
Good luck. I've been sending out query letters for a novel I've written based very loosely on my time as a JW. I keep getting responses on the order of "it sounds very interesting, but we're too busy to take on a new author just now."
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The Oracle
minor feedback -
you forgot to add George Benson.
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Abandoned
My quick opinion, and I mean this with all due respect, is that I think you sound too antagonistic for a query letter. I understand that your book is going to be an expose, but if you come off sounding too bitter or confrontational, it's going to hinder your credibility. If you would like, I'll edit what you have and give a brief explanation of why I suggest the changes I do.
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rekless
Abandoned,
Thank for your suggestion--I did think it came across too hateful even though the MS is written in a soft voice but my little lady said it sounded good to her.
Help yourself. I will appreciate an edit.
Does this rewrite take the sting out?
Is there too many celebrities? Should the list be shorter?
What did Dwight D. Eisenhower, Evelyn Mandela, Venus and Serena Williams, Lou Whitaker, Prince, Larry Graham, Pattie Smith, Teresa Graves, Mickey Spillane, Gloria Naylor, Margaret Keane, Viv Nicholson, Naomi Campbell, the Jackson Five, and the Wayans Brothers and sisters have in common? Jehovah's Witnesses raised, taught, converted, and enticed them to become "dream pushers." While this chronicle is not about any of the above celebrities, it probes the doctrines, which lure the talented, and educated as well as the ignorant and uneducated paradasic dream world.
Losing my son and then my wife twelve years later led me to write THE DREAM PUSHERS:CAPTIVATED BY A SYSTEM OF DECEIT , which is a love story--not a conventional love story between two people, though it begins with two young lovers, then it blossoms into a deeper love as they become captivated with the doctrines of promises of life on a paradise Earth.
Heartbreak often accompanies love and this saga has its' own when their first-born son is diagnosed with Lymphatic Leukemia. Will they adhere to the mandated no-blood doctrine and let their son die for the glory of God or will they forsake their beliefs? Did they stick together or fall apart? How will their friends, family, and faith react to their youngest daughter's rape and abuse when she tries escaping from one fantasy world into another--her own libertine world. The Dream Pushers answers the above questions and more when Rags Walker resigns from his minister's position and stumbles upon a contradiction between the regime's core belief that 607 BCE is the date of Jerusalem's destruction and an ancient history book's quote from the Babylonian Cuneiform Tablets that 586 BCE was the date of Jerusalem's destruction. If 607 BCE is inaccurate--then the entire dream is based on false doctrines. With the click of a mouse a new world opens and swallows up Pleasantville and destroys the Stepford Wives . The "keys of life" disappear along with Rags' faith. His dream world of thirty years explodes into a hellish nightmare as his wife dies just weeks after his discovery of the real Animal Farm,"SugarcandyMountain," and the animals in charge of mandating new slants to the original "7 rules of the Farm" set out by The Wizard of Oz who comes to light as a collective body of seven elderly men hidden behind a curtain of doctrines, dates and prophecies--all of which turns out false.
The marketing value of this work would touch the families and friends of the 24.5 million active and inactive followers of this one religious regime as well as millions of other members of oppressing religious systems world wide.
I am seeking an agent who is qualified to present this work, and it would be an honor to send you the completed manuscript. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you for your time and energy to read this query and short synopsis.
Sincerely,
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rekless
JeffT
Hi, Yeah, I know what you mean--I have received quite a few rejections also, so I am revising my letters and submission.
All it takes is the right person at the right time.
Keep trying and good luck--we do need the god of good luck don't we?
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MadTiger
Hope it goes well for you.
People passed on Stephen King, the Harry Potter series, and others. In music, the list is even longer.
"Colonel" Sanders had a little over 1000 rejects before his first sale of his proprietary herb-and-spice blend. -
rekless
Mad Tiger,
Thanks for the encouragement.
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Leolaia
"His dream world of thirty years explodes into a hellish nightmare as his wife dies just weeks after his discovery of the real Animal Farm,'Sugarcandy Mountain,' and the animals in charge of mandating new slants to the original '7 rules of the Farm' set out by The Wizard of Oz who comes to light as a collective body of seven elderly men hidden behind a curtain of doctrines, dates and prophecies--all of which turns out false."
I think this "garden path" sentence needs to be rephrased, it is rather confusing.
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Bryan
I'd like to look at and edit your queery and see what you think, but I would like to add this. Your letter needs to flow well just as your book. You lost me in the very first sentence with all the names. I would cut the list in half with one or two, older, very recognizable people, then current names everyone will know.
Also, You can't market your book to jw's and ex's as a group along with others concerning cults. It's better to state a gender and age group. If I understand correctly, your story is a family sage which tests their faith in a little know God (unfortutately, our own sagas with the Watchtower have been distructive to family and friend, but the rest of the world doesn't know about the JW's and doesn't really care). Push the family story. As it is now it sounds like you have an agenda and agents/publishers counldn't care less. They want to know if they can make money off your story. I would keep the JW aspect generalized to "religious", You want to get the manuscript into their hands. They can then decide if the Watchtower aspect is somthing they can sell. But as it is, I think, you are narrowing your readership. It's like writing a book about scuba diving. These books are sold mainly in scuba shops and I bet there are more scuba divers in the world that jw's.
I don't know where you are getting your agent list for marketing your manuscript, but www.writersmarket.com is the best. The fee is nominal and the list is searchable, filterable, and huge.
Good luck!
Bryan