Don't Make Yourself Sound Better Than You Really Are In A Query

Reading queries can sometimes be completely humorous at times. I know that a lot of agents will sit around at conferences and often talk about query letters and try to "one up" each other with query letters from authors. You would be surprised at some of the letters we get. Seriously! But what I want to talk about today is how you need to be careful about not hyping yourself up too much.

Yes, we want you to be proud of the work you did on that book. We certainly do not want you to downplay your accomplishments. You should show off those accomplishments...

HOWEVER...

Don't make yourself sound like something that you are not. I can promise you, all that it will get you is an automatic rejection, probably no response, and certainly a comment or two at the next meeting of the minds with all of us agents at the next conference. Let me give you a few examples:

• Telling me you are in consideration for Oprah's Book Club (or Reese's or Jenna Bush's Book Clubs). Seriously, if your book is not published, you are not in consideration. Just because you sent it to them and got the automatic reply that they look at things that come in DOES NOT mean you are in consideration. Yes, we get a lot of these.
• Telling us that some major author (James Patterson seems to always be a big one) has reviewed your book and thinks it is the next big seller. Umm, really? If that is the case, why didn't Mr. Patterson pass it on to his agent or his editor? Honestly, that is how this business works. Not only that, how in the heck did you REALLY get in contact with this person? 
• You have been previously published and sold a ton of books by one of the BIG 5. OK, so why aren't you still there now? The funny part about this one is when we go back and look up your name, frequently you never show up. Weird huh? 
• The book you are submitting is currently in print and selling amazingly well and blowing away the market and now you want to find an agent to take it to one of the Big 5. Ok, if it is selling that well, why are you coming to us? What does "blowing away the market" really mean to you?
• Telling us that some famous author or editor or another agent recommended sending the project to us. Now this one happens a lot, but here is "the kicker." The majority of the time, these are for books in genres I don't represent, and the recommendations are from people I have absolutely no clue of who these people are. Oh, and by the way, if it is an agent, why would they be sending an author to another agent? 

The reality is this. Tell us about your book. If you have been previously published, be honest. If the book has been previously published, show us SALES NUMBERS and not reviews.

Oh, and one final note. If we do reject you, don't write back and tell us that you are going to prove to us that we made a huge mistake on passing on your project and we will regret it. Let me just say that since 2003, not one author has ever come back to say they are now a billionaire after I passed on a book.