Example of My Successful Query

For #PitchWars 2018, a bunch of the mentors are getting together and posting the query letter that got them their agent. Of course, this isn’t to say that any of our queries are perfect, or that you can necessarily model your own on ours to get requests, but there is something to be said for showing actual examples of what worked rather than just talking about the theory of a perfect query letter.

So without further caveats, here is the query that connected me with my agent, Naomi Davis of BookEnds Literary.

Dear Naomi Davis,

I was excited to see that you’re open to submissions again. I think my current project might be a good match for your wish list for adult romance and touch on some of your interest in publishing nonfiction memoirs about living with disabilities as well. The problem my character deals with isn’t a disability per say, but it’s an issue close to the hearts of thousands of American women and yet has been ignored by the romance industry.

In A Cruel Kind of Beautiful, fairy tale romance comes down to earth when a hard-rock drummer finds love, but not a cure for her sexual dysfunction.

Jera McKnight loves music, adores beautiful men, and sucks at sex. Her perfect storm arrives in the form of pun-loving nude model Jacob Tate, who has a heart as big as his record collection. Unwilling to sentence him to a mediocre sex life, Jera quashes her attraction and hides behind her drum kit. One unforgettable show leads to a record deal offer, but the fine print has them playing more like Taylor Swift than Led Zeppelin.

Before Jera can decide between rock nobody or pop star, Jacob distracts her with a deal of his own: if she can’t climax, he won’t either. She’s too much of a sucker for his romantic spreadsheets to refuse and soon Jacob and Amp Records are vying for her attention. Just like Amp, Jacob seems like a catch-22 in a pretty package: he drops out of touch for weeks at a time and one room in his apartment is off-limits.

It’s time to make some major decisions, but Jera frankly doesn’t know if her music is good enough to attract a better record deal. Worse, she’s not sure love will be enough to keep Jacob coming around if they can’t fix her issues between the sheets. But if this rocker girl is too afraid to bet on herself, she might just end up playing to an empty house.

A Cruel Kind of Beautiful is an Adult Contemporary Romance, complete at 99,000 words. It can be marketed as a stand-alone novel, but is also part of a planned trilogy called Sex, Love, and Rock and Roll, which follows Jera’s bandmates as the secrets of their sex lives begin to mirror the battles of their music careers.

I am the independent author of Becoming Katelyn and the #1 Kindle Worlds bestselling author of eight titles. A Cruel Kind of Beautiful is currently a finalist in the 2015 NTRWA Great Expectations Contest, and my post-apocalyptic manuscript, Forsworn, was recognized as a Quarter-Finalist in the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. I’ve been a permanent traveler for several years now, and most of my books were written with solar power from remote corners of the wilderness.

As stated in your guidelines, I have included the first ten pages and a synopsis.

Thank you for considering A Cruel Kind of Beautiful,

Michelle Hazen

I feel like I should rub that query letter for luck. Looking at it now, I immediately want to change at least 10 things, but it caught the interest of my exact perfect agent match, and for that I’ll always be grateful.

And here, a few years after that email was sent, is the book that query letter produced: