In the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen a huge rise in passive-aggressive overtones in query letters. I’m not sure if it’s just trending on its own or if a new piece of advice has been posted somewhere and lots of people are following it.

I make a commitment to avoid calling out specific query letters and submitted manuscripts, and I don’t plan to break my word in this post. But this trend is sudden and disturbing. If calling it out is what it takes to keep it from continuing, then this is me calling it out.

This week, I tweeted, “Please don’t anthropomorphize your manuscripts. They hate that.”

About 75%* of the submissions in the submissions inbox this month — even though submissions are currently closed, we still get several per week — included anthropomorphic lines that were probably meant to be quirky and cute: some were pleading for the manuscript’s “life,” many were lamenting some facet of the trash bin, some threatened self-defensive actions on the manuscript’s behalf, and some (more than one) even asserted that if the publisher rejects the manuscript, they owe the writer extra compensation for the emotional hardship of querying.

If you have seen this advice somewhere, please let me know. If you’re tempted to try it out, please don’t. I know, it’s meant to be cute and clever and make a submission irresistible.

It doesn’t.

What it does instead, is telegraph insecurity and bravado. It tells me that a writer isn’t confident. If you think your story’s got a shot, you probably won’t feel the need to threaten someone to take it, or the need to appeal to their sympathies. You’ll offer it, be confident and professional, and let it speak for itself.

And you’ll probably submit to markets where you’ve got a shot. Dragon Moon Press isn’t currently open for submissions, first of all. Begging, pleading, and threatening probably won’t get a business to unlock its doors for you after hours. If it’s a life or death emergency, maybe. But if it’s just that you want a job…?

Even if someone does happen to be hanging around to hear you (or peeking, out of curiosity, at submissions that get slipped in under the locked door), your intensity will probably just make them wary of you. Consider the first impression you’re presenting. You’re saying, “I will willfully ignore your policies and procedures, and will use emotional manipulation on you to get my way. Don’t you want to work with me?”

To present a positive counter-example, here’s a query letter (posted with the author’s permission) that accompanied a novel we ultimately acquired.

Dear Dragon Moon Press:

I saw on Miss Snark’s site that you are looking for submissions. I hope you will consider my science fiction novel, MOURN THE SUN, which is complete at 100,000 words.

Jacob Dawes’ scientific genius got him out of the slums and into the Emperor’s bed; but when a very public mistake gives his rivals an opportunity to be rid of him, Jacob discovers that fighting his own execution would mean betraying the man he loves.

I have short stories published in two small literary magazines, Jersey Devil Press and Rose & Thorn, and in a free e-book of literary fiction, Sex Scene, an Anthology.

Thank you for your time and consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Leah Petersen
[contact address]
[email address]

And it worked. It was all the information we needed (genre, title, word count, quick summary, previous credits, contact info), with nothing extra to slog through, no gimmicks, no pleading, no threats. No apologies for its content. The title has since changed to FIGHTING GRAVITY, and it’s scheduled for a Spring 2012 release.

There isn’t a gimmick that a submissions editor hasn’t seen. Don’t use gimmicks. They look contrived at best, and desperate at worst. Use style and voice, confidence and professionalism.

Don’t anthropomorphize your manuscripts. They hate that.

–
* The other 25% or so, as usual, involved requests for representation. A publisher is not a literary agent, and does not “represent” authors. Some publishers know what you’re trying to say and will let it slide. Others will take you at your word and reject your manuscript instantly if your query suggests you want a service from them that they don’t provide. If you use a form query letter, check it carefully before you send it out!

On a separate note, I’ve been called to jury duty on Monday, so next week’s blog posts may be delayed.

I’ve been asked the question a few times now: How do you present your pen name in a query letter? If you’re writing with a pen name, should you use your real name?

There’s nothing wrong with having a pen name, as long as you use the right name with the right people at the right times.

Don’t hide your real name from your publisher or agent. They need it. It’s important that your correspondence with your publisher or agent be from your own name. That’s the name on your social security card, your bank account, and ultimately your contract. That’s who you are.

It’s easy to start to fall into thinking of your pen name as an alternate persona, and for marketing purposes it can often become one. But for query purposes, remember to think of it as just an alternate name and nothing more.

Below your real name, just add another line: “Writing as,” followed by your pseudonym. Do this in the contact information at the top of your query letter, do it in your signature, and do it in the by-line on the title page of your story. Make sure that it’s made clear in your contract: “Your Name, writing as Other Name.”

This way it’s absolutely clear which name is which: which one goes on the front of your book, and which one gets the royalty check.

In preparation for the open submissions period I’m reading for at Dragon Moon Press, I posted a list of quick last-minute tips for sending out query letters.

Here’s the continuation. Tips, part two: some helpful things to keep in mind when giving your queries a last look-over, to help you avoid some common mistakes.

In no particular order:

1. “Double spaced” refers to the space between lines, not the space between words. Also, word processing programs have a setting to adjust line spacing. Please don’t do it manually with the “return” key.

2. Word count guidelines may have a bit of wiggle room, but 40,000 words on either side is not a wiggle. Consider the guidelines for each market. If they specify a general length, it’s because that’s what they print. Use your own judgment if your word count is close, but remember that submitting something much too long or much too short is not much different than giving them the wrong genre: even if it’s good, it’s something they can’t use.

3. You do have a bit of wiggle room with the request for sample pages. Please end the sample at the end of a paragraph. Or at least, at the end of a sentence. You don’t have to cut off the submission mid-sentence (or in the middle of a hyphenated word!) because that’s where page ten ends.

4. Pitches need to be easy to follow. It is essential to explain your plot in a way that other people can understand. If they can’t follow it, they won’t care about it.

When a pitch is too complicated to follow, it’s usually for one of two reasons: either the author is trying to squeeze in too much secondary information, or there are a lot of ambiguous statements or misplaced/dangling modifiers, in which case the information needs to be rearranged into a more logical flow.

5. A pitch has to hook an editor, agent or reader on the story. Please tell me who the main character is, what conflict happens, and what’s at stake.

See #4, above. You do not need to cover every subplot in your pitch. Who is the main character, and what is the main conflict? Boil it down to that, and make it interesting. If you can’t do that, you need to think about your story more clinically, from a distance, without getting entangled in subplots and complications. Boiling it down that far may force you to leave out a lot that you think is important. That’s okay. A pitch isn’t the place for all the details and subplots. It’s just a quick, compelling hook that raises questions and makes someone want to know more.

6. A pitch should not be a list of the “kinds of things” that happen in the novel. I’m not interested in a book that’s a disconnected series of events, I’m interested in a book with a good story. Telling me “this is an adventure involving kidnapping, police-chases and a run-in with a rogue band of lemurs” doesn’t tell me why those things happen or why they matter. The fact that those things happen doesn’t actually tell me very much about the book.

7. You don’t have to query to ask if it’s okay to query. Many of the pre-query notes I receive explain that they’re checking in advance so that they don’t waste my time. That’s very considerate and well-meaning, but it takes just as much time and consideration to read a pitch that doesn’t call itself a query as it does to read a query. I’m still reading through the letter and trying to decide if the manuscript would be a fit for my list… I just have less information to go on, and it’s not in a format that makes it easy for me to see what I’m getting. At least if you go ahead and query properly, you’ll have a chance at the end of it.

8. Please pick only one manuscript to submit to a given market at a time, unless the guidelines request otherwise — either the one you feel is your strongest, or your completed manuscript that best suits the guidelines.

9. No colored or fancy text or fonts means just that. Not even a little bit of color or fancy font to highlight specific words for emphasis.

10. If you have prior publication credits, please tell us what they are. Book name and publisher helps.

11. When we say “please include your contact email address in the body of the message,” we really mean it. Please. It’s not just a test to see if you’re following directions. Sometimes forwarding programs can handle the address field strangely and the address can be lost.

12. If you are asked to supply an attachment, please make sure your name and contact info are on that, too. Also try to incorporate your title and/or last name (preferably both) in the file name so that it can be identified as yours at a glance.

13. The name and subject fields are your first impression when you send an electronic submission. We all get nervous and make simple mistakes, and I try not to count nervous mistakes against anyone — I’ve made them, myself. But when I see a typo in the book title in the subject line, it sets an expectation about what I’ll see in the body of the message, whether I want it to or not. Just, take an extra moment and look everything over one last time before you hit “send.” You’ll be glad you did.

Multiple queries are not usually recommended

Unless otherwise stated, publishers and agents usually want you to select your strongest manuscript, or the one that best fits their guidelines, and just query one. If they’re open to multiple submissions, they’ll say so. if they don’t say so, just pick one to send. Hinting that you have other completed manuscripts is enough. If they like your writing but the particular manuscript isn’t a fit, or if they want to see more of what you’ve written for any other reason, they will ask to see more.

Query the book, not the series

Similarly, writing an entire series before the first book has sold is not recommended, for lots and lots of reasons. I’m seeing a lot of this in the queries I’m receiving. While it has yet to be a deciding factor, it’s a big turn-off.

If you’re aiming to be a professional author, completing sequels to books you haven’t signed yet is an inefficient use of your writing time. You can certainly write the outlines of the future books. You can certainly mention in your query that the ending is open for sequels. But it’s in your best interest not to actually write them yet.

Why?

In no particular order:

* First and most importantly (I know, I just said these weren’t in any order. I lied.), you need to focus on selling someone on the first book, or there won’t be a series. Really. Don’t tell me how much more there is. Hook me on the first one and make me want to see more.

* Any editorial changes in Book One may have dire consequences going forward, possibly undoing a lot of — or all of — your hard work. Those manuscripts may end up scrapped. That’s time you could have spent writing and selling other books.

* A publisher isn’t likely to buy a lengthy series up front from a new author without a proven sales record. You might get a two- or three-book contract, but even then the completion of the contract will likely depend on the sales of the first book. It could happen, but it’s the exception, not the rule. You should never base your strategy on being the exception.

* If a publisher buys Book One, even if they don’t buy the series outright, the contract usually gives them Right of First Refusal on further works with those characters or in that world. That means that your entire series is now tied up and unsellable elsewhere. If you had focused on writing “Book One” of multiple series instead, you would still have other properties to shop around.

* While there are rare exceptions who have been wildly successful with a single series, publishers usually like to see that an author is not tied to a single world and has a bit more range. Some writers only have one series in them. They have one story to tell, and can’t (or won’t) write anything that isn’t in that one world. But signing an author is, potentially, an investment. Publishers like to know that you can write other things, and that you’ll have other books and ideas in you after your trilogy plays out. Agents like to know that you’ve got more than one strong property that they can shop for you at the same time.

* If you’re making your living off your writing, or trying to, you need to focus on writing stuff you can sell, not stuff that you can maybe sell someday if this other thing sells first.

To quote Seanan McGuire, who sums up this point well: “I love my books. I love my art. If I were only in it for the money, I would be doing something else for a living, like selling my kidneys. But at the end of the day, if a series can’t pay, I can’t afford the hundreds of hours required to write the average book. It’s just not feasible. Note the number of unpublished “first in series” books I have sitting around. Until they sell, I can’t afford to write the sequels. No matter how much I want to.”

With Dragon Moon Press about to reopen for submissions in a couple of days, I thought I would take the opportunity to refresh readers on some helpful things to keep in mind when giving your queries a last look-over, to help you avoid some common mistakes.

In no particular order:

1. If you know the name of the person receiving your submission, it’s okay to use it. Please take a moment to spell it correctly and make sure that you’re using a gender-appropriate form of address. If you don’t know the name, please don’t make one up. If you don’t know which of two people are more likely to receive it, please don’t combine their names into a single hybrid name.
2. Remember the difference between agencies and publishers, and update your form cover letter appropriately. Agencies represent. Publishers consider for publication. Please do not ask a publisher to represent your work.
3. If submissions guidelines state “NO ATTACHMENTS,” please do not send attachments.
4. If submissions guidelines request the first so-many pages of your manuscript, you are only hurting your chances if you do not include them. The person receiving your query is not going to be so enamored of your premise that they make a special point of requesting what you do not provide. They are going to move on to the next query.
5. Also, don’t waste the opportunity by including acknowledgment, dedication, or other non-content pages against that page count. They are not relevant to the content of your manuscript and don’t need to be included at this stage.
6. Carefully consider the information you provide about yourself. If it isn’t a positive statement that lends credibility to your writing career, leave it out completely.

   It is not to your benefit to:

   • point out the negative (“I have never won awards,” “I have never been published before,” “I have tried very hard to get published for many years,” “no one will give me a chance,” “I have no relevant credits to list, so I will leave this part blank”)
   • get defensive or suggest that you don’t work well with authority (“I had irreconcilable differences with my last agent/editor/publisher,” “you probably won’t like this,” “I’ve done the best I can,” “I know you don’t accept this kind of thing, but…”)
   • suggest mental instability or issue threats, even if you’re just doing it to be cute (“I wrote this manuscript with my dog,” “my characters will commit terrorist acts if their story is not published”).
7. Don’t try to leverage publication on promises you can’t keep (“this will be the best thing you’ve ever read,” “I guarantee it will sell X-hundred-thousand copies,” “the movie version would star [current hot celebrity] and be a box office hit”).
8. If your query contains any of the phrases in the above two items, go ahead and take them out now. I won’t tell.
9. Remember the difference between word count and page count. An 85,000-page manuscript is somewhat deterring.
10. Remember to include your own name, spell it correctly, and spell your contact information correctly, too.
11. Remember to include the title of your manuscript. I have seen several submissions that have forgotten to include a title. It’s kind of important. Or at least, it helps.
12. Spell-check your letter. Grammar check it. Let someone else read it over. Proofread it as carefully as you proofread your manuscript.
13. Proofread your manuscript.
14. Breathe.
15. Finish your query letter, let it sit for a while (a day, if you can), and then read it again before you send it out.
16. Breathe some more, and treat yourself to something nice — even if it’s just a walk, or a little bit of pleasure-reading time during which you’re not thinking about your submission.

Dragon Moon Press’s submissions guidelines are available here.

For more, read Last-minute Query Tips, Part Two

Dragon Moon Press will be reopening its virtual doors for another open submissions period: November 1 – December 31, 2010.

WHAT WE WANT: Completed 80,000-110,000 word novels, not previously published. As always, we’re looking for strong, compelling fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal fiction of all flavors. We are particularly seeking fresh, original urban fantasy.

WHAT WE DON’T WANT: Children’s fiction, middle grade, YA, mainstream literary fiction, nonfiction, biography, anthologies, short stories, graphic novels, or this year’s NaNoWriMo novel (send it NEXT YEAR, once it’s been edited!).

WHAT TO SEND: A query letter as the body of your email, with the usual query letter features: your contact info, genre, word count, a short one paragraph synopsis (“elevator pitch”) and relevant credits. Follow this with the first ten to fifteen pages of your manuscript, also in the body of the email.

DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS. Unless we specifically request an attachment from you, attachments will not be opened and your mail will be deleted. Do not direct us to go look at your manuscript on your website.

Please do not include a long synopsis. We just want the elevator pitch — to what the story’s about, presented briefly and compellingly. Long chapter-by-chapter, point by point summaries will not be read.

Please do not send a lengthy biography, artwork, testimonials from friends, family or teachers, or a marketing plan. Please do not make us promises about how many copies would sell, or tell us who you would cast in the movie version. Really. We need to see the strength of your manuscript speak for itself. That’s all.

FORMAT: Please do not use special fonts, special colors, or any special formatting. Readability is my priority, and I will be grateful if it is your priority, too.

WHERE TO SEND IT: Address your email to DMPSubmissions @ gmail . com (without the spaces, of course), with “OPEN SUBMISSION: [Book Title]” as your subject.

WHEN TO SEND IT: Between November 1 and December 31, 2010. Not before, not after. On January 1, we will return to our closed, solicited submissions policy.

WHEN TO EXPECT A RESPONSE: Please expect a response within 4-6 months. If your book sells elsewhere within that time, congratulations! Please drop us a line and let us know to remove it from consideration. Be aware that any submissions received will be in consideration for fall 2011 or beyond.

QUESTIONS: Specific questions can be addressed to the submissions email address.

However, the archives on this blog are full of advice regarding submissions and writing query letters. PLEASE take the time to browse through. I am going to be handling these submissions personally, along with my submissions team, and any insight into the personal preferences of the submissions editor to whom you’re submitting is valuable insight.

Good luck!

I know I’ve compared the query letter to the job application before. I find it a useful comparison to make because, in essence, when you’re asking a publisher or agent to take on your manuscript you are asking for a job.

I’ve discussed professional greetings and professional tone on this blog, but I’d like to address something else that seems small but can make a big difference: your professional email address.

There was a point a few years ago when you had to own your own domain for your email address to be taken seriously. That isn’t the case anymore. A lot of email service providers are out there, and a message hosted at yahoo or gmail or any of the others are perfectly valid and perfectly respectable.

But please pay attention to the little customized part of the email address. That’s the section before the “@”. The name you choose.

That’s how you’re identifying yourself; how you’re branding yourself. If I sent you mail from “ed1tz4u,” it would probably impact your faith in my ability as an editor. And it should. Your entire package makes your first impression, and that includes the return address label on the envelope, whether virtual or real.

It’s best to pick a neutral, easily identifying email address. One that contains your name (first.last, for instance) is great. Mine is first name, career (gabrielle.edits). Underscores and dots are perfectly acceptable, as are FalseCaps to distinguish words (I’m calling them false caps, since email addresses are not case sensitive. It doesn’t matter how you apply the shift key when you type them). Numbers, within reason, won’t count against you.

But, really, if you’re in a professional interaction, it’s best to choose an address that doesn’t get too personal.

* Don’t send email from an account name that includes profanity, mentions what you like to drink, what you like to do behind bedroom doors, or even your favorite cartoon character. That might not be the best address from which to send off your resume.

* Don’t send email from a “joint account” that you share with someone else. If we’re communicating with you, we would like to know that you’re the one receiving the response.

* Think twice about sending email from an account name related to your unsold novel — either your character, your book, or your world. Be aware of how you spin it, and how it will come across. It’s one thing to want to keep correspondence about different projects separate. It’s another to suggest that this character / this book are core to your identity. That may suggest to a publisher that:

- you may be so invested in your world/characters/story as written that it may make you more likely to be highly resistant to change if edits are deemed necessary.
- you may be uninterested in or unable to write any other characters or universe.
- you may not have more than one book in you. Many publishers and certainly most agents want their authors to be able to make more than a single sale.

Sending mail to publishing professionals from a character-related address doesn’t mean that any of the above are true. But why call attention to the possibility by raising the question at all if you don’t have to?

It’s easy enough to register a free email address. Save the silly and personal ones for personal mail, and use a professional one for professional correspondence.

Two friendly reminders about contact information…

1. It seems silly, I know, but please put your contact information (including your email address) in the body of your email. Down at the bottom after your signature is a fine place.

Sometimes when some email programs forward messages, or sometimes when some email programs print messages, the “from:” line gets changed, or cut off.

2. It seems even sillier, I know, but please make sure that your contact information, as given, actually works.

A rejection letter isn’t good news, but at least it’s closure. I feel bad when one bounces back to me. I feel even worse when my request to see more of a manuscript bounces back. And I just feel frustrated when someone’s apparently got their mail sending through a defunct address, so that they can write to me multiple times (sometimes with escalating animosity) but my replies don’t get back to them.

(3. As a side note, it’s a matter of personal taste as to whether an electronic query needs to contain your physical mailing address. Some require it, some don’t. I find the information interesting from a demographics-collecting perspective, but unnecessary at the query stage since I’m not going to mail out a physical reply letter. I don’t “need” it until there’s a contract being signed.)

Editors and agents reach a certain point in their slush-reading careers where a quick glance at a query will tell them whether it’s worth reading onward.

You start to learn a certain set of warning signs, over time. For example, you learn after reading lots and lots of submissions that a query letter riddled with spelling errors and misused punctuation will usually accompany a submission with the same sorts of problems, and will be indicative of a would-be author’s lack of attention to detail. Therefore, if you see a query letter that looks like it was typed in the dark, you can expect that the manuscript is going to require a lot of extra work.

I don’t decide on correlations like that arbitrarily. They’re observations I’ve made based on lots and lots of data points. And the more new data I receive, the more they’re continually supported.

Other editors and agents have written about the sorts of problems they see in manuscripts and queries, and their reasons for rejection. Look at the posts from:

Colleen Lindsay and Janet Reid at FinePrint Literary
Betsy Mitchell at Del Rey
Rachelle Gardner at WordServe Literary
Tor editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden (see especially #3), and
Jessica at BookEnds, just to name a few.
And I’ll even include my own post from Dragon Moon’s open submission period.

Really, read these posts. They’ll teach you a lot about what editors/agents see and why they reject what they reject.

The more I work with submissions, the more I’ve noticed that they filter down, mostly, into a very simple six-point system.

Ready? Here it is.

0 – “Ow, ow, my eyes!”

This speaks for itself. It’s the stuff that horror stories are made of. Spelling, punctuation and grammar so badly lacking that the text is just about indecipherable, or worse, a narrative or plot so seriously flawed on so many levels that indecipherable would be an improvement. This either gets a form rejection because there’s absolutely nothing appropriate that I can say, or it gets a gentle recommendation to work on writing skills.

1 – Sigh of disappointment.

Weak voice, weak writing skills, weak narrative, wooden characters, or weak/flawed plot. Heavy-handed, contrived, too slow to get moving, or just not well thought out. Not scary-bad, just not strong enough for publication.

2 – Eh.

Nothing stands out about these manuscripts at all. They’re not deeply flawed, but they’re unremarkable. Sometimes the plot has been done too many times before in the same way, sometimes the language is too bland. There’s no interesting voice, no particular style to it, and just nothing special that stands out about the characters, the plot or the writing to set it apart and make me want to know more. Submissions that just don’t fit our requirements (length, genre, target market age, etc.) go here, as well.

3 – Aw.

Now we get into the top three rankings. Most submissions will already have fallen by the wayside before this point. “Aw” manuscripts have potential — there’s some spark that sets them apart from the “Eh” manuscripts — but they don’t quite get there. I want to like it, I see the seed of something interesting in it, but the spark never quite catches. Maybe there’s a neat premise that just isn’t executed well, or an interesting plot twist that comes too late after a reader will already have lost interest. Or there’s a good voice and pleasant writing style, but the plot is deeply flawed in ways too complicated to be easily fixed. Basically, there’s something compelling about these, but whatever it is, it’s lost amidst other problems that overwhelm the strengths. “Aw” is disappointment. These are the ones that I want to love, but can’t.

4 – Ahhh.

Where “Aw” is disappointment, “Ahhh” is relief. It’s the sound I make when I start reading a manuscript with good, engaging writing, proper technique, an interesting premise and engaging characters. I’ll ask for a full on an “Ahhh,” to see where it’s going and determine whether it lives up to the promise that it shows. Sometimes it won’t, and it’ll get bumped down to an “Aw.” Often, though, it will.

5 – Oooh.

This doesn’t need an explanation, does it? “Oooh” manuscripts grab me on the first page and don’t let go. They have it all — engaging voice; a strong writing style that’s technically clean, polished and error-free; an immersive world and characters; and a premise and a plot that keep a reader turning pages. These are the submissions that I end up falling in love with. I request the full already knowing that, barring some unforeseen turn of events, I’m going to want to acquire it. These are rare, but they’re what I hope for every time I open a submission. I want to say “Oooh” and fall in love with every book.

If I’m an unpublished author and I don’t have any relevant credits, what should I put in that paragraph in the query where authors list their previous publications and qualifications?

I covered this a while ago in my post on query letters, but it’s come up again recently and I thought I’d give it its own space.

Everybody starts somewhere, and it’s okay to be querying your first manuscript and to not have prior credits to your name. If you don’t have anything to put in that paragraph, just leave it out.

“I’m an unpublished author” or “Publishing a book has been a dream of mine” or “I don’t have anything to list here” just draws attention to the fact that you don’t have anything to list. It’s okay. You don’t have to. Just don’t include the paragraph at all. Pointing it out only draws attention away from the real focus of the query: your work.

The query letter also isn’t the place for your “about the author” biography, or for the sort of personal background information you’d put in a resume. Unless it’s directly relevant to the sort of fiction you’ve written, your publisher, editor or agent doesn’t need to know where you went to college, how old you are, your family or relationship status or romantic preference, or what you do as a day job.

The example I like to use for relevance is Dragon Moon Press’s own Chris Jackson. Chris writes nautical fantasy, so when he describes his extensive sailing experience, and the fact that he lives on a boat full-time, his life experience is relevant. We know we’re not going to have to fact-check any of the technical maritime details in his novels: his qualifications tell us that he knows his stuff.

If, on the other hand, you’re writing a nautical fantasy and you haven’t got extensive experience with the sea, you don’t have to say so in your query. Just don’t mention your own experience at all. It’s okay. Either it will come across strongly in your manuscript, or it won’t. You don’t have to say anything in the query that might lower the recipient’s first impression of you.

If you’re a university professor, a journalism major or a technical writer, if you’ve read a lot, or even if you’ve got an English degree, that doesn’t necessarily tell me that you know how to write fiction. Some of the sloppiest grammar I’ve seen in submissions has come from teachers and university professors. They’d have done themselves a favor just leaving the personal information out entirely. Not once has listing a degree or job position that wasn’t directly related to the content of the manuscript, ever actually swayed me in favor of a query. Never.

Unfortunately, the ban extends to adverse life circumstances, too. Your manuscript will have to stand on its own, so it’s important that you let it. If you’ve overcome great medical or situational odds in your life, that’s fantastic. If someone decides to champion your manuscript, that can potentially be a marketing platform. But when you’re writing fiction and you’re not writing your personal success story, the two are not the same. In non-fiction, it’s potentially a completely different situation. But in fiction, unless it’s relevant to your manuscript — unless your personal experience is with autism, say, and you’re submitting a manuscript about autism — leave it out.

A fantastic manuscript by someone who’s beaten the odds has a chance to become a real contender in the marketplace. A mediocre manuscript by someone who’s beaten the odds will probably only ever have a chance to become a mediocre book.

When people throw in sad personal stories or offer extreme age or youth or some other personal life situation as a marketing platform, it does two things: it makes me feel like they’re trying to earn my sympathy in order to secure a publishing deal that way instead of on the strength of the book (which in turn makes me suspect that the book isn’t going to be strong), and it makes me feel like I’ve just kicked a puppy if I end up having to reject the manuscript. Just leave it out.

There’ll be a time and place to share your personal history later in the process. Let someone decide to champion your book first, and then wow them with the fact that you wrote such a great piece of work despite personal adversity.

In short, no publisher, agent or editor will think less of you for leaving out the “relevant credits and experience” paragraph if you have nothing to add. It’s okay to be the strong, silent type. In my opinion, it’s better to be a mystery than to offer too much information. Make them fall in love with your manuscript and then come to you and want to know more.

And please don’t make me kick puppies. I like puppies!