How to Write a Query Letter

Video Transcript

"Hi everybody I'm John Graden, I'm a professional speaker, trainer and the author of seven books including the Impostor Syndrome. This is how to write a query letter so let me share with you how I used the query letter to gain an agent in three days. I wrote a query letter sent it out to five agents, I got a response within ten minutes, within three days I was signed with a national agent. That is the power of a good query letter. So what I did, I understand that agents are extraordinarily busy. And they have people pulling all the time trying to get them to do their book, so I had to bang hit them right between the eyes with a strong open. So the Impostor Syndrome is the feeling that you are not as skilled, talented or smart as people think you are. And over seventy percent of the population has the Impostor Syndrome to some degree. So I said, in Hollywood why do we see people like John Belushi, Brittany Spears, Lindsay Lohan, people who work hard to get to the top and then they sabotage it once they get there. That's the Impostor Syndrome. So I was able to use that kind of tabloid appeal and I said also that this other book called The Secret is hitting really strong right now, sold over four million copies. I said this is the perfect storm between our celebrity obsessed nation and the success of the Secret. The rise, the resurgent of interest in self help. That creates the perfect storm for The Impostor Syndrome. So when we are making a pitch like this , I want to appeal to their emotions, I'm not going to say technically why I'm the best writer to do this or, I'm trying to find things that are happening right now that are generating headlines and weave that into my query letter and weave that right off the bat. So we know that for me, part of the query letter has to be who is the audience for this book. Well women buy the tabloids, women have been buying the secret and majority of women have the impostor syndrome. So we know that the audience and the buying market are the same. Again another perfect storm. So a query letter again is critical. Keep it to one page, speak with passion about your book. You may do a little research but remember the query letter is followed by the book proposal, that could be pages long, where you can really expand on competitive analysis and what is different about your book. But your query letter is your one page sales script. It's got to start strong, try and find what we call a meeting strategy and that's where like I did, it's the perfect storm, it's a meeting of a celebrity obsessed society with the success of the secret. Another example would be, it's a meeting of the apprentice, it's a meeting of the apprentice and the amazing race. It could be a different way of describing a new television show if your query letter was pitching a new reality show. So try and find two successful books, tv shows, or movies bring them together to help these people understand, help your agent understand the power of your book. I'm John Graden I hope that helps you make your book, I'm a professional speaker, I hope that makes your book a huge success, thanks."