Paul Lima, a Canadian freelance writer and writing coach, has a page "How to Structure a Query Letter; Sample Query Letter" that I hadn't seen before. He takes it paragraph by paragraph. Like this:
- Opening graf. An attention-getter, like the lede in a newspaper story.
- Support graf. Lima says he likes to put some statistics here, anything to show he knows what he's talking (writing) about. I usually dispense with it.
- Source graf. Where'd you get your information? Tell 'em.
- Ask for the order graf. Lima's word for an essential part of the query. Salespeople call this a "close," and you can't make a sale without it. Says Lima, "Literally, ask if the editor is interested in the article."
- About you graf. Why you're qualified to write the story.
Here's an "about you" graf from Lima's website: "An English major from York University, Paul Lima has worked as an advertising copywriter (print and broadcast), graduate placement coordinator, continuing education manager and instructor and magazine editor of Northern Lights and Toronto Computes." In a word, it says why he's qualified.
I can't show you the query I'm sending out today (bad luck and questionable ethics to do that). But here's a couple of queries that got me published a couple of years ago, along a little graf-by-graf explanation I wrote for another class last semester.
Another website called AboutFreelanceWriting.com has the standard stuff about queries. But it also has a link to a page titled "No Writing Clips? No Problem!" I have published clips, so I didn't read it in detail. But you might be interested if your writing so far has been mostly for school.
3 comments:
Essentially this is how to structure a cover letter. I find them a pain at first, but after practice, intuition and second nature seem to emerge. I’ve had to write cover letters like this when submitting creative pieces to literary journals. While I feel like I have some valid credentials (four years with an international literary journal and previous publications) it is an elitist game full of fierce competition. In the creative field, it almost seems like the about you graf is more important than the piece itself. If you don’t have that MFA, PhD, or an absurd amount of other major publications you get sent to the bottom of the slush pile. Because of this fact, freelance journalism almost seems like it would be easier to find your name in print. At least it would pay more. At least it seems to retain some integrity and concern for the work itself.
@ John -
I *hate* query letters. My first drafts always come out sounding like, "I guess you wouldn't want to print something from a little schlub like me." But they get a little better by the time I send them out!
I've always thought of myself as more of a journalist than an academician, in spite of a PhD in Shakespearean drama, partly because as a journalist you're judged more on the quality of your clips than you are on where you studied and what degree you have. They're both very competitive fields, though, and what's kept me going a lot of the time, more than anything else, is a sense of personal pride in craftsmanship even on some of the dumb little stories I write.
An English major with a career? Absurd!
In all seriousness, when I write query/cover letters, I look at the first draft and I want to crumble it up and throw it away. I do, however, have a cover letter that goes in combination with my resume that Holly Rae kindly helped me with back in the fall. What helped me get on my feet was asking someone to help me out with constructing the cover letter and explain why I'm good enough for such and such company without sounding full of myself. But, like John, with practice and second nature, I'm sure I'll be able to handle a cover letter without feeling like I wasted twenty minutes.
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