There's no substitute for confidence

At a friend's request, I helped her ready a query letter for her police procedural. I offered to send her some sample queries I collected in the past couple years that helped me improve my ability to write a query letter. I suggested she read query letter for The Notebook written by Nicholas Sparks that made quite the impression on me when I first read it.

Now I know that The Notebook is the last book my querying friend would pick up and read. Me, I loved the book and cried my head off during the movie (but that's another story but not for this blog). I referred her to Sparks' query letter because it is the best example of a query letter I've ever read that says, "I am very confident about my work and this book and my ability as a writer. I believe in this book!" without ever using those words.

He shares some research

Sparks knows what his book is about. Without being arrogant, he tells the potential agent why his book is special. And he did his homework regarding its marketability. He mentions that there aren't many commercial books that have grappled Alzheimers as a theme.

He added a P.S.

He even adds a postscript that says the following:

"P.S. Because 22% of the people in this country (40+ million) are over 52 years old and 4.5 million people suffer from Alzheimer's, this book is unique and marketable to a wide audience. In addition, at 52,000 words, it is short enough not to be cost-prohibitive to most publishing houses."

He added a P.S.? Who has ever seen that before? Not me. I've never heard anyone say, "Never add a P.S. to your query." But I've never added one either.

He broke with convention

But I have heard experts advise: The query letter should NEVER exceed one page. His query letter was more than a page. I've always tried to keep my query letter to one page. Why? Because I didn't want to flout convention. See, I was more interested in being seen as one who makes nicey-nice than one who whose goal is foremost to sell her book.

Because I'm not Nicholas Sparks, I'm not intending to write a two-page query anytime soon. I'm not suggesting that you dash the rules either. What I'm suggesting is that you consider selling your book, your premise, yourself--unabashedly and unapologetically.

Confident not arrogant

Whether you like his work or not is immaterial. What matters is the confident tone of his query. There's a world of difference between confidence and arrogance. Nicholas Sparks couldn't have been more confident about the product he was selling. Is it any wonder he's a bestselling author.

No apologies

So, whatever you do. Please don't apologize in your query letter; don't even give off a whiff of apology about the book you just spent untold hours researching, writing, editing, revising, writing a synposis for, etc. You owe it to yourself to present your book as the jewel you believe it to be, that you want it to be. Your integrity as a writer demands it.