By Lanee’ Blunt
Most new writers believe
that once an editor sees their story, then a query letter is not necessary.
That’s simply not true. It sometimes seems
impossible for a new writer to break into one of the major magazine markets. If
you want to sell your article to a publisher you must have a query letter. Your query letter is all that an editor sees
so gain their confidence by writing a good query and then write an excellent
article.
The purpose of the query is
to sell the idea to the editor about your manuscript. Make the query letter interesting
by doing a small amount of research. If
you were to write the whole article you would have a lot of research, but with
the query your research will be minimum. Express the freshness of your idea in the
query.
Editors want to know if you
can write and if you have what it takes to get the facts, whether you are
reliable, and can meet a deadline. A new
writer may not have published credits, and that is only a minor problem,
because you can tell the editor about how you’re qualified for writing the
article. In the query tell the editor what you will provide and where you will
get your sources.
Demonstrate your excellent
writing skills. Avoid typo’s and grammar
mistakes. Rewrite your query letter
making sure that you have a tight letter to send to the magazine. Make sure that you include a self-addressed,
stamped envelope with your query (SASE).
Reference:
Gordon Burgett; Sell &
Resell Your Magazine Articles; Writer’s Digest
