Query Manager

[Talean]

Hi all,

I've been pondering what I see for online forms, and decided I would ask the community what they do.

We've all seen the Query Manager Online Forms that more and more agents are using in lieu of emailed queries (or hard submissions). They often have required textboxes to answer questions such as comps, your bio, who the book will appeal to - all things that you would shove into your traditional query letter.

So my question is: when confronted with this, do you pull that stuff out of the query letter itself, or do you just submit the info twice?

[vivaviolet]

I submit it twice. Curious to hear what others do.

[MFeuerman]

Great question.  I've pondered the same.  I put it in twice, but I feel foolish. 

[Neil Lynch]

Not quite sure what 'submitting it twice' means...

If it's what I think it is then I guess it's case by case.  Sometimes I'll happily copy / repost a response I really liked; sometimes, I'll do a totally fresh one - to try to better a previous query (though of course previous ones should already have ideally been 'perfect' - ho ho ho).

And sometimes I cut from longform queries.

I have to say I'm not at all a fan of the query box query.  They ask dumb questions I don't want to answer and miss big questions they should be asking, I feel.  If more and more agencies are going that way, they should at least standardise the questions they pose.  Shouldn't they?

[Talean]

An example for you, Mr. Lynch, of what I mean by "submitting it twice."

On Query Manager there will be a box for you to paste your query letter into. Now, a query letter generally has a paragraph about comparative book titles.

But then a few answer boxes down, there will be a specific question asking for comparative titles. So, since a standard query letter (already input) has comp titles, but now there's a specific question asking for comp titles... do you just put the same thing?

Sometimes I wonder if it's an opportunity to get away from the rules of comp titles, i.e. the 3 years old max, in your genre, not from a bestselling author.
If my writing style and themes are more in line with something written back in the 70s or 80s, and from someone like Wilbur Smith or Patrick O'Brian, can I list it here? Leave the recent titles in the query letter but use the specific question box to tell what books is actually like?

I don't know. The whole thing makes me, quite like MFeuerman, feel quite foolish. Also makes me think the agents are foolish for putting those questions there when it falls in the standard query. Or rather, for not doing away with the query letter box and having the whole thing broken out into separate question boxes.

[Berkvase]

I believe I pasted my standard query letter, which had covered all those questions, into the query letter field, and then copied and pasted the same paragraphs into the specific sections they asked for. So yes, it was redundant. But I think they kind of expect that.

[MFeuerman]

I do include older comps in the similar books section especially since those are the only comps I have.

I need to read more, but it takes away from my writing.  Argh!