Querying Again!

Here we are again, querying do's and don'ts. It seems the more people blog about it, the more there is to blog. What can you say in a one- or two-paragraph letter that has the world in a discussion about what and how to write the paragraphs? Crimany, you write a book and then write a letter to some publishing company asking them to consider it for publication. If they reject your book, you blame it on the forwarding letter. What's not right about this picture? If a company accepts the book, nothing is said about the letter.

 There are writers who write a "better" query letter than others, for sure, but what's in the letter shouldn't have any "better" effect on the manuscript. If it's a real dog like bad English, bad spelling, bad grammar, bad paragraphing, bad punctuation, I would be the first to send the manuscript back for something like that, since it's a demonstration of what the book is probably like. If a person can't spell or punctuate or grammar-tize, what the heck, send it back.

I knew a feller once who had a college education, that is, he received a B.A. degree in something or other, but couldn't write a simple sentence let alone make something half-way complicated understandable. There is no doubt his manuscript, if he submitted one, wouldn't make sense either.

Don't get me wrong, I've never worked at a publishing house, so I don't really know what they consider good or bad, I'm talking about all this blogging on a simple question, "Would you please consider my manuscript for publication?" Duh! Just the facts, ma'am (or sir), thank you. Agents and pubreps put too much weight on the letter. 

Or, maybe they are like me, needing something to blog about today.