Most query letter advice is written by writers. Writers who landed agents, writers who studied the process, writers who synthesized other writers’ experiences into lists. That advice isn’t wrong, exactly. But it’s filtered through the wrong perspective. The writer knows what worked for them. They don’t know why the agent said yes — because they weren’t in the room.
Publishing consultant Jonathan Baker has been in the room. He has worked on both sides of the desk as a literary agent and an editor, grew up with a literary agent in the family, and has spent more than a decade helping authors understand not just what agents say they want, but what they actually experience when a query lands in their inbox.
What follows is the query letter from that perspective. Not what worked for a writer. What an agent feels.
First: What Is Actually Happening When You Hit Send
There is a moment every writer imagines when they send a query. An agent opens it, sits up a little straighter, and thinks: this is the one.
Here is what is more likely happening around that moment. The agent is one of the busiest people alive. Reading queries is not their main job — it is a small, crowded corner of a job that also involves managing manuscripts, negotiating deals, handling foreign and subsidiary rights, flying to Frankfurt for the world’s biggest book fair, and keeping a roster of 30 to 50 existing clients from losing their minds over deadlines. Queries are what agents do in the margins.
“Writers spend so much time alone,” Baker says. “And their thoughts spin out. They write all these narratives, but they’re not understanding what’s happening on the other side.”
And in many cases, the agent isn’t even the first person to open the email.
Who Is Actually Reading Your Query First
This is the part of the querying process that almost no resource addresses honestly, and it changes everything about how you should write your opening paragraph.
At most agencies, especially larger ones, the first person to open your query is an intern or junior assistant. They are probably 21, 22, or 23 years old. They’re home from Oberlin or Brown for the summer, they’ve been at the agency for two or three months, and they will be back on campus in September. They love books — that’s why they’re there. But they don’t have the same stake in the outcome that the agent does. Their job, practically speaking, is to clear the inbox and look good doing it. At the end of the day, they send 10 or 20 queries up to the agent. The agent evaluates those.
“As a writer, you are sitting alone in your writing room and you’re thinking — often even subconsciously — ‘This query is going to land, and someone is going to really focus on it and read it really carefully,'” Baker says. “But that’s just not the reality.”
Many agencies receive 500 queries a week. Interns wade through most of them. Which means your query needs to do something very specific: it needs to signal, in the first few lines, that this is not noise. That someone who knows what they’re doing sent this. That it belongs in the 10 or 20 that get passed up.
There is also an upside to the intern system that Baker is careful to name. Interns give more focused attention to individual queries than the agent can. And they sometimes route queries laterally — noticing that while Agent A passed, this is exactly what Agent B has been looking for, and sending it across. “I’ve literally seen that happen,” says Manuscript Academy co-founder Julie Kingsley. “The intern takes the query and says, ‘Do you want this?’ And the first agent says no, but knows Agent B might love it.”
The lesson: write for the intern who loves books and wants to find something great, and you’re also writing for the agent. They want the same thing.
The First Paragraph: Two Jobs, Very Few Words
Your opening paragraph has to do two things simultaneously, and it has very little room to do them.
First: signal that you know exactly who you’re querying and why. Mention a specific client they represent. Reference something they’ve said on Manuscript Wishlist about what they’re looking for. “In those first words, if you say ‘I know exactly who I’m querying and why,’ that looks really good to the agent or the intern,” Baker says. It separates you immediately from the writers who are blasting the same form letter to 200 agents — which is most of the inbox.
Second: give them a reason to keep reading. This might be a strong comp title that signals a hungry market. It might be a platform that’s genuinely relevant — if you’re a chef in Brooklyn with 200,000 Instagram followers and you’ve written a culinary murder mystery, Baker says to put that in the first paragraph, not the bio. “Some interns never make it to the bio.” Lead with whatever is most likely to make someone think: oh, this could be something.
For more on using comp titles strategically in your opening, see our guide on what comp titles are actually doing in a query letter.
The Pitch Paragraphs: Write Flap Copy, Not a Synopsis
This is where most queries go wrong in a specific, fixable way. Writers describe the plot. They lay out what happens, chapter by chapter. Sometimes they reveal the twist, thinking transparency will help. It doesn’t.
Baker’s mental model for the pitch paragraphs is hardcover flap copy — the text on the inside cover of a book that makes you buy it in a bookstore. “Agents grew up as book fans,” he explains. “They grew up reading flap copy in bookstores, and so they have a sort of warm feeling, even if it’s subconscious, about reading that kind of copy.”
Flap copy doesn’t tell you everything. It gives you just enough to make you desperately need the rest. It leaves you with an open question — one you can only answer by reading the book.
“The more you lay out for them, the less they’re going to be like, ‘I need to find out what happens,'” Baker says.
The three questions your pitch paragraphs need to answer: What does my character want? What’s standing in their way? What’s at stake if they fail? Answer those three things with emotional specificity — not plot summary — and leave the rest for the manuscript.
This is as true for memoir and narrative nonfiction as it is for fiction. It’s about emotional pull. The stakes sentence at the end of your pitch is usually where the difference between a request and a pass is made.
What agents are waiting for — and what Julie Kingsley describes as the “stab in the heart” moment — is the point where the emotional stakes become so specific and so vivid that the agent feels something. Not reads something. Feels it. Julie spent weeks revising her own query before she found it. “I lulled you, I lulled you,” she says, “and then I stabbed you with the emotional stakes of my character.” That’s what the pitch paragraphs are building toward.
The Bio Paragraph: You’re Pitching Yourself as a Partner
The bio is the most underestimated paragraph in the query, and it’s where Baker’s advice diverges most sharply from the standard guidance you’ll find elsewhere.
Most resources tell you to lead with publishing credits. Baker’s position: credits matter much less than most writers think, and what agents actually want to see in a bio is something different entirely.
“Agents don’t make their money off your debut author advance,” he explains. “They make their money off the fifth book, and then people start to read the backlist, and that’s when things start to gear up.” What agents are evaluating in a bio is whether you are someone worth investing in for the long term. Whether you write consistently, whether you have more books in you, whether you’ll be a productive and relatively low-maintenance partner over what could be a decades-long relationship.
Mentioning that you’re working on your next book can do more work in a bio than a list of literary journal credits. (Baker’s note on credits: if it’s Granta, Ploughshares, or Virginia Quarterly, mention it. If it’s a smaller journal, the word count is usually better spent elsewhere.) “I write 1,000 words a day” or “I have two other completed manuscripts” signals something an obscure publication credit simply doesn’t: that you show up, that you produce, that you’re in this for the career.
And something that humanizes you is never wasted. Kingsley ended her own query letter with “Even though I run the Manuscript Academy, I hated writing this query letter.” That kind of disarming honesty is memorable. It makes you a person, not a pitch.
For a deeper look at the bio — including when to mention self-publishing history, pen names, and what to do if you have no credits at all — see our post on what your query bio actually needs to say.
Voice, Format, and What Gets You Rejected Before Anyone Reads a Word
A few quick things Baker is emphatic about:
Don’t get cute with fonts. No unusual typefaces, no bold headings inside the query, no pictures, no headshots. “Using some goofy font is a very quick way to get rejected,” Baker says. A query is a letter. Format it like one.
Match the register to your book, but lightly. If you’re writing a fun, flirty romantic comedy, your query can have a little of that energy. If you’re writing something weighty, bring a more serious tone. But don’t go so far into voice that it feels like a performance. “Come across as conversational, light and breezy,” Baker advises, unless your subject matter genuinely demands something heavier. The goal is to seem like someone an agent would enjoy working with — professional, warm, and not fragile.
Keep it short. 300 words is the right target for your query letter. 400 is the hard ceiling. When you look at a long block of text after reading dozens of queries, you don’t think “I’ll give this the time it deserves.” You move on. Brevity is a form of respect for the reader’s time, and agents notice it.
The Good News
Here is what Baker wants writers to hold onto after all of this: if you have written a well-crafted, brief, emotionally alive query addressed to a specific agent — you are already in the top 10 to 20 percent of what’s hitting any inbox.
Most of the inbox is noise. Form letters. Wrong genres. Manuscripts at twice the acceptable word count. Writers who haven’t thought once about who they’re querying or why. You are not those writers. You’re here, thinking carefully about this, which already puts you somewhere most queries aren’t.
“If you have a quality query, you’re in good shape,” Baker says. “And then at that point it’s just a numbers game. Finding the right agent, having them look at it and go, ‘Oh, this rings a bell inside me.’ That’s the whole thing.”
For a smart approach to how many agents to query and when, see our guide on the rolling query strategy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do literary agents look for in the first paragraph of a query letter?
Two things: evidence that you’ve done your research on this specific agent (a client mention, a Manuscript Wishlist reference, a reason you’re querying them in particular), and something compelling enough to make them keep reading. That second thing might be a strong comp title, a notable platform, or a hook that immediately signals a fresh and marketable premise. Agents and interns are reading fast. Your first paragraph is your only guaranteed read.
Does my query letter bio matter if I have no publishing credits?
More than you might think — but not for the reason most writers assume. Agents aren’t primarily looking for a list of publications. They’re trying to assess whether you’ll be a productive, long-term client. Mentioning that you write consistently, that you’re already working on your next book, or that you have other completed manuscripts tells an agent something a small journal credit doesn’t. If you have no credits at all, a line about who you are and why you wrote this book is enough. Don’t apologize for the absence of credits. Lead with what you do have.
How do I personalize a query letter without it feeling forced?
The easiest approach: read the agent’s Manuscript Wishlist entry and find one specific thing they’ve said they’re looking for that genuinely applies to your book. Then say so in a single sentence. “I saw on your MSWL that you’re looking for [X], and I think my novel fits that description” is sufficient. You don’t need a paragraph of flattery. One sentence that shows you read their wishlist and found a real match is all it takes to distinguish yourself from the writers who didn’t.
What’s the difference between a query pitch and a synopsis?
A query pitch is flap copy — it gives the agent just enough to make them desperate to read the manuscript, without revealing how everything resolves. A synopsis is a complete plot summary including the ending. Most agents don’t ask for a synopsis with a query; if they do (British agents almost always do), it’s a separate document. In your query itself, don’t reveal the twist, don’t lay out every plot beat, and don’t resolve the emotional question you’re raising. Leave them wanting the answer.
How long should a query letter be?
300 words is the right target. 350 is fine if your book has significant world-building that needs a sentence or two of setup. 400 words is the hard ceiling — beyond that, you risk losing the reader before they reach your pitch. The query letter itself is not the place to demonstrate how much you have to say. It’s the place to demonstrate that you know exactly what matters most.
Ready to put this into practice? Our Collaborative Query Consultation gives you direct, personalized feedback on your letter from a publishing professional. Before you send, run through our query letter checklist — it catches the things fresh eyes always miss. And if you’re still working out your comp titles, our guide on what comp titles are actually doing in a query is a good next stop.