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Query letters.
What is a query letter?
Well, it’s sort of like an elevator pitch.
What’s an elevator pitch?
Supposed you had a movie idea and you got on the elevator with a movie producer. Now, you are totally alone with this person who could make your movie the next Oscar winning blockbuster but you have only twenty seconds to sell him on your idea. Can you distill your idea for a movie down to a succinct, very short sentence or paragraph? Can you sell him your idea in twenty seconds before he gets off the elevator?
A query letter is similar to an elevator pitch. It is a letter outlining the basic idea behind your book. It is designed to grab the attention of a potential book publisher and have that person ask for more information. This leads to a request for a book proposal.
A book proposal is a longer, more involved treatise of your book with background information, market analysis, competition analysis, chapter by chapter outline and sample chapters. But, before a publisher will take the time to look at a long book proposal, they must show an interest and this is where the query letter comes in.
I have finished the third book in my Jonathan Steel series. I am currently making one last pass for checking and continuity errors. If it is accepted by a publisher, I will make many more changes as I work with my editor before the final publishable manuscript is sent to the printer. I have also finished the book proposal and it is in the hands of my agent.
This week, we sent out the query letter for “The 11th Demon: Children of the Bloodstone”. Hopefully we will find someone interested in the book so I can get it on the road to the bookstore shelves.
I’ve also finished the rough manuscript and book proposal for “Death by Darwin” and it also went out this week. It features a minor character appearance of Jonathan Steel and I’m very excited about it.
So, don’t give up hope. I get requests DAILY from my readers for the next book. I am hoping and praying the third book is picked up soon and it will find its way into your hands. In the meantime, if you haven’t read my “in between” book I wrote last Christmas, check out lulu.com and do a search for Bruce Hennigan and the book “Ark of the Demon Rose”. You can download the ebook for free. Just realize this book is a quick write for “Write a Novel in a Month” back in November, 2008.
And, for this upcoming Christmas I plan to do the same thing. I’m thinking of a detective novel that is set in Jonathan Steel’s future when he has gotten past all the things he is dealing with in the current set of books. Might be interesting if Jonathan Steel was approached by Joshua Knight, now grown and married, to help solve a murder . . .
Sorry, can’t go there right now!
Back to the books for me. Also, I’ve started writing the fourth book in the series, “The 10th Demon: A Wicked Numinosity” and I just finished this scene in which Josh just escaped certain death from a cloud of angry wasps and . . .
Sorry, can’t go THERE right now, either!
Halloween is coming, so why not encourage all your friends to pick up some scary books, particularly one about vampires? “The 13th Demon: Altar of the Spiral Eye” and “The 12th Demon: Vampyre Majick” are both available through Amazon.com. Good, clean, scary books!
See you!
Filed under: Blogroll
Friday morning when we woke up we felt almost normal. This was day three and our bodies and minds were growing accustomed to the time change. I ran down the street to Krispie Kreme and got doughnuts for breakfast. Afterwards, we took the Tube to Waterloo Station. There we were confronted with mass confusion. There were these flat panel monitors across the top of a wide open gap leading through gates to the trains. There were at least forty of these gates and just as many monitors. We queued up at some kind of ATM type machine to buy our train tickets. We knew we were going to Surbiton and we finally found out how to buy tickets. The British are known for their punctuality and the next train to Surbiton would not leave for twenty minutes. But, the train that was supposed to leave three minutes before we bought the tickets was still at the station. We made it just in time and we were off to Surbiton.
Surbiton is about twenty minutes train ride southwest of London and we disembarked in a lovely, but ancient train station. Outside, the air was cool and there wasn’t a rain cloud in sight. Sherry had met this lady named Anne online playing bridge and Anne had invited us to spend the day with her. She pulled up in a BMW convertible and we were off tooling around this quaint and lovely little village. We visited Anne’s house and her concise and tidy backyard garden. Anne took us to Hampton Court.
I knew nothing about this huge, sprawling palace but was soon to learn that it was built by Cardinal Wolsey in the 1500’s. He was the personal friend to King Henry VIII and many strange and wonderful things took place at Hampton Court during Henry’s reign. The palace was huge and a mixture of architectural styles. But, the most breath taking aspect of Hampton Court was the gardens!
Garden after garden after garden spread out around the palace. Each was perfectly manicured and acres in size with gorgeous flowers, topiaries, and statues. The perfection of the sculpting of the topiaries and the straight lines and sculpted beds was unbelievable. There was also a grape vine still producing grapes that was over 300 years old!
After we toured the palace, Anne took us to a real English pub for lunch. We were expecting a dark, dank room lined with a bar and scarred tables. But, the pub was airy and light and perfectly modern. We had a wonderful lunch and I tried Anne’s fish and chips. They were delicious. Afterwards, we walked along the Thames River and then drove to Bushy Park. This huge expanse of parkland was once Henry VIII’s hunting grounds (for animals, not wives!) and it was filled with families and their dogs “on holiday”. August is the traditional month for all Britishers to go on vacation or “on holiday”. After the park, Anne drove us back to the train station and we made our way back to London and our hotel.
On arrival back at our room we found an Adventures by Disney tote bag with all kinds of goodies and a note to come down to the conference room at 530. There we met the other 37 members of our tour group. We had an ice breaker game and then an orientation of the trip. We met Andy and Roni. Andy was 24 and grew up in Cardiff, Wales. Roni was from North Carolina. We got all excited about the coming days and we made our way to a room filled with an traditional English buffet. There were at least six different varieties of fish and chips. I tried Shepherd pie, bangers and mash, some kind of duck, and trifle for desert. It was interesting and tasty. Definitely memorable. We met all the other people and went back up to our room for a good night’s rest. For, from now on, it was going to be metal to pedal; nonstop action; go, go, go!
