Eva Scalzo

#querytip A pass is not the end of the road. If you frame every rejection negatively that is disheartening & makes it harder to continue. So many of my passes have more to do w me than the actual quality of the work. I talk about publishing being subjective. I'm not joking. 7/

#querytip Silence just means that my attention is on other things. At least for me. I do respond to every query and submission, but it will occasionally take longer than I want. It's not because I am purposely ignoring you, it's that other things have demanded my focus. 6/

#querytip Patience, generosity, kindness matters. Will there be people who abuse it & don't deserve it? Yes. But I try to always apply those 3 ideas in dealings w others & I find that there is reciprocity. We are humans caught up in being human, being kind makes it less hard. 5/

#querytip Don't lie. Don't make up offers you don't have, don't pretend your book is polished and finished if you just typed "The End," don't pretend you've written one thing when you've written something else. You will always get caught. Just...don't lie. 4/

#querytip You might have written an exceptional book, but that doesn't mean you are the exception. Publishing has conventions like nearly everything in life, while there will always be outliers, don't go into it assuming that will be you. It rarely works that way. 3/

#querytip You want to make it hard for agents to say no; not easy. So pay attention details, things like word count, what they represent, actually writing a query letter. Getting it wrong doesn't doom you for life, but you will see way more rejection the less effort you make. 2/

I offer R&Rs on occasion & am always happy to see revised queries (even if I haven’t offered an R&R, I’m okay w re-queries). But if you do this, you need to tell me what you changed in your query letter! Tell me about all that revision work you did, I want to hear it! #QueryTip

Quick #querytip, given a recent experience. When you receive an offer of rep, it's actually good practice to alert ALL agents who have the query, not just those who have the full. You do not need to give all the agents an opportunity to read, you can simply withdraw the query.

So when you personalize your query letter #amquerying authors make sure the things you are saying about the agent are true. I was just told I was a fan of a series I’ve never read, of genres I’m meh on, and like...why lie to me about me? Personalize smarter. #querytip

The answer is write book one and outline the series & then put it aside. When querying, query book 1 and mention series potential, but do not write book 2, write something else until you know book 1 sold. I promise this will spare you so much extra work/anxiety. 2/2 #querytip

Hi Writer friends, if you are querying next, please use the link in my bio. Any emailed queries will be deleted w no response. I just looked at the slush inbox & had to delete so many queries. I hate to delete queries without reading them. Please follow the guidelines. #querytip

There's a time for self-deprecation, a query letter is not one of them. Telling me all the reasons why I shouldn't believe in you isn't going to get me to believe in you. BELIEVE in yourself, believe in the story you want to tell, and don't sell yourself short. #querytip 10/10

An ideal blurb will introduce us to the characters, the inciting incident and the conflict/what's at stake. Don't worry about giving me ALL the details, that's what the manuscript is for. #querytip 9b/10

Re: the BLURB. Is it bogged down in backstory? Does it have nothing to do with the sample pages you are about to show me? Does it give us a clear sense of the stakes & conflict? Those are the types of questions you should ask yourself when you write them. (cont.) #querytip 9a/10

PROOFREAD. And send your query and sample pages to someone else and have them critique it/proofread. And then proofread it some more. Typos exist and everyone makes them, and aren't the end of the world. But the cleaner your copy, the better. #querytip 8/10

Even when using an online form, I like to see the query in letter format. I like to see a salutation (Dear Eva, is perfectly fine), but I also like a hint of what it is I'm about to read about (TITLE is my GENRE of XX words). (cont.) #querytip 6a/10

Titles matter because they are the first thing we see when you are introducing us to your manuscript. A really terrible title might be memorable but leaves you with a not-great first impression and that's not what you want when you're querying. #querytip 5c/10

Or is there a line in the manuscript that resonates? Find some way to adapt that into something that evokes the story. Avoid subtitles. And remember to not get too attached, titles often change at the publisher. (cont.) #querytip 5b/10

TITLES. Listen, I'm bad at titles. I think they're impossible. BUT I'm convinced I'm not nearly as bad as I think when I look at so many of the titles I see in my inbox. Look at other books publishing in your genre, see what the trend is and mimic it (cont.) #querytip 5a/10

Every agent is different so check submission guidelines. I ask for query + first 3 chapters. Your book doesn't have chapters? Then send me the first 30 pages. Don't send me 3 random chapters, don't send me 10 pages, don't send me things I don't ask for. #querytip 4/10