Query advice from five years ago doesn’t necessarily apply today, and there’s so much contradictory information. To help you make sense of it all, I spent last week attending five different publishing webinars and classes with agents and editors. Below are some of the things I learned. This isn’t a comprehensive lesson on queries and comps, rather it’s a round-up of preferences that you might not be familiar with, but, as always, opinions will vary.
By the way, some of the information came from Manuscript Academy webinars. I found them to be extremely professional and helpful. (And p.s. I have no relationship or affiliation with them.)
Query Tips
Query letters are trending shorter; the sweet spot is 325 to 425 words.
The short pitch should be early in the letter, and, according to several sources, the most IMPORTANT part of your pitch is the comps or comparative titles, which are books, movies, or TV shows that are similar to your project. More on that later.
As for personalization, if you use it, it should be specific to only that agent and not seem like a copy/paste like, “I see you rep cozy mysteries.”
Instead say something like, “I enjoyed reading your client’s novel, Bad to the Bone, and my novel also features a morally grey character.”
For Further Reading:
FIRST PAGES
Media res rules. In beginning pages, agents and editors want to see characters in a scene with another character. Avoid beginnings with a solo character thinking about his or her life or contemplating a decision. Keep weather and scenery descriptions light.
Coming on too strong is also a problem. Avoid an overly emotional scene at the beginning.
Your query and first pages should match. If you’re querying about a man lost in the artic, don’t begin with a woman trudging through the Sahara.
Also, so many beginnings lack focus. Resist the tendency to overexplain to the reader or inject too much backstory. Trust readers to patiently wait for more information.
In one of the classes I took, I read an opening about a character who hears someone in her backyard, and it’s clearly something sinister. The author lost focus when she included interiority about her work and relationship problems unrelated to the creepy sound. Better to stay with the creepy noise.
Also, count how many names are in your first pages. Lots of authors overwhelm the reader with too many.
COMPS
When considering comps, they can come from any of the elements of your novel: setting, tone, main character, genre etc. You need one comp that’s a recent book (less than five years old), but the second comp can be older and can also be a TV show, movie or even a song.
Classics, unless they’re re-tellings, shouldn’t be used. Nor should self-published books. Wildly popular books like Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code are best avoided be unless preceded by this key phrase: “In the tradition of…” That softens the hubris of the comp.
You can also use authors as comps. For example, “pitched for fans of the heart-felt fiction Katherine Center and JoJo Moyes.”
Publishing professionals appreciate authors who are intimately familiar with their genre space. Also, when comps are misses, it creates extra work for the agent or editor and that is sometimes reason alone for passing. A couple of years ago when I was on a sub, an editor wanted more comps from me before she took it to her colleagues. That’s not uncommon. In summary, comps carry a lot of weight and finding them is your job.
PUTTING ADVICE INTO ACTION
I always write a query letter for my novels, even if I already have an agent or I’m going to self-publish. Why? Because it forces me to think about how the novel will eventually be positioned and how to pitch it to potential readers.
Below, I’ve tweaked an older draft of a query for a novel I finished recently and incorporated last week’s advice.
Personalization goes first. Here’s an example of something that clearly isn’t a copy and paste:
I saw on Blue Sky that you recently opened for queries, and you expressed a desire for women fiction novels grounded in reality but have speculative elements.
Next is the short pitch which should include as many story elements as possible: desire, inciting incident, obstacles and a sense of character arc and stakes. Also included are all those all-important comps which I also tweaked.
THE WOMAN WHO LOVED HALLOWEEN (70,000 words) is a genre blend of women’s fiction and light fantasy, and it’s about a blocked middle-aged watercolor artist whose tame, suburban existence is upended and threatened when a plastic, six-foot Halloween crone comes to life, claiming to be the embodiment of her stunted creativity. It shares the catty suburban drama of Big Little Lies coupled with the midlife reinvention themes of The Amazing Grace Adams.
The above pitch contains the inciting incident (crone), obstacles (life disruption), a sense of arc (from tame to fiercely artistic). Desire is implied: to become unblocked. Stakes: Crone could ruin her life. Also comps are included.
Next is a short description, expanding on the pitch. My first draft was three paragraphs but I cut it down to two. I also included hooky first sentence and put more effort in making the voice match the manuscript.
First hot flash, first chin hair… first crone encounter? Who knew middle-age could be so witchy? Not 45-year-old Lindsay Sinclair. Even though she has the scariest Halloween display in her suburban neighborhood of Summerhill, Georgia, in every other way, she’s a decidedly un-witchy watercolor dabbler who faithfully posts her Wordle scores on Facebook and owns an impressive collection of appliqued Christmas sweaters.
But when Lindsay buys a life-sized plastic crone named Zara at the Home Depot for Halloween, it springs to life, saying that Lindsay’s tame existence is the cause of her artistic rut. Under Zara’s spell, the normally placid Lindsay expresses uncomfortable truths to family members as well as the Marilyns, her Lexus-driving, Lily Pulitzer-wearing girlfriends. Lindsay tries to control Zara and is briefly successful, but the crone isn’t done with her. Through encounters with bats, rats, and snakes, Zara kicks off a series of stunning revelations about Lindsay’s family and unmasks her best friend Callie, the ringleader of the Marilyns, whose charming Southern persona hides a troubling side.
Next comes your bio. Include only relevant information: writing credits, membership in professional organizations, any platforms you might have. A lot of writers like to fill out the bio with a personal flourish like, “I live in beautiful Amelia Island with my three parakeets” but unless it relates to your book, probably best leave it out. As you’ll see below, I have a lot of credits but I also have an uneven sales record which occasionally works against me.
I’ve been a published author for over twenty years (Simon and Schuster and indie) and my Facebook author page has over 10K engaged followers. I also have a FB page that speaks to my latest novel's themes with over 43K followers. I’m a retired writing professor with an MFA in Creative Writing who runs a popular Substack called “Pitch Your Novel” and I’ve written nonfiction articles for the New York Times and Washington Post. Finally, after retiring from academia, I’m plunging myself back into novel writing, armed with years of experience and insight as a storyteller and promoter of my work.
If your novel relates in some way to your life experience, include it. That information opens up the possibility for essays in support of your novel. Something like this:
The manuscript was inspired by my own life in an insular and conventional Southern city and my eventual escape to the funky, artistic town of Savannah, Georgia, where I now blissfully reside, creating art, and emitting the occasional cackle
For instance, I could write an off-the-book-page essay about how living in a conservative area has affected my writing, or how I decided to leave behind my roots to forge a more creative life.
Finally, one agent said they like to see a call-to-action so if you feel bold, you can end with “May I send you the full?”
HOW I FOUND MY COMPS
I made a list of attributes of my novel: themes, setting, characters etc. and decided, if possible I wanted to highlight the following in comps: suburban setting, the complexities of women’s friendship, midlife reinvention and humor.
Right away BIG LITTLE LIES came to mind because it checked off three items on my list: humor, women’s friendship and suburbia, but it’s a blockbuster so I’ll need to soften it with an explanation of why I’m choosing it. Next, I searched for midlife novels in Goodreads, Google, and Publishers Marketplace and I came across my second comp, The Amazing Grace Adams which is also humorous and is about midlife reinvention. It was a Jenna pick so publishing professionals should be familiar with it.
By the way, Publishers Marketplace is a great place to see what comps agents are using in their pitches It’s $25 a month but you can subscribe on a month-by-month basis.
You want a comp that agents or editors have heard of or will look impressive if they research it.
Check the number of Amazon customer reviews. Thousands indicates a popular title, but you should also take a look at accolades and editorial reviews. Maybe there’s not a lot of customer reviews, but maybe it was chosen as a New York Times notable or reviewed in prestigious outlets.
More takeaways:
Agents google authors to see what kind of presence they have and if their social posts suggest that they might be difficult to work with.
Several agents expressed a desire for genre blends. For instance, thriller plus romance, sci-fi plus cozy, family generation stories plus mystery and so on. Book Riot explores some examples of genre blending.
In one of the classes I took last week, authors shared their work with everyone in the class. I scanned about a hundred queries, and I’d say about seventy percent needed substantial work. The most common mistake I saw this week?
Long, convoluted explanations of plot that were almost impossible to follow.
Good luck querying! I welcome questions or comments.
NEWS YOU CAN USE
One of the worst jobs of an author is hunting down endorsements from other authors, known as blurbs. But one imprint decided to end the practice. I’m hoping others will follow.
Feb. 12 is Manuscript Wish List Day on Bluesky. Agents will be posting what they’d like to see in their inboxes.
According to the NY Times, Indie bookstores can now sell e-books. (Gift link.)
Book influencers weigh in on expected trends in 2025.
One thing I learned from the classes I took last week is that most writers truly need query letter and they typically need more assistance than they can get from peers. After Feb 10, I have three query letter openings left for the month and one beta read remaining.Click here all my services and message or email me for more info. (Karin.gillespie (at) gmail.com)
The comps thing always feels so overblown to me... A symptom of how, in some genres (romantasy is turning into a tedious curse for example), we're actually seeing the same book over and over again... Same but not so different. If it's just like this book with a bit of that book, surely it'll sell... Like "please tell me your book is just like this other one...". And so some writers start writing with this in mind.
I've reached the point where I'd prefer to know what other books your book is not and why you can't find a proper comp title lol I get the marketing tool that comps are, but when I'm starting reading some writers spending ages and so much of their nerves on finding great comps, I take it as a sign it's gone too far.
This is such a thoughtful and generous roundup—thank you. I’ve been deep in the query trenches with my speculative literary thriller (Many Earths) and this resonates on so many levels. Sharpening my query with tighter comps, clearer stakes, and a stronger emotional throughline really changed the response. I landed a full request shortly after a major rewrite—proof that the work pays off.
The note about “convoluted plot summaries” hit home. It took multiple revisions to strip mine down to what truly mattered. Also co-signing the value of Publishers Marketplace—it’s helped me see how editors frame genre blends and where my book fits in that landscape. (I’ve got a foot in grounded sci-fi and family mystery, and comps behave differently depending on emphasis.)
Really appreciate how you break this down. Posts like this help clarify the moving target that is publishing.