Concerning Queries.

Hundreds upon hundreds of e-mail queries to sort through today, while my co-editorial assistant worked on snail mail. I am relieved that he is there because he is genuinely interested in everything that is sent in. The office space is nice, too, with a lot of flora outside. It is very quiet. I spent today peacefully looking through the queries and sending out replies.

A majority of e-mail queries are...

1) carelessly written, e.g.: queries that have grammatical errors or misspell the name of the agency.
2) queries that do not know their own genre(s)/markets or target audience.
3) queries that do not follow directions given by the literary agency's site on how to submit queries.
4) queries that do not provide clear synopses.
5) queries that have not done enough research about the literary agency's interests, e.g.: sending in a Young Adult Romance about vampires to an agency that discourages against that kind of work (though this isn't what my agency discourages against).
6) queries that take too long explaining things or do not explain enough about the work.
7) queries that expand upon irrelevant things, e.g.: talking about a person's life story or their battle with addiction and then sending a query for a Young Adult romance about vampires.

I placed The Rejector's blog and Miss Snark's blog (retired) in my recommended blogs section a while back. They are really good tools for writing proper query letters, which can increase your chances of having your work read and published. It also saves people who are genuinely interested in your fiction a lot of grief.