Query letters

Since I am the secretary of the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime, I handle most of the local membership-wide communications. And today I was asked to pass on some information to our members regarding an event at another SinC chapter.

Sisters in Crime of Columbus, Ohio, also known as SiCCO, is having an afternoon workshop this Saturday on the query process. The workshop is being conducted by author Heather Webber, who will talk about how to effectively query agents and editors.

(She is the author of the Nina Quinn cozy mystery series and has launched a new series starring Lucy Valentine, an unlucky-at-love character with a supernatural talent.)

What really caught my eye, however, was that Webber was offering to critique query letters submitted in advance. For FREE. Doesn't get much better than free.

What a wonderful idea. Querying is one of the most crucial aspects for becoming a published author and is also one of the hardest to master. I have a basic letter, of course, but I pour over it numerous times before I send it out. Each one is slightly different from the one I sent to the previous agent.

I wish our chapter will host a similar workshop, perhaps some time early in 2011. I certainly will suggest it this Saturday at our next meeting. But, of course, that's the problem. I can't go to Columbus on Saturday, a drive of under three hours, because I have to attend our local meeting. That's too bad. I could really use some help with my letter. I think it is good but it doesn't seem to attract much attention.

So I am not sure if it's my letter that is bad or my novel itself is the problem.

I will paste my letter below and if you feel the urge, send me a note on what you think.

Until then, thanks for reading and keep writing.

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Dear XXXXXXX,

It wasn’t a typical Monday for struggling private eye David Blaise. He got two new, important cases to solve and Philadelphia was burning to the ground.

Pretentious socialite Elise Carmichael begs Blaise to investigate whether her husband is having an affair. And Blaise’s former girlfriend asks him to accept a missing persons case. The husband is having an affair, of course, but what Blaise also finds is murder. The victim, whose badly burned body is found in a house destroyed after Philadelphia police firebombed an entire neighborhood, is the socialite’s lover, who was blackmailing her regarding her secret past.

Baffled by his client’s lies and half-truths, distracted by the advances of his former lover, harassed by police and threatened by a stalker, Blaise tries to get to the bottom of his two seemingly unrelated cases – and do it before the killer literally buries him alive.

AN UNTIDY AFFAIR is a sassy 71,000-word murder mystery that is easy to read and would be a good summer companion for fans of classic mysteries. It is my first novel. I can provide a partial or the entire manuscript per your request.

I am a working journalist with numerous freelance credits in local and national publications. I serve as secretary in the Speed City chapter of Sisters in Crime and I have a murder mystery story in BEDLAM AT THE BRICKYARD, a racing anthology published in June by Blue River Press (Cardinal Publishing Group).

Thank you for taking the time to consider my work. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

MB “Michael” Dabney
7120 Keston Circle
Indianapolis, IN 46256-2323

317-509-6490
E-mail: www.mbdabney@yahoo.com