What I'm Thinking While Reading This Bad Pitch:

On Wednesday, I did two different pitches to illustrate the difference between good and bad.  Now, keeping in mind that I wrote this pitch, this is still what the editor in me (in red -- of course) thought while reading that pitch:

In my early chapter book for young kids, Liv gets really upset after her brother goes missing after a boring field party.  Wait. What? A field party in a chapter book for kids aged 7-9? How old are these characters? He's been kidnapped, but Liv doesn't know by who, kind of redundant because, really, that's not going to be very suspenseful if she does know and she spends the rest of the book looking for him and feeling guilty for hating him for most of their lives. Why does she hate him? Also, Morte Who is Morte? The brother? is a creepy looking kid that Liv thinks is somehow linked to death Wait. What? even though she doesn't have any proof for this.  What on earth does that mean? The book is a mystery no this pitch is a mystery and kind of paranormal and a great thriller for kids to read.  I can't wait for you to see the full manuscript. not likely

No way would I be requesting this book.

The Poorly Written Query

Now last week's contest highlighted the weird, crazy stuff that people sometimes do with their query letters.  But really, most of the time, the biggest problem with query letters is that they don't do their stories justice.  When pitching the story to the editor/agent, the author does not present it in the most flattering light.  As an illustration, I will use my own book that's now out, Missing or you can also get a physical book, here. (I don't know why the two aren't linked.)

First I'll tell you (in one sentence) what the general idea is, and then I'll pitch it poorly.  Finally, I'll pitch it correctly.  You'll see the difference.

Idea: After her brother's disappearance, teenage Liz finally addresses the intense sibling rivalry and hatred she has harbored towards her brother and dedicates her life to finding him.

Bad Pitch:
In my early chapter book for young kids, Liv gets really upset after her brother goes missing after a boring field party.  He's been kidnapped, but Liv doesn't know by who, and she spends the rest of the book looking for him and feeling guilty for hating him for most of their lives. Also, Morte is a creepy looking kid that Liv thinks is somehow linked to death even though she doesn't have any proof for this.  The book is a mystery and kind of paranormal and a great thriller for kids to read.  I can't wait for you to see the full manuscript.

Good Pitch:
Like their names, Liv and her brother, Morte, have always been polar opposites.  Neither can tolerate the others presence, and they spend most of their time fighting. Liv hates her brother and would give anything to just make him go away.  All of that changes, though, the day after her brother goes missing after a boring typical, field party.  Liv begins to face the sibling rivalry she and her brother have always shared and does everything she can think of to try to find him.  A mystery with a paranormal twist to the end, Missing is at its heart Liv's quest to know both herself and the brother she has spent her entire life pushing away.

Which book would you rather read?

Top 5 Most Common Query/Cover Letter Errors

Query and cover letters are not fun, but they are necessary evils.  I don't know of anyone who has ever gotten away without writing a single one.  However, in order to avoid sounding inexperienced, naive, or just plain crazy, avoid these common mistakes:

1. Address the letter to the correct person. -- Nothing is more annoying than getting a letter addressed to someone else, or addressed to the wrong agency/publishing house.
2. Do not make unrealistic claims about your story.  --  Your book might become a best-seller someday, but you have no way of knowing that.  However, if you already have (in writing) a deal from a charity to purchase 10,000 copies or you self-published and sold 45,000 ebooks or you've already sold the rights in 15 other countries that information is worth including.
3. Do not tell who has already read your manuscript.  -- If it's other agents and editors who have read and passed on it, you don't want me to know that. For one thing, it would tell me others didn't like it, and for another it would make it clear that I wasn't your first choice. (This may be the case, but why rub the editor's nose in it?) If it's children, educators, friends, families, librarians, etc. this information isn't actually all that useful to me.  Only dedicated market research would work, and I doubt you want to go to the time (or expense) of a statistically sound study.
4. Do not offer unrealistic comps (like bestsellers) or say there are none for your book. --  Either one makes you sound seriously unread or clueless of your market.  Don't get me wrong. Comps can be hard to do, but no book is truly incomparable.  If you are having trouble, don't bring up comps at all.
5. Do not make demands. -- You can ask things politely, but don't tell me that I have to print this, or that I have to respond by a certain date, or that I have to give you XYZ royalty or to not even bother.  I don't know about you, but nothing irks me more than a bossy letter from a stranger.

Why Dee's Query Letter Was the Worst

Now, I don't think anyone who has read Dee's query letter can argue that it isn't bad.  It's pretty much makes everyone who sees it cringe.  So, what exactly about the letter makes it so gut-wrenchingly terrible?

Let's examine it closely:

Deer Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Whatever M. Smoot: Ignoring the poor spelling found throughout the letter, there's still problems with the address.  It would never be appropriate to title something to "Whatever." Always try to find out about the person you are sending your submission to.  If the imaginary author had just google searched "m smoot cbay books" the first six entries clearly bring up me.

I bought the bright green sticker on the outside of the envelope on eBay so I don’t really know what gender you are since I didn’t actually attend the conference at witch you spoke. Sorry. I paid good money for the “M. Smoot” sticker to gain access to your closed publishing house, so I hope you appreciate it. I’m sure you did a wonderful, stupendous, fantastic job at the conference and gave a fabulous, mesmerizing, interesting speech. Thanks for being such a helpful, kind, grate editor. I found this paragraph particularly genius for a worst letter contest -- it would never occur to me that someone could buy entry into a closed publishing house this way although the idea, now presented, doesn't surprise me.  However, even if this is the way that you got the sticker, don't admit it.  Don't mention the conference at all.

Anyway, enough about you. (Just plain rude.) Now for my soon-to-be best seller... you’re gonna love it! I read variations of this sentence in cover letters all of the time. Taking pride in your work is great, but this sentence makes me roll my eyes and chalk the author up as a naive first-timer. Since it has an elephant AND a donkey in it, it will surpass sales of "Horton Hears a Who" and "Winnie the Pooh" (with Eeyore) combined. These are not good comparables for this imaginary title since the other books are long-selling classics and not picture books.  It would be impossible for me to guess sales ranges based on these two. I know it will be made into a poplar movie and will be translated into many languages. Unless you or your agent already have deals in the works, your opinion isn't necessary.  That’s why I want to keep all foreign rites. I also want fool plush animal sales.  Save these demands for contract negotiations.

My book is called THE ELEPHANT AND THE DONKEY and it is completely in rhyme. Since it is about animals, I tested it out on my cat and dog and they absolutely loved it! Completely irrelevant, and it makes the author sound a little crazy. They showed their appreciation by marking the corners of this manuscript. You’ll probably be able to tell (or smell) witch corner is witch. That is so disgusting. Do I really have to remind you to reprint a sample that has urine on it?

I didn’t read my story to any pre-schools because I didn’t want the teachers to still the idea, but I know kids will love it!!! Even if the fake author had read it at preschools I wouldn't want to know. Also, the fear that someone will steal your work (so rare I don't know of any actual cases of unpublished author works being ripped off) sends up red flags of publishing ignorance.

Hear is more about it...

My 20,000-word picture book
For ages two to four,
Covers many topics
Other children’s books ignore.

Taxes, stocks, and politics
Are introduced in rhyme.
The story is sure to be a hit
At every child’s bedtime.

You’ll want to publish this right away.
It’s going to be a best seller,
More popular than "The Cat in the Hat,"
Or that tearjerker, "Old Yeller."

The conflict is that an elephant
And donkey can’t agree.
They fight over just about everything,
Including cups of tea.

Will they ever learn to get along?
Can these protagonists save the world?
I’m writing a 1000-page sequel,
Where the answers will be unfurled. 
All right. That was just insane. Contrary to popular belief, editors don't hate picture books in rhyme. Some of the best-selling books are written that way.  When rhyme is really well done, it is fun and great to read aloud. Unfortunately most rhyme submissions are not well done, cause the editor to cringe, and thus rhyme gets a bad rap.  However, unless you are excerpting a stanza of your manuscript, never, ever describe it in rhyme.

Believe me, this book will fly off the shelves and beat the ebook download record, so you’ll want to publish this by November so we can both become rich quick. That’s only about a month away, but if you overnight the contract to me, I’ll sign it write away and the illustrator can start immediately. Clearly has no idea how the publishing industry works. Oh, I really like the work of Tomie dePaola. Don't we all.  I hope you can get him for this book. Does he even illustrate books he didn't write? Do you have that kind of pool? Rude.

I know you only wanted a query and ten pages, but I am so confident you’ll like my work that I scent the hole book. Always, always follow the submission instructions.  I am offering this as an exclusive transmission does author mean submission? for one week, but after that I’ll really need to move on if I haven’t herd from you. I want to enjoy my millionaire status before the world ends or before the next election - whichever comes first. Who knows what the tax rate will be after that! Besides sounding crazy, this last bit again highlights the author's inexperience and lack of research on publishing.

I should tell you that I’ve already been published in my third grade newspaper, not the kind of publishing credits to include so I’ll want the “royal treatment” when it comes to royalties. Oh good grief. We can go over all that when I meat you in person. At this point, I would be going: Wait! When (and why) would we meet? Is this person planning on stalking me down? Yule love how punny I am. I highly doubt that.

Sincerely,
Dee Ranged

P.S. - I hope you like the red, white, and blue elephant and donkey sugar cookies I enclosed. They were only supposed to have white and blue icing on them, but my three-year old helped make them and she had an owie at the time, hence the red coloring. OMG, OMG, OMG. I knew the cookies weren't real and I still started to gag the first time I read this.  On a less insane note, do not send extra goodies with your query.  They are not appreciated and mark you as an amateur. I was going to send a tea bag, too, so you could have tea and cookies, but Tea Party stuff seems to be getting a bad rap lately and I didn’t know your fillings on that, so I decided against it. Unless your book is literally about politics, don't bring it up.  (The same goes for religion and any other traditionally controversial topics.  If you wouldn't bring it up at a dinner party full of strangers, don't put it in your query.)

Fortunately, I have never received a query or cover letter quite this extreme. After all, this was for a contest and therefore was supposed to be rather ridiculous. That being said, some of the errors made are common ones (if only in a less extreme version).  I'll discuss some of the most common query/cover letter mistakes next week.

Contest Winner

I have to say(or do I mean hate to say?)that I loved every single entry in the terrible query letter contest. All of them made me laugh, and all of them were horribly awful.

However, there was one that stood above the others. This one truly surpassed everyone else in awfulness for one simple brilliantly terrible reason: part of it was written in rhyming verse.

Genius!

So, congratulations to Dee Ranged (or whatever your real name is) for creating a truly terrible letter. I've copied it so everyone else can also appreciate the wretchedness. On Thursday, I'll dissect all of the things (besides the rhyme) that is wrong with this letter.

Deer Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Whatever M. Smoot:

I bought the bright green sticker on the outside of the envelope on eBay so I don’t really know what gender you are since I didn’t actually attend the conference at witch you spoke. Sorry. I paid good money for the “M. Smoot” sticker to gain access to your closed publishing house, so I hope you appreciate it. I’m sure you did a wonderful, stupendous, fantastic job at the conference and gave a fabulous, mesmerizing, interesting speech. Thanks for being such a helpful, kind, grate editor.

Anyway, enough about you. Now for my soon-to-be best seller... you’re gonna love it! Since it has an elephant AND a donkey in it, it will surpass sales of "Horton Hears a Who" and "Winnie the Pooh" (with Eeyore) combined. I know it will be made into a poplar movie and will be translated into many languages. That’s why I want to keep all foreign rites. I also want fool plush animal sales.

My book is called THE ELEPHANT AND THE DONKEY and it is completely in rhyme. Since it is about animals, I tested it out on my cat and dog and they absolutely loved it! They showed their appreciation by marking the corners of this manuscript. You’ll probably be able to tell (or smell) witch corner is witch.

I didn’t read my story to any pre-schools because I didn’t want the teachers to still the idea, but I know kids will love it!!!

Hear is more about it...

My 20,000-word picture book
For ages two to four,
Covers many topics
Other children’s books ignore.

Taxes, stocks, and politics
Are introduced in rhyme.
The story is sure to be a hit
At every child’s bedtime.

You’ll want to publish this right away.
It’s going to be a best seller,
More popular than "The Cat in the Hat,"
Or that tearjerker, "Old Yeller."

The conflict is that an elephant
And donkey can’t agree.
They fight over just about everything,
Including cups of tea.

Will they ever learn to get along?
Can these protagonists save the world?
I’m writing a 1000-page sequel,
Where the answers will be unfurled.

Believe me, this book will fly off the shelves and beat the ebook download record, so you’ll want to publish this by November so we can both become rich quick. That’s only about a month away, but if you overnight the contract to me, I’ll sign it write away and the illustrator can start immediately. Oh, I really like the work of Tomie dePaola. I hope you can get him for this book. Do you have that kind of pool?

I know you only wanted a query and ten pages, but I am so confident you’ll like my work that I scent the hole book. I am offering this as an exclusive transmission for one week, but after that I’ll really need to move on if I haven’t herd from you. I want to enjoy my millionaire status before the world ends or before the next election - whichever comes first. Who knows what the tax rate will be after that!

I should tell you that I’ve already been published in my third grade newspaper, so I’ll want the “royal treatment” when it comes to royalties. We can go over all that when I meat you in person. Yule love how punny I am.

Sincerely,
Dee Ranged

P.S. - I hope you like the red, white, and blue elephant and donkey sugar cookies I enclosed. They were only supposed to have white and blue icing on them, but my three-year old helped make them and she had an owie at the time, hence the red coloring. I was going to send a tea bag, too, so you could have tea and cookies, but Tea Party stuff seems to be getting a bad rap lately and I didn’t know your fillings on that, so I decided against it.