WRITING TIPS

Query Letter Help

Sheri Jacobs
3 min readJul 24, 2022

the three paragraph letter to grab an editor

Feeling overwhelmed with how to write the perfect query letter?
Frazzled about what to write an agent or publisher? Help is on the way:-) (image from CANVA)

Writing the children’s manuscript was easy. Editing…and editing…and editing was harder.

Then the dreaded day arrived: Time to write the query.

Why Writers Can’t Find Words

The query is our calling card. It’s the elevator pitch that determines whether we grab or lose the reader (a prospective agent/publisher/editor)in seconds.

Ask a parent to tell you the essence of their child in an elevator-pitch-length of time and you will hear a lot of sighs and wide eyes.

Why? Their child is their baby, the sun, moon, and stars. It’s the same with our manuscripts. Those ridiculously revised and pondered stories or poems are our babies.

How do you sum up your baby in the time it takes you to ride an elevator? (Assuming the elevator is modern and doesn’t lag;-)

Eat the Shit Sandwich

Author Elizabeth Gilbert summed up the inevitable downside of pursuing a passion:

“…if you love and want something enough — whatever it is — then you don’t really mind eating the shit sandwich that comes with it.”-Big

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Sheri Jacobs

Author, Educator, Actor www.sheri-jacobs.com Author of children’s book DREAM WRITE (pen name, Kiss) and the non-fiction book, THE FRIENDSHIP DIET. VO/film actor