Hello gentle reader,

Welcome to the Successful Queries Blog Series! The idea is to share with you Queries That Worked and to find out what made them stand out in the slushpile. My hope is that it’ll help you, querying writers, to write an amazing query for your own manuscript and to find Your Agent.

Today Juliana Brandt is answering a few questions and giving away a query critique! Juliana writes YA Fantasy and she’s represented by Emmanuelle Morgen of the Stonesong Literary Agency.

INTERVIEW

Tell us about the manuscript that helped you land an agent…

I signed with Emmanuelle Morgan of the Stonesong Literary agency with a YA dark fantasy titled CADAVER DOG that clocks in at just under 80k words.

How long did it take you to write your query?

I actually went through a gazillion drafts of my query–at least it felt like that many. I queried my novel for about four months before moving on, and during that time, I reworked my query many times depending on what sort of response I was getting (or not getting) from agents. My query actually sat in my agent’s inbox for about six months before she contacted me. It just goes to show that you never know what will happen! The benefit of working on my query so many times is that I ended up having a pretty decent eye for what makes a strong query/pitch.

Did you have beta readers or CPs (or did you enter contests or workshops) to help you with your query?

Yes! I had many beta readers and CPs check out my query. I entered contests and had writing friends off twitter read it and even sent it to my family to see what they thought. I’m sure that almost everyone I knew at the time read one draft or another of my query.

What was the hardest part to get right?

For me, I think the most difficult part to get right was the world building. Fantasy elements are hard to detail in such a short span of time. Balancing that with not wanting to bog down the query wasn’t easy to get right.

Any advice for querying writers out there?

Don’t be afraid to reach out for help! The writing community is such a supportive one, there are always people out there willing to give a hand 🙂

Thank you so much for taking part in this blog series, Juliana!

GIVEAWAY (closed)

Querying Writers! Juliana is giving away a QUERY CRITIQUE to one lucky winner! To enter, please fill in the form below with your name and email adresss, and include the genre of your mansucript. Good luck!

The giveaway is open internationally until Sunday 16th March 2014 at 11pm BST.

Any questions? Ask below!