Really like what you say, Terry, about approaching agents with elan - if only you could bottle thatspirit and sell it, you'd be a millionaire! It really is time that I, for one, stood up for myself as a writer (and I'll be blogging about that very thing on Strictly next Monday). We are NOT lesser beings, but aspiring professionals. And what we do is vital to agents, however many of us they reject.
Naomi, I agree that covering letters should be to the point, clear and simple - but I really think it's helpful to include - as a brief half-sentence - that you are currently working on another book (not a 'second' book). As Myrtle said, agents are keen to know that you are not a one-trick pony and a brief line here shows your staying power, and the fact that you have more than one idea.
Susiex

Beejaybers, if feels like a battle for the soul of the writer is going on here!

Look, rules/procedures/practices are only there as a basic chicken stock filter - they keep out all the gristle, unnamed fatty bits and feathers, so all that gets through is the meaty juices. (By God, what a boring analogy, must make sure I don't use it in a cover letter.)

Or to put it another way, if you don't have the ability to make an agent laugh in your cover letter, don't even try. But if you do, set light to that filter and throw it in the slush pile.

Experience/inexperience has nothing to do with it. Either you have talent plus enthusiasm plus cheek or you don't.

I wrote to an agent recently, because I might want to use one again soon. Guess what: my cover letter - sorry, email - was two pages long. Yes, I spellchecked it and yes I'm good at grammar stuff, but the main ingredients I put in it were heart, passion, enthusiasm. But here's the trick: you can't manufacture these things just when it comes to writing a cover letter. They have to be your ongoing approach to your work. Actually, they have to be the way you tackle your life, come to think of it.

Know what? That agent wrote back to say, "YES, YES, YES!" Which is not the kind of thing you'd expect if you took the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook to heart, but is what you tend to get when two human beings express themselves with the training wheels taken off.

Here's a secret . . . a lot of writers find editors/agents by breaking the rules. Not by strapping their submissions to a bomb and flinging it through the windows of Drinkitt and Barf Literary Agency, but by presenting their work in ways which show that they are taking responsibility for their own careers, not slavishly following the rules.

I think it's about finding your style within the expected style

That one's right on the money!

Terry

Susie, couldn't agree more. What I find disappointing is this trend by which so many writers now view agents as some kind of gate-keeper to all they want from their careers. They talk about what 'they' want and don't want; what will please them, what will piss them off. And of course, some agents have taken full advantage of this attitude. They've even got writers deferring to their editing 'skills'. You're right: the author is the professional where writing is concerned. The agent has different skills. You don't seem to get this confusion in the music industry. I can't imagine Radiohead submitting their latest album to their agent, quivering in fear about the changes he'll make to it before submitting it.

Terry

I think most of us find out the hard way. I wrote my second novel for an agent, on the basis of her 2 pages of feedback/suggestions. It ended up not being my book and what's more, she didn't take me on.

It's a fine line. We need to follow our own path but be prepared to take the occasional detour our agent suggests, so that we are both happy when we reach the original planned destination.

I may still be fussing about whether to include an unusual postcard in my submission package, but, looking at the bigger picture, i've written the cross/genre book that i wanted/had to, and not a lot is going to distract me from that.

<Added>

or rather, REwrote my second novel

Casey, that is a bugger and a half about the re-write.
I know a woman who wrote what I thought was a bloody good literary novel. An agent told it was too quiet so she glammed it up. It was all wrong and never got anywhere. The writer hasn't done anyhting since becasue the whole process was so horrid.
That said, I'm definitely not saying that agenst don't have anything worthwhile to the editorial process - mine certainly helpd me whip up DG into something he could sell, but it still remained true to itself iyswim.
HB x

I agree with Naomi in that you so shouldn't include chapters from another book in a query letter.

But I think it's fine to mention you're working on other stuff very very briefly (eg. 'I’m currently working on another book aimed at the same market'.

But it isn't necessary. Like Naomi said, agents do skim read queries and go straight for the gold - the writing sample. Despite me mentioning I was working on other stuff in my query (didn't say exactly what, just that I was working on another book), my agent obviously hadn't taken this on board as she still asked me if I had other projects in the pipeline when we met.

That initial query letter stage is allllllllll about your golden, number 1 m/s and isn't the time to start pitching your entire catalogue of m/s.

But hey, the rules aren't hard and fast in this business. I just think you stand a better chance if you don't go OTT with the old query letter :-)

Yes, it took me a while to get over that Helen - but looking back, it was my fault, i was just a bit too keen and green about the whole process, i didn't sit back and think about it at all.

Naomi, I agree that covering letters should be to the point, clear and simple - but I really think it's helpful to include - as a brief half-sentence - that you are currently working on another book (not a 'second' book).

Agreed, susie. I had qualified an earlier post with:-

...so you would not say 'second novel', but you would say 'next novel' and have a hook line (a summarising sentence or two) to describe it in the covering letter - for 'hook lines', see ' US-style Queries'.

But, as I said, my comments are directed at inexperienced writers, ie, those submitting their first novel.


- NaomiM

I think something else always worth mentioning in a covering letter is what Emma deliciously describes as the 'non-fiction hook.'
Imagine you're an agent who receives three serial killer subs and one of the covering letters says the writer is actually a serial killer and doing a ten stretch in Broadmoor. Well, my interst would pique.
HB x

But, look, 'inexperienced' is a red herring. Why should a cover letter from an unpublished writer be any different from a published author's, other than having no previous publishing history to mention? There's an implication here that new authors should be formal, tamed, proper, boring, but it's okay for previously published authors to let rip with originality, excitement and even the odd joke.

It's not the specific wording about 'second', 'further', 'magnificent', 'totally derivative' novel etc that some of us have been banging our heads against our blood-spattered monitors about. It's the advocating of cap-in-handing, of treating agents as if they're all-knowing, all-powerful novel gods. Which simply crushes the spirit of any writer with more than a micron of bottle about her.

I also feel it's unhelpful to homogenise approaches. What, for instance, is a 'US-style query'? I've just returned from a course in the US at which several writers talked about how they'd queried agents/publishers and guess what, they all went about it differently. Which isn't to say it's necessarily going to help your cause if you deliberately ignore, say, an agent's specific instructions about how they want to be queried. But, come on - the last thing that's going to tickle an agent's fancy is a civil service drafting unit approved enquiry.

Terry

'Inexperienced' as in someone who's just finished their first novel (or even second) and is diving into the murky waters of submitting to agents.
I mean, it's not rocket science for god's sake.
If you are writing chick-lit, with a humorous tone that is instantly recognisable with the genre, then you should be able to carry it from the opening chapters, through your synopsis, and have flashes of it in your covering letter.

If you're writing gore-fest crime, then stick with a serious tone.

If you're writing picture books, try not to sound like a 3yr old.

If you're writing historical fiction, lay off the 'thus', 'why-fores', and 'thous'.

If you're writing Fantasy, avoid littering it with made up elvish names.

I could go on, but, at the end of the day, it's still the first three chapters that's going to make or break your submission.


- NaomiM


<Added>

The problem is that writers can't resist navel gazing. They think that 'it wasn't my chapters that the agent rejected, it was something wrong with my covering letter, it wasn't perky enough'
- now, unless you've made a complete faux-pas and put glitter in your envelope, or made yourself out to be some stalking weirdo, the rejection won't have been because of your covering letter; it won't have been because you mentioned a second novel, it probably won't even have been because you mentioned your mum loved it (because everyone says that)....it may well have been because you said it was adult fiction complete at 50K, or because you've submitted SF to someone specialising in Womans Fiction...
where was I?
Oh, yes
...but at the end of the day, just submit the bloody thing and don't worry about it.

LOL Naomi. I like the last line.

I suppose the bit I get unsure about is the way some people sound so SURE about this sort of thing. When, to me, the whole process seems perpetually mystifying and not a very exact science. Perhaps we want it to be.

I think it's the only way we can feel we have some sense of control. And maybe we believe that if we follow the 'rules', we'll get the prize at the end. Or maybe 'rules' give the whole amorphous, intangible, unintelligible muddle some kind of structure.
Susiex

My whole point is that we shouldn't be too rigid in our covering letters, which is why I was initially drawn to the thread in order to put the view across that mentioning another novel comes under the category of positive things to mention. Naomi, you say you're aiming your comments at inexperienced writers (well, we're all competing for the same prize) but you specifically advised someone not to mention their second novel - that's the only reason I chipped in, as I find that a questionable thing to have as a 'general note', you called it. It's not a rule, and I just wanted to flag that for other people reading the thread who might be thrown into a panic because they've just sent off a package containing mention of their next book.

My first agent always said that we must treat covering letters like a piece of writing in itself - that's the real piece of advice that should come out of this, imho. I am in no way, shape or form suggesting that covering letters will get you rejected if your chapters kick ass, but in the slush pile we're all competing for one thing - attention. And as I said, the letter is the first impression. Some letters will make you stand out; that's the aim. That applies however experienced you are.

The thing is it doesn't matter, at this stage, if the covering letter seems dull and boring

I'm sorry, but of course it does! If you're wading through a pile of submissions and the first thing you read from the author presenting themselves is 'dull and boring' are you seriously going to carry on with the synopsis and first three chapters, or are you going to fling it and carry on with the rest of the never ending pile ?

<Added>

I agree with Myrtle, your letter should present yourself and your work to the best of your ability and if this includes enthusiasm for any future projects and gives a taste of what kind of writer you are, then go for it! Be yourself and the more personable you are, surely the better?