Christine Kelly Reads and Writes

This query example is from an author I signed and it’s currently on submission. While I changed it to make it shorter for my pitch to editors, the content was so easy to manipulate. The author made sure that I could use what was already there and tweak just a bit.

Please note too: this query does not have a specific personalization to me. Yes, it was addressed to my attention, but the author didn’t dig for something to draw us together. As a querying author you already have so much on your plate, don’t worry about finding a reason you want to query an agent. When I was querying I would spend too much time finding a common link between me and an agent. First, I think I probably came off creepy. Second, it wasted so much time. Don’t feel the need to do so, agents won’t think twice on if you do or don’t.

Here it is:

I hope this query finds you well. I am seeking representation for my standalone romcom with series potential, CUPCAKES AND KILLINGS. It’s a dark rom-com making murder funny a la Jennifer Crusie in an anti-heroine story with positive fat-representation and spice. I’m calling it murder-lite, focusing on the comedy with a wide angle perspective. It’s camp, it’s fun, it’s MR RIGHT starring Sam Rockwell meets PARTNERS IN CRIME, and will appeal to fans of Alisha Rai, Tessa Bailey, and Olivia Dade.

Plus size Chloe Bennett’s life appears sweet: she’s on track to buy her dream bakery, put down roots, and finally belong somewhere. When she witnesses a mugging, Chloe saves the victim, who turns out to be a part of a terrifying mob family: the Perraults. Chloe is thrust into a world of underground crime, big connections, and Ben “Shep” Shepherd: a grumpy mountain of a man who heads “security” for the volatile clan.

Shep has only known a life of crime, but he finds himself drawn to this cupcake of a woman, from her pink skirt to her pastel sweater, she looks like frosting with cherry red hair on top. She doesn’t even swear. But now she’s smack in the middle of a feud between the Perrault and the Stolly families. No one will protect her unless he does it, and nothing about that is easy. If Chloe sees him for who he really is, she’d run screaming, left to fend for herself among the wolves.

Shep cooks up a plan: launder the Perrault’s money through her bakery. It would make Chloe an asset and protecting her would be his job. She doesn’t have to know; she’s too stunned that they bought her bakery as a thank you for saving that teenager. Lying while falling for her isn’t ideal but she won’t find out. Until some unsavory connections start showing up to the bakery for scones and debt settlements and jeopardize his plans.

When the wrong people recognize Chloe’s late mother in a family photo at her new bakery, she’s pulled deeper into Shep’s dark world—perhaps where she was always destined to be. Chloe’s murky past clears up when Shep learns her late mother once turned State’s Witness. Faced with truths about who she really is, Chloe has to decide how she wants to live: as the cupcake maven or the daughter of a killer who makes Shep look tame. When that choice clashes with Shep’s own loyalties, he’ll have to choose between the confection and the cartel.

I hope these examples are helping all your authors out there hone in on how your queries can improve and give you an idea how to dose your material with voice, without taking away from the content.

Stay tuned for more!