FREE QUERY REVIEW SOURCES
We would love to provide you with our expert and detailed query letter review. But we are a paid, professional service–we bring to the review three decades of high-level publishing experience. We are not your only option, and we suggest you try a free option or three before hiring us, just to ease both of our minds.
- Query Shark: “How to Write Query Letters….or really how to revise query letters so they actually work.” Query Shark (literary agent Janet Reid) critiques queries and pulls no punches in letting writers know what they’re doing wrong.
- Writers Digest: WD provides a wealth of resources and articles, such as “5 Elements of Query Letters” or “’20 Tips on Query Letters,’ as Told by Agent Janet Reid.” Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find forums where you can easily find others to review your query.
- Query Tracker: This site is incredible help in tracking queries, finding agents and reporting trends. Check out the forums here, too–you’ll find thousands of peer reviewers for your queries.
- Agent Query Connect: This is an online social networking community for writers, with tons of blogs and plenty of opportunities to get critiques from other writers. Among a number of a helpful topics, you’ll find at least one forum devoted specifically to query critiques.
- Submit!: Send out a few queries and see what happens. If you’re close, you’ll find agents providing more than the standard “not right for my list reply.” Learn from the responses. The more generic the response, the more likely it is that your query needs a redraft.
RT