Perfect Pitch: Sangu Mandanna's A Spark of White Fire

Oh, hi there writers!

One question I get asked all the time, is how to craft a good query letter. At conferences. On Twitter. From random acquaintances on Facebook. So, what better way to help querying writers... than to start sharing a couple outstanding examples?

Welcome to my little "Perfect Pitch" series here on the ol' blog, where I'll post query letters from my clients. The queries that hooked me, and the books that sold afterwards.

Sangu Mandanna's A SPARK OF WHITE FIRE is a stunning multicultural YA space opera that draws from the Mahabharata. With the first book in the series coming out in the next few weeks (and the second and third coming out in 2019 and 2020), I wanted to share Sangu's original query letter, in hopes it'll help YOU with your pitching.

I was so excited when this landed in my inbox, that I fired off a bunch of emails to friends utterly flipping out. I read the book in three days, and offered to represent it four days before Christmas.

And if you find this helpful, PLEASE pre-order it on Amazon, B&N, or IndieBound, as a way of saying thank you to Sangu.

So! This is the query that got me:

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Dear Eric,

My novel, A SPARK OF WHITE FIRE, is a YA space fantasy and a retelling of Indian mythology. The manuscript is complete at 85,000 words and is the first book of a trilogy.

Seventeen years ago, in a world of gods and stars and cities built on spaceships, the Queen of Avalon cast her infant daughter out into deep space. The baby survived by a goddess’s grace and floated through half a galaxy to the kingdom of Wychstar. There, she grew up in the dark while her twin brother Alexi grew up in golden light.

The baby is now Esme, clever, passionate and terribly lonely, and she has longed to return to her family all her life. Avalon is no longer theirs, not now that her father is dead, her treacherous uncle and cousin have seized the crown, and her mother and brothers have been banished. Esme wants nothing more than to help Alexi take back his crown and their home. When the King of Wychstar offers to gift the unbeatable warship Titania to the winner of a competition, the way home seems clear: Alexi is the favourite to win, their usurping cousin Max is likely to lose, and the competition seems the ideal place for Esme to reveal her identity and reunite with her family.

It all goes wrong, of course. Alexi rejects her. Angry and heartbroken, she enters the competition as Max’s champion. And wins. Titania is given to the usurpers and Esme’s choice puts her on the wrong side of an inevitable war.

You've mentioned you're interested in diverse submissions in YA sci fi and fantasy, so I thought you might be a good fit for this. This is my second novel. My first, THE LOST GIRL, was published in North America by HarperCollins in 2012 and by Random House in the UK and Commonwealth in 2013. I'm 27, live in the UK with my husband and two sons, and have a pretty alarming Netflix addiction.

Thanks very much for your time.

All best, Sangu

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So let's talk about this query and why it's so great, using my favorite "the hook, the book, the cook" query construction:

The Hook: Right away, Sangu hits with the hook in her pitch. "... a YA space fantasy and a retelling of Indian mythology." I'm done. You've got me. Let's keep reading.

The Book: Sangu sums up her stunning novel in THREE PARAGRAPHS. Now, this is a genre blend of a book with scores of characters, tons of political intrigue, Gods and Goddesses, epic space battles... there's a lot in here. Yet, she dishes about it in just three paragraphs. Remember, even if there's a ton happening in your book, try to keep it at least semi-vague. Don't lay it all out there. You want your book section reading like jacket copy.

The Cook: Sangu's bio is great. She talks about her previous book (which she KNEW I was a huge fan of, even though she doesn't mention that in the query), and talks a bit about her life. She also mentions why she thought I would be a good fit for this project.

This, my friends, is perfect pitch.

A Spark of White Fire hits bookstores everywhere on September 11th with Sky Pony Press.

Perfect Pitch: Kati Gardner's Query for BRAVE ENOUGH

With Kati Gardner's debut novel, BRAVE ENOUGH, due out on August 21st, I wanted to share her fantastic query letter.

I've done this before with the query letters for Samira Ahmed's Love Hate & Other Filters and Anna Hecker's When the Beat Drops, so let's keep this tradition going, and see what you can learn from authors who have been through this process and come out with an agent (me!) and book deals!

Kati's debut has garnered some serious praise, including two starred reviews from Kirkus and Foreward. If you find this helpful (I hope you will!) do consider pre-ordering her heartbreaking contemporary read.

Let's see that query!

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Dear Mr. Smith,

My name is Kati Gardner and I am submitting Brave Enough, a contemporary Young Adult novel.  Brave Enough is 74,000 words and centers around two teenagers who are facing life with the added complications of cancer.  This book would appeal to fans of The Fault In Our Stars and the feature film Center Stage.

One dance audition changed Cason Martin’s life.

Cason is a ballerina.  She is driven, but can never meet the expectations of her Artistic Director/Mother. When it is discovered that the strange pain Cason has continued to dance through is a rapidly growing tumor, her whole life is stopped.

Davis Channing is a drug addict, but he’s been in recovery for seven months.  After being arrested for possession of a Oxycodone and sentenced to community service, Davis finds himself working with the doctors and nurses on the pediatric Oncology unit.  The same people that helped save him from his own cancer only three years before.  Can they help save him again, this time from himself?

No one would ever say that these two had anything in common.

And if you had have asked Cason or Davis they would have said the same thing.  But, during the most important audition of Cason’s life that would all change.

This novel is personal for me as a writer, actor (BA in Theater Arts), and childhood cancer survivor (25 years).  I wanted to convey the truth of what being a cancer survivor is like for the many young adults who face cancer everyday.  I wanted to tell our stories.

Please feel free to contact me with any further questions you might have. Thank you for your time and consideration.

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So Kati does a lot of things so so right in this query letter. Let's break it down.

Open with a Hook: This is my favorite way to see queries open up. With a hook, or with some kind of personal approach (ie: "I saw you work with X author"). Her hook dishes the title, category, genre, story, word count, AND comp titles. It's perfect. "...Brave Enough, a contemporary Young Adult novel.  Brave Enough is 74,000 words and centers around two teenagers who are facing life with the added complications of cancer.  This book would appeal to fans of The Fault In Our Stars and the feature film Center Stage."

The Book Description: She digs into that jacket-copy-esque description right away, and breaks it up with a bit of drama. Shows the stakes and the tension on separate lines, in a way you'd totally see on the back of your favorite YA novel.

Her Bio: Note the personal connection to the work that Kati mentions here. I liked the premise right away, but the fact that it came from this genuine place made me absolutely NEED to have it.

Now, nothing says you have to disclose anything personal about yourself when querying your book. I can't stress that enough. But sharing that personal tie was a real attention grabbing aspect of this query. I really want to work on books that come from real places, and Kati's story certainly does.

And that's that!

If you found Kati's query helpful, consider picking up her debut!

Perfect Pitch: Samira Ahmed's Love Hate & Other Filters

Oh, hi there writers!

One question I get asked all the time, is how to craft a good query letter. At conferences. On Twitter. From random acquaintances on Facebook. So, what better way to help querying writers... than to start sharing a couple outstanding examples?

Welcome to my little "Perfect Pitch" series here on the ol' blog, where I'll post query letters from my clients. The queries that hooked me, and the books that sold afterwards.

Samira Ahmed's LOVE HATE & OTHER FILTERS hits bookstores everywhere on January 16th with Soho Teen and January 18th with Hot Key Books in the U.K. She's gearing up for her book launch and her book tour.

And fun fact, all this started with a tweet. And a different title.

Let's check out that query, as well as that tweet. And if you find all this helpful, please pre-order Samira's debut on Amazon, B&N, and IndieBound, and add it on Goodreads. Signed copies with limited edition art are available from Anderson's too.

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First, that tweet!

I love Twitter contests. I spent a lot of time scouring through Beth Phelan's #DVPit and Brenda Drake's #PitMad. And it's hard, trying to master just how to sum up your entire novel in 140 characters (though Twitter does have more now).

Here's the tweet that caught me immediately.

"She wants to make films & kiss boys--her Muslim parents forbid both. Will a terrorist & Islamophobia shatter her dreams? #pitmatch #YA #CON"

Somehow, in that tiny tweet, Samira was able to convey not just the internal stakes for the main character, but the external ones. The emotional turmoil and the very real danger on the outside. We get important character pieces. We know there's romance, we know the character's background, we know her family struggles. In. One. Sentence.

Masterful.

When you're playing along in those kind of pitch contests, try to pack as much as you can in. In that quick blip. You can do it.

Now, the query letter. Because when you do these Twitter contests, you still have to send a traditional query letter. So it's still important to get that query right, because you could still lose the agent's interest with one that's written poorly.

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Dear Mr. Smith,

Thank you for liking our #PitMatch connection! I'm excited to share my query for SWIMMING LESSONS along with the first 50 pages of the manuscript that you will find attached as a Word docx.

Seventeen-year old American-born Maya Aziz lives between worlds. Between the proper world her parents expect for their good Indian Muslim daughter and the one she envisions for herself. Between her small Midwestern town and her dream of going to film school in New York. Between the mundane reality of her every day and her imagination where she gets advice from Ilsa Lund and Holly Golightly. Between her conflicted longing for the Homecoming King and the Suitable Boy.

With the help and humor of her two best friends, Maya navigates a senior year that’s enlivened by teen angst, romance, a bit of magical realism, and swimming lessons at a secret pond—but a suicide bomber disrupts it all.

Told via brief inter-chapters, the aftermath of this act of domestic terrorism has repercussions in Maya's small town, changing her life forever. This intercalary story builds to the bombing and delves into its genesis and aftermath in ways both intimate and profound.

SWIMMING LESSONS, complete at 80,000 words, was one of three finalists for the 2015 Sheehan YA Book Prize. It is a contemporary young adult story, with a whiff of The Love That Split the World meets Quantico, set in a space where cultures collide, where the definitions of self and other are blurred, and where last names can be a threat.

I was born in Bombay, India, and currently live in Chicago. I have also lived in Vermont, New York City, and Kauai, where I spent a year with my husband and two young children searching for the perfect mango. I received my BA and MAT from the University of Chicago and taught high school English for seven years. My creative non-fiction has appeared in Jaggery Lit and Entropy.

Currently, the full manuscript is under consideration by three other agents. I will let you know immediately of any change in status. Thank you for your time and interest.

Best,

Samira Ahmed

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So let's talk about this query and why it's so great, using my favorite "the hook, the book, the cook" query construction:

The Hook: Samira already got me with the hook in the Twitter pitch event, so she didn't need to open with one. However, you'll see her dive into that format later on, when she talks about how long the book is. She shares really unique comp titles, and delivers a kick ass marketing line with "set in a space where cultures collide, where the definitions of self and other are blurred, and where last names can be a threat." I ended up using that while querying the book to editors!

The Book: She sums up the entire novel in three paragraphs, the last of which dishes some interesting notes on the format of the narrative, something that totally sold me the second I started reading the book.

The Cook: And the bio is perfect. Not only does she talk a bit about herself, she digs into her writing. Where her non-fiction has been, the awards this manuscript was nominated for. She's even open with the fact that other agents are reading it.

This, my friends, is perfect pitch.

And again, if you find all this helpful, please pre-order Samira's debut on Amazon, B&N, and IndieBound, and add it on Goodreads. Signed copies with limited edition art are available from Anderson's too.