What you need to know to write an effective email query letter

Every freelance writer wears many different hats. Besides being a wordsmith, they also need to be marketers and salespersons of the first order. Every successful freelance writer spends a good part of each day marketing themselves and their writing to potential buyers. Today more and more editors are accepting query letter by email, some even prefer an email query rather than a snail mail query letter. So today, I want to spend a few minutes talking to you about the things you need and the things that you need to know in order to write an effective email query letter.

1. The very first thing that you need to know is if the editor of that publication accepts email queries. More and more editors accept email queries today, but not all do. Some editors still prefer snail mail query letters and you need to know if the editor that you are querying prefers snail mail query letters to email queries. As a rule, this information is available in the listings in Writers Market and other market directories and writer’s guidelines found online or received from the publication. If this vital information isn’t available, pick up the telephone and call the publication. Ask the editor’s secretary. If for some reason they don’t know, err on the safe side and send your query by snail mail.
2. You need to send your email query to a specific editor and not to a catchall inbox. If you can’t get a specific editor’s email address, send your query by snail mail. For all my fellow article writers, the email addresses for specific editors can be found on the masthead pages of the magazine. The masthead pages of most magazines contain the names and contact information for the publisher, editors, and contributing editors of the publication. Send your email query to the editor of the department that you feel your article best fits.
3. Email queries, just like snail mail queries, more often than not, will be your first contact with a particular editor, so take your time when composing it. Your objective in querying an editor is two fold: 1) to sell the editor on your ability to write, and 2) to sell him or her on your article idea. You will fail miserably on both counts if your letter is disorganized, too long, too short, or contains errors in grammar, punctuation, and/or spelling. If you don’t capture the editor’s attention in a positive manner in the first 30 seconds, he or she will click on the next email in his or her inbox.
4. The Subject Line of your email query letter is the key to getting it read. The subject line should be descriptive and concise. If you have a great title for your article use it as the subject line
5. Unless the information you found in Writer’s Market or the information gleaned from some other source specifies that attachments are okay, do not send attachments with an email query letter. There are so many email viruses making the rounds today that most people will not open an attachment unless they requested it or unless they know the person who sent it.
6. When querying by email keep your message brief and to the point. This is one of those times when few words really speak the loudest. However, you do need to make the query long enough for you to explain why your piece will really work the editor’s publication and long enough to explain why you are the best author to write it.
7. To query successfully by email you need your own web site because you need to include links to your online clips or samples of your writing. You can also link to articles that you have published here on Factoidz.Com if those articles are similar to the material that the editor that you are querying publishes.
8. Always include your telephone number and snail mail address with every email query letter.
9. Double-check and then check again your spelling before sending your email query letter out in cyberspace. Remember that spell checkers are great tools and they will save you a great deal of time by catching truly misspelled words. On the other hand, they won’t catch the error if you use the wrong word that is spelled correctly. Case in point, if you type “pass” when you meant to type “past,” the spell checker won’t catch it and in many cases the grammar checker won’t catch it either. Take my word for that or try it yourself. I know because it happened to me yesterday, thankfully I caught on my third proof reading, which brings me to my next point.
10. Always print out your email query and read it aloud. By reading it aloud, our ears often catch mistakes that our eyes don’t.
11. Save a copy of each email query that you send out in a file. I have a separate folder for each editor that I deal with and within that folder I have subfolders for email that I receive from them and for email that I send to them. You can use my system or devise your own.
12. Since you don’t know what email program the editor is using, don’t indent, don’t include any special formatting and keeps each line to 80 characters or less. Most all email programs can handle that with ease. If you compose your query letters using Word, you may have to copy and paste them into Notepad before cutting and pasting them into your email program. Depending on your email program, funny things can happen if you try to paste directly from Word.
13. Email the query to yourself first to see how it will actually look as an email
14. Avoid special formats like bold because you don’t know what it will look like on the editors computer
15. Never use HTML because you don’t know if the editor’s email program can handle it. Even if their program can handle html, you will come across looking like an amateur.
16. Finally, editors are very busy people so wait a reasonable length of time before sending them a follow up email or calling them on the telephone. If you haven’t heard anything from them after three weeks have passed, then send them a brief but polite follow-up email, or call them. Sometimes a personal follow-up telephone call works better. Simply tell his or her gatekeeper that you are following up on the email that you sent him or her on (whatever the date was) about (whatever idea you were querying them on.)