Every first-time author faces that dreaded (or greatly anticipated, depending on your level of confidence) first submission. New authors have the deck stacked against them in all corners of the publishing world, but there is a way to avoid having your manuscript lie in a slushpile for a year while you chew your fingernails off with nervousness: the query letter. The query letter is important for all writers, whether writing that Sword and Sorcery epic they've day-dreamed about for years, or trying to strike it rich by pouncing ion the latest non-fiction trend, a query letter is a fast and easy way for a writer to enter the world of the literary elite.

A query letter is written to an editor at a publishing company. It says, in a nutshell, "I have a book already written/planned, this is what it's about, would you like the opportunity to make some money off of it?" Quite different from sending in a 300+ page manuscript, the query letter can be read in five to ten minutes, and can result in a response with days or weeks, as opposed to months. Some editors don't even accept manuscripts that aren't queried first, so learning how to write a query letter is a skill that all writers need to have in their tool-box. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it: writers who have mastered the query letter are on the fast-track to publishing success. This article will tell you what you need to keep in mind if you want to get your book published, as opposed to having every piece of correspondence you have with an editor unopened and returned.

When you query a publisher, the first thing they see is probably the last thing you thought about: the envelope you sent it in. Despite how much you would like the editor to focus on your book instead of its superficialities, they have to look at so many manuscripts and proposals a day that they need someway to prune away the unpublishable. Minor details like messy writing, misspelled names, and beat-up or untidy envelopes will tell a publisher that you're likely an unprofessional or otherwise careless person. After all, when you don't care enough to check the spelling of their name, what is there to make them think that you care enough to put your best work into a book?

Speaking of envelopes: the editor didn't ask for your query, so don't make them work to receive it. Make sure that you have correct postage on it, because no editor is going to like seeing "postage due" on what amounts to real-world spam. Likewise, skip the paranoia

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