Querying is easy. Getting published is not. Here are a few tips that I picked off from personal experience and from Twitter. Use them wisely and go into the query realm looking a lot more professional.

• Title your query with the agent/editor’s name. Do not say, “Dear Agent”. That shows you didn’t do any homework. And don’t confuse an editor with an agent. They do two totally different things.
• If you’re re-using a past query (who doesn’t at least start off with a past one, right?), make sure you don’t have the past agent’s name on there still by the time you hit send. That’s embarrassing!
• If you’re going to compare your book to another, make sure that you’re not aiming too high and make sure you’ve read the book you’re comparing yourself to. If you’re just going off the blurb, you could be leading yourself and your potential agent down the wrong road. And trust me, the agent/agent’s assistant will know.
• BEFORE YOU HIT SEND! Check, check, check! Get the Re: out of the title line. Or the *cringe* “Requested Partial” out of the title line. Bad, bad, bad. And make sure that you all of your sentences are complete. After all, even though you started with the base of the same query letter, you made some tweaks to it this time and you need to make sure that you’re not sounding like a blubbering idiot! Spell the agent’s name correctly, and for the love of Pete, spell your characters’ names right!
• It’s important to sound confident, but not cocky. What’s the difference? Um…
• Each agent/editor is different and they all have different moods. Guess what? They’re human, so if you’re attempting humor, you might catch them when they’re finding you not so funny, so try to keep it…um, well, non-sarcastic. Yeah, I think that’s how I’d phrase it.
• If you’re following up on a query where you made a million mistakes starting with spelling the agent’s name WRONG, don’t point out that you spelled it right this time. He’ll respond, just not favorably.

Those are the ones that I can immediately think of off the top of my head. Most of those are things that I’ve done at least once. Here are a few things that I’ve heard of and anyone reading this blog should know never, ever, ever to do.

• Send a blanket query to 50 agents and editors at the same time and then send it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and aga–well, I’m pretty sure you get the point. If you’re one of these people, STOP! You’re making it harder on the rest of us.
• Sending a query, getting rejected, and then emailing the agent/editor back, begging to be reconsidered. DON’T! I’d really like her to have at least 15 seconds to skim through my submission so she can request a partial! ….or reject it, either way.

Those, I think, are the biggest pet peeves. Whenever I see these Tweets or blog posts, I’m like, *head thunk* “Oh, good grief, they didn’t.” But…they did.

Okay. I’m done. Have fun. Query like there ain’t no tomorrow.

And may the force be with you. And me. And you. And you. And me. And you–yeah, you over there. And…