Picture Book Query from Rena Traxel

Hey there, fellow picture book lovers! It's Wednesday, which means it's Query Critique Time. Dun, dun, DUUUUUNNNNN.

Just Kidding. I'll be nice, I swear. As should you be in the comments! Polite honesty is the order of the day.

This week's query comes from Rena Traxel, who has a great blog that you should all follow, so go and do that now.

And here's her query, with contact details redacted for the sake of privacy. My redline is next:

Rena J. Traxel

Address

Date:

Dear (publisher):

Little girls love their kitty cats. The little girl in my WHERE IS MY KITTY AT? is daydreaming about her kitty cat’s day —waiting for her owner, stalking in the yard, batting with her paws —while she is away at school. In the end the little girl realizes where her kitty cat truly is. 

WHERE IS MY KITTY AT? is a three hundred and fifty word early picture book. It is a child-centered story that is likely to engage the child as a judge from Rate My Story pointed out “I like the pattern you’ve set up. Kids will enjoy it and probably even chime in with the familiar parts of the lines.”

I have a diploma in Professional Writing from Grant MacEwan University. I am a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and the Writers Guild of Alberta. If you would like to learn more about me please go to my website at www.renajtraxel.com. This is a multiple submission.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I can be contacted by emailing REDACTED or by calling xxx-xxx-xxx. I look forward to hearing from you. I have enclosed an SASE for your reply.

Sincerely,

I think this is a fairly solid query - Rena doesn't over-explain or over-describe her plot, which is really important in a PB query. And the book sounds very sweet, which is bang on for an early picture book! Still, I did have a few comments, so let's get to it:

Rena J. Traxel

Address

This is a great time to get into the format of a query letter, which will differ depending on whether you are querying via email (which a lot of agents prefer nowadays) or the old-fashioned, much-slower way (which so many editors are still stuck on).

Nathan Bransford has an excellent post on this topic, but the rundown is that in an emailed query, you open with "Dear Mr/Mrs Agentname" and include your contact details (address, phone number, blog/website) in your signature at the end. In a snail-mailed query, you format it like a business letter, with your name and address and phone number in the top right-hand corner, followed by the name and address of the recipient flush with the left-hand margin, followed by the date and then "Dear Mr/Mrs Editorname". The only thing at the end is your signature.

So, here, I'd move your name and address to the appropriate place.

Date:

Dear (publisher):

Little girls love their kitty cats. The little girl in my WHERE IS MY KITTY AT? is daydreaming about her kitty cat’s day —waiting for her owner, stalking in the yard, batting with her paws —while she is away at school. In the end the little girl realizes where her kitty cat truly is. You jump in right away with a reason that people will be drawn to your book, which is a super opening. Your summary of the book is good, but I think the last sentence could use a bit more punch. Is the cat somewhere surprising, like hiding in her backpack? If it is, then maybe you could tell us that the girl is surprised when she learns where her kitty truly is. Is it in the same place it always is? Maybe the girl is reassured when she figures this out. Give us a little more to make us want to get to the ending.

WHERE IS MY KITTY AT? is a three hundred and fifty word early picture book. Your word count is bang on, but I have some concerns about it being an early picture book. You've already told us that the MC goes to school, which is after the early picture book age (2-4 yrs). It might be a good idea to rethink your target age, or rethink the setting of your story to make it more relatable to children who would be reading this book. It is a child-centered story that is likely to engage the child as a judge from Rate My Story pointed out “I like the pattern you’ve set up. Kids will enjoy it and probably even chime in with the familiar parts of the lines.” It's great that you point out that this is a child-centered story, but I'd cut the rest of that sentence and replace it with 2 or 3 comparable titles whose fans will also like your book. It pays to be specific here. As far as the endorsement from the judge from Rate My Story goes, as great as it is to get feedback like that, (and it's AWESOME! Yay you!)  it's best kept to yourself. The editor will want to decide for him or herself what the strong points of your manuscript are, AND endorsements from unknown individuals are never as strong as those from people whom the editor knows and has respect for (well-known authors like Jane Yolen or other editors from that publishing house, for example). Stick to the facts - word count, target audience - and let the MS speak for itself.

I have a diploma in Professional Writing from Grant MacEwan University. I am a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and the Writers Guild of Alberta. This paragraph is perfect so far. Good credentials. If you would like to learn more about me please go to my website at www.renajtraxel.com. I'd cut this and simply include your web URL with your mailing address and telephone number. This is a multiple submission.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I can be contacted by emailing REDACTED or by calling xxx-xxx-xxx. More contact stuff that can go with your address and blog URL. I look forward to hearing from you. I have enclosed an SASE for your reply. PERFECT - so many people forget to mention the enclosed SASE, myself included sometimes, and it's much more professional to do so.

Sincerely,

And that's it for my thoughts. I know it looks like a lot of red, but that's just because I'm wordy and Rena did a great job of writing a very succinct query. I really just had three main points: check your formatting, make sure your target audience is the right target audience, and include some comparable titles to give the editor an idea of where your book will fit into the marketplace.

Rena has a very sweet-sounding story with some solid writing credentials, and I wish her all the best with her querying adventure!

If you want to have your query featured here on the blog, or if you're ready to start querying but don't know where to begin, then you might find my Picture Book Query Template helpful.

And now it's your turn. Maybe I missed something, or maybe your opinion of Rena's query differs from mine. Share your thoughts in the comments so Rena can make this query shine!

Friday Favorites: Paper and Ink

Nathan Bransford posted this week wondering why it seems that literary writers are always decrying the electronic age, and as always, he asks some really good questions, and posts some really good links. You should go to his blog here right now and check it out if you haven't seen the post already.

And as always, since I'm a wordy and also a slightly arrogant person (you might not believe me, but just ask my mom), I came up with more than would fit in a comment on his post.

So here it is:

First: Can we all stop calling print-lovers old curmudgeons? I'm only 33, and I want to make it at least into my late forties before anyone starts calling me "OLD." The argument for old-fashioned networking can't be simplified into a simple age breakdown, anyway.

There's the time it takes to learn a new thing, and to learn how to use it effectively. That's time that could (should, even!) be spent writing.

There's the fact that we all (and by "we" I mean "in the writing and publishing business," not "we literary writer folks," because I don't think of myself as an exclusively literary writer) make this distinction between "literary" and "commercial," and while the latter is OBVIOUSLY helped by having a big e-presence, there is a perception (maybe incorrect! But still there) that it's not the same for the former. In fact, I believe that one of the distinctions people draw (even if they don't want to admit it) between "literary" and "commercial" fiction is that commercial stuff sells to the masses because it's hip and cool and relevant and has a fast plot, while literary stuff sells to a few brainy people because it's intellectual, which is kind of the antithesis of Twitter. I mean, look at what they called it: Twitter. It doesn't exactly conjure up images of intellectual greatness. More like the incessant, mindless babble of people with nothing better to do than stand around on a corner and swap gossip.

(And let's remember that most literary stuff DOES NOT SELL WELL. There might be something to the argument that the point of commercial fiction is making money, while the point of literary fiction is making people think, and that's for another blog post. And it should be said that even though I think one could argue that, I don't necessarily actually believe it to be completely true.)

There's the fact that, in my own personal experience which might not be applicable to anyone else at all so please don't be offended, it took WAAAAY longer to write my literary manuscript than it took to write my commercial ones. This does not mean literary writing takes more work or is harder or anything like that. But for me, it takes more mulling. More quiet time. More playing with phrases and punctuation and the look of the page. (See the first point I made about this e-presence stuff taking a serious chunk of time to figure out and do.)

There's the fact that the whole point of browsing is to take your time over it. That's what browsing is. Scrolling through an electronic list in an e-reader kind of takes away from the experience.

There's the fact that studies are coming out showing that the act of cursive writing, old-fashioned and outdated as it is, actually helps improve information retention and language fluency. (Here, here, and here. Just Google it if you want more.) I would venture to say that the same can be said for the act of turning an actual page. Body and mind are not as separate as we like to think.

But there's also this:

When I read blogs and tweets and Google+ posts, I'm not really getting to know you. I'm only getting to know an extremely tiny piece of you. Only the teensy, weensy parts of your life that you're choosing to share in the extremely public electronic forum. And when you read this blog and follow me on Twitter and Google+, that's all you get of me: a teensy, weensy part of me. You don't really know me. I don't really know you. If we met in person, we'd be more likely to shake hands than hug. If I met an author whose posts I follow in person and went in for a hug, I'd probably be removed from the building by security.

But when I meet my writer-friends in person, we hug. We swap stories about our families that we wouldn't share in the too-public forum of the Interwebz. We can see in each other's eyes the excitement of a WiP, or the pain of another rejection or - even worse - months of silence from an editor we've queried, even though our words tell the story of the cheerful writer pulling herself up by the bootstraps and keepin' on. Our conversations last hours, instead of milliseconds, and we jump freely from topic to topic. We see in an instant clothing choices, lifestyle choices, the condition of each other's idea notebooks. I see the whole person. And they see the whole me.

I love email: without it, I'd have lost touch with my closest friends in far-flung places long, long ago. I use Twitter, although I sure don't use it effectively. I blog, obviously. I use Goodreads. My husband has an e-reader, and I've held it and turned it on and poked around.

But I'd rather read a real book than an e-book. I'd rather be writing when I have solitary time, and connecting with people in person when I can. Because no matter how good Twitter and Facebook and Google+ and Goodreads get, they will never be as good as the real thing. No matter how good e-readers get at simulating e-ink, it will never be the same as appreciating the texture of the paper and the quality of the binding. It is the reduction of a book to its content only, which for me is not what a book is. It's like looking at a print of Starry Night, instead of seeing the real thing. It's like watching a 3D movie about climbing a mountain.

No matter how good it is, it will never match up to the real thing. Not ever. It will always be less. And less is for the birds.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Feel free to carry on the discussion in the comments.