Beginning writers often inundate agents and editors with information they neither need nor want. Remember that publishing professionals deal with reams of paper from hopeful new authors every day, and too much informationcan be as much a turnoff as too little. Be merciless in editing your proposal — and your manuscript, for that matter — and cut away anything that doesn't directly advance your cause.

About You

Agents and editors want to know why you're qualified to write your book. They don't care that you spent your twenties drifting from job to job, trying to find your niche, and finally decided to try your hand at writing — unless that's what your book is about. If your book is a science fiction masterpiece, they don't need to know about your bachelor's degree in economics. If you're marketing a cookbook for college students, you don't have to mention that you have a private pilot's license. Only give the information that relates to your book and your qualifications to write it, and save the rest for your autobiography.

About Your Book

Some beginning writers write on and on and on about their book, going into excruciating detail in their query letters and even in their overviews or synopses. This wastes your energy and the agent's or editor's time. More important, if you try to cram all that information into a one- or two-page query or synopsis, you risk presenting a distorted picture of your book.

Think of the elements of your proposal as the skeleton for your book. Your query and your synopsis should trace only the big bones of your story. Your character bios add the major muscles. The rest — the vital organs, the veins and arteries, and so on — belong in the manuscript. Your sample chapters will give a glimpse of the whole body, where it can breathe freely; you don't have to jam it all into the confined space of your synopsis.

Good writing is tight writing, in your manuscript and in your communications with agents and editors. Don't let yourself ramble. Get in, make your point, and get out. You'll impress both publishing professionals and your readers with the power and economy of your writing.

About Your Marketing

Hopeful writers do themselves untold damage by announcing how many “no confidence” votes their work has received from others. Often, they'll open their query with something like this: “I have sent my novel to twenty editors, and none of them have seen fit to publish it yet. I'm hoping I'll have more luck with you.”

The pity-me approach never works. It makes you sound unprofessional, and it implies that the recipient of your query isn't at the top of her field — not a very flattering supposition to make, and not the way to win an ally in the publishing business. Agents and editors who receive this kind of query letter usually have the same reaction: They wonder why, after so many failures, you haven't made some changes to your manuscript to improve its salability.

If you're asked whether you've received any other responses on your project, be honest about the who, when, and why of any rejections. An agent needs to know whether your project has been rejected by editors, because she either may be able to find a way around that rejection or will omit that particular editor or publishing house from her marketing plan for your book. But don't volunteer your setbacks in your query letter or cover letter. As discouraged as you may be privately, keep your correspondence with potential agents and editors positive and enthusiastic.

It's virtually impossible to sell a first novel before you've finished it, because too many publishers have been burned by aspiring novelists who couldn't complete the job. Be sure to tell the agent or editor, in your query letter and again in the cover letter for your proposal, that the complete manuscript is available, and provide a precise word count.