How to make your book sound irresistible 🤩

How to nail the most important part of your query letter.

Hi authors,

I can’t believe it: The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents is OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED! 🎉

And it’s a #1 New Release! 🤯

I’m so excited for you to get your hands on it and dig into all the data and statistics we’ve gathered, which have never before been available to querying authors.

We won’t sugarcoat it: querying is extremely challenging (read the book to learn exactly how many offers of representation are extended every year), but the more you know about what to expect, the better equipped you’ll be to navigate it.

It’s officially Day 2 of Query Prep Week, so let’s get to work on what’s arguably the most important part of your query letter.

Your second lesson: write an irresistible blurb

Yesterday, you confirmed your manuscript is ready to query. (Here’s the link if you missed it.)

Today we’re tackling the heart of the query letter — and the part agents look at most closely:

The description. This should be the longest section of your query letter, and it’s where you describe your book’s plot (for fiction) or contents (for nonfiction).

The best way to think about it is as a movie trailer for your book. A trailer has one job: to make the viewer desperate to know what happens next.

And that’s exactly what your description needs to do to an agent, so they scroll into your sample pages and then request the full manuscript.

So how do you do that?

Your Day 2 assignment (from the book)

It can feel impossible to distill your story into a two- or three-paragraph description. But remember that the point isn’t to summarize your entire book — you simply won’t have room to mention every secondary character or subplot.

Instead, write down your answers to these 3 key questions, and craft your description around them:

📝 Who is your protagonist, what’s their life currently like, and what makes them interesting? Establish all this at the beginning of your description.

📝 What’s the inciting incident that turns their world upside down? This is where you describe the turning point that sets the plot in motion.

📝 What is their objective, why does it matter, and what problems stand in their way of achieving it? This is the main conflict that your story follows. Be specific, but don’t give away any of your story’s twists or reveals.

That’s really all your description needs — executed well, you’ll give the agent no choice but to read your pages.

There’s WAY more in the book!

Every day this week, we’re sending you one of our key querying lessons for free, but our book includes so much more:

✅ Average response times and offer rates based on MILLIONS of queries

✅ Insights from 140+ agents on why they reject queries

✅ Real successful query letters that landed agents

✅ Nitty-gritty formatting, research, and etiquette guidelines

✅ A step-by-step guide taking you from "am I ready?" to signing an offer

See you tomorrow for Day 3 — where we’ll cover the query letter elements that seem simple but stump so many authors.

Happy querying!

Alyssa