Writing the Strong Nonfiction Magazine Query Letter

 

By Mary Rosenblum

 

          You hit that wall quickly if you’re writing nonfiction.   As soon as you open the market guide it’s right there, staring you in the face.  Query with clips or writing sample…  Oh great!  Just what does this mean?  What do I tell the editor in that query letter?  What are clips?  What is a writing sample?  Ohmygosh, I think I’ll go back to bed…

 

Tell Me What You Want to Sell Me

 

            Relax!  The query letter is simply your offer to the editor to exchange a great article in return for a check.  That’s it.  The very nice part of dealing in queries is that you don’t do the writing first, only to find out that nobody wants this article, and you have wasted weeks of work.  You do the research, so that you have all the information you need at your fingertips.  Then you query.  And when the editor says, Sure, I want a 500 word piece about the Tualatin Garlic Festival, you sit down and write that 500 words. Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  And efficient.  And it is.  However…ah, isn’t there always a ‘however’?... many first sales are lost because of poor query letters.  The editor might have purchased the piece, the writer is quite skilled, but instead, that writer earned a rejection. 

 

            Why?   What makes a selling query letter?

 

Answer ALL My Questions

 

            Essentially, your query letter must answer all the questions an editor might have…before that editor needs to ask them.  Because if the editor has questions to ask…that editor won’t ask them, he or she will simply reject your query.  So your letter must answer some specific questions briefly and clearly.  Those questions include:

            Why should I buy this piece?

            Why do my readers want to read this?

            Why are you the best writer for this?

            How will this sell my magazine?

            How do I know you can write this?

 

            If you can answer all those questions, and the answers are the right ones – which they will be if you have done your homework! – then the editor will ask for the article unless that editor has already purchased a very similar article lately.  That can always happen, but most editors will tell you so, since if they like your proposal, they want you to make more and they don’t want to discourage you. 

 

            So let’s take a look at each of these questions.

 

Why Should I Buy This Piece?

 

            You need to answer this question specifically.  It is not enough to say, “I have a cool article on growing prizewinning tomatoes and you’re a gardening magazine.”  Well, gee, this is Organic Gardening Magazine.  If you read a few issues, you’ll discover two things.  First off, the magazine focuses on organic and environmentally friendly methods of growing vegetables, herbs, and fruits.  Does your method depend on chemicals?  The editor doesn’t know.  You didn’t tell him.  He is busy, he has lots of regular contributors.  Why should he ask you?  Rejection!

 

            How do you answer this question properly?  Every fall millions of tomato plants turn black and wither from early blight.  If you don’t want to use toxic fungicides, do you have to watch your tomato crop fail?  No!  A new organic spray stops early blight and powdery mildew in its tracks.  Our editor reads this ‘hook’ and realizes that A: this is an article about an organic gardening technique.  B: this is a topic that he hasn’t covered and his readers will want to read.   Good!  He reads on.  You haven’t been rejected yet!

 

 

Why Do My Readers Want to Read This?

 

            You need to be certain that your editor realizes that readers want to read your article.  After all, the editor is wasting the publisher’s money if your article doesn’t entice readers to pick up the magazine and head for the checkout stand.  We all want to assume that editors are gods, when we first start writing.  But they are not.  And they do not know everything.   Be sure to make it clear why this article will appeal to readers.  Let’s look at another example.   Here is a query to Fine Cooking Magazine:

 

            Everything tastes better fresh. Why spend the time to create a from-scratch sauce for that lasagna, and then use packaged Ricotta?  Make it fresh!  It only takes ten minutes.  Well, that’s an okay hook and the editor thinks about it.  But do people really want to make cheese at home?  Probably not.  Rejection!  So how do we convince him? Gourmet cooking at home is an increasingly popular trend, from brick-oven baked bread to duck confit.  Fresh cheeses are no more difficult to make than bread.  Now here, I’ve used my research.  When I read my sample issues of Fine Cooking  I noticed an article on how to make duck confit at home.  I am telling the editor that this article is similar to articles she has published in the past. If they wanted to read the duck confit article, they probably want to read this.

 

Why Are You the Best Writer for This Article?

            This is a valid question and you must answer it.  The editor doesn’t have time to check your facts.  He wants assurance that he is not going to receive angry letters complaining that you got the facts all wrong in your article.  He wants to know that either you are an expert, or you have tapped into expert sources.  If you are offering an article on controlling hypoglycemia with diet, you need be either a physician, expert, or researcher in the medical/nutritional file, or you need to interview and quote such an expert.  If you are a hypoglycemia sufferer, you can relate your personal experiences and back those up with quotes from doctors you have dealt with and references to published research.

 

            In all cases, you need to do some original research.  In other words, pulling together an informative article entirely from Internet sources or the library will not work for most magazines.  The reader can do that, too.  The editors want to offer the reader new information that they cannot get on their own.   So if you yourself do not have credentials in this field, if you are not personally involved, then plan on contacting people who are experts and asking for a brief interview.  You’ll be surprised how often people say yes!

 

How Will This Sell My Magazine?

            You have partly answered this question when you told the editor why readers would flock to the checkout counter with the issue of the magazine that contains your article.  However, there is another side to money making for magazines.  This other side is the advertiser.  The magazine only makes part of its profit from sales of the magazine to readers.  The other part of its income comes from advertisers who purchase ads in the magazines.  Take a look at some of your sample issues.  Notice how ads for merchandise often reflect the topic of the lead article?  For example, if our gardening magazine is running a feature on water gardens, we might find a host of ads for pond supplies, water plants, pond fish, and the like.   In next month’s issue, with its focus on hardscaping, the ads will be from rock and gravel suppliers, nurseries that specialize in rock garden plants and the like. 

 

            If your article might offer an advertising angle, bring this to your editor’s attention.  Several cookware companies now offer a variety of home cheese making equipment including do-it-yourself kits.  Kuhn, American Kitchen, and Home Source all offer simple starter kits for Ricotta cheese.   Now I have looked at the ads in the sample issues of Fine Cooking and noticed that Kuhn and American Kitchen advertise there.  But Home Source does not.  So I have told the editor that her regular advertisers will benefit from my article, and I have suggested a new advertiser who might be interested in buying ad space in the issue in which my article will appear. 

 

            This is a sales pitch that is often overlooked by the new writer.  When writer Deborah Wood, pointed out to the editor of The Oregonian, that millions of dollars were spent on pet products every year, and that because he had no regular pet page, he had no pet-supply advertisers, she landed a regular weekly column.  (For some great tips on breaking into nonfiction, you can read the transcript of my interview with Deborah ).

 

How Do I Know You Can Write This?

          Well, this is a real question.  If the editor tells you ‘yes, send me the article’, she has already committed this space in a future issue to your article.  If it is so badly written that she can’t use it, she is now approaching deadline and she must fill this space with an article that fits the magazine.  This might be a difficult task.  So she needs proof that you will deliver on your promise.  This is where your clips come on. 

 

            Clips are copies of your published work.  Now you must realize that while name recognition matters a lot in fiction and book length nonfiction …it doesn’t matter nearly that much in nonfiction.  It is not your name but your ability that counts to the editor of the nonfiction magazine.   So you clip is not simply a confirmation that you have been published, it is proof that you can write this type of piece.  That means that no, your poetry or your mystery story  will not impress the editor of Sunset Magazine.  She wants to know if you can write a strong article.  While a mystery story in Ellery Queen tells her you can write publishable prose, it doesn’t mean you have a clue about nonfiction.  So here, while I would mention my publication in Ellery Queen Magazine, I would provide a writing sample of an article similar to the one I proposed. 

 

            What is a writing sample?  It is just that…a sample of your writing.  Again, remember what that editor needs to know…that you can write this type of prose.  So do not send her a fiction story for a sample, if you are proposing a how to article for a quilting magazine!  By the way, if you are a Long Ridge student, this is an excellent way to use your nonfiction assignments!   Make sure that it is as strong, polished, and perfect as you can make it.  Yes, this is a test, and you must pass it in order to sell to this editor. 

 

            It is not a bad idea, while you are doing your market research, to write and polish several writing samples so that you have them ready.  Write three or four on different topics.  You don’t have to do real research – these are not for publication.  They simply need to be strong and well written.  Make sure you don’t have a single typo in the manuscript.  Then keep them on file for your query letters.  Yes, you can send the same sample out over and over.  You are not selling it to the editor. It is simply a sample of your ability. 

 

Be Specific!

 

            Over and over, editors have told me that the biggest reason for rejecting queries is that they writer doesn’t tell them what they need to know.  Hi, the writer tells ‘em.  I’ve written this great piece on family dynamics and I know it would be perfect for your magazine.  May I send it to you?   Goodness, no!  The editor or Family Matters magazine is looking for positive stories about families overcoming personal problems, written with a strong Christian theme.  Does the proposed article fit this slant?  How can we tell?  Why should the editor go to the time to ask for it, only to find out that it is a piece about the success of Prozac in treating adolescent depression?  And perhaps the article was perfect for the magazine…too bad.  The editor will never know.  She had 154 other queries on her desk and she doesn’t have time to ask for and read them all. 

 

            But if the author had answered all five of the questions…she would have snapped that article up in a second and paid $2.00 per word for 1500 words.   So that query letter cost Mr. Author not only a first sale, but $3000.  It is worth learning to do query letters well, folks.  It is your key to the nonfiction door. 

 

            Here is an example of a complete query letter to Jennifer Hartwell, editor of Fine Gardens Magazine

 

I have color coded the text that answers our five questions:

Why should I buy this piece?

Why do my readers want to read this?

Why are you the best writer for this?

How will this sell my magazine?

How do I know you can write this?

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

            Dear Ms. Hartwell,

 

                        Brilliant and delicate orchids are popular houseplants these days.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if these delicate beauties could grace the garden as well as the green house?  Well, they can!  Half a dozen hardy orchid species thrive in all but the coldest areas of the country, with a minimum of winter protection.  Orchid lovers who enjoyed your January article on Orchids in the Home will enjoy discovering that now they can grow their favorite plant in the flowerbed, too.  A member of the Oregon Orchid Society, a Master Gardener, and long time orchid fancier, I visited three well known orchid nurseries and will offer readers a 1000 word article, reviewing the four most suitable varieties for naturalization in the flower garden as well as growing tips.  I can also provide a sidebar listing nurseries nationwide that carry hardy orchid species for retail sale.

 

                        Three of your regular advertisers – West Winds Nurseries, Go Native, and Wild Things Plants --  offer  hardy orchid species in their catalogues.

 

                        I am including clips from some of my articles published in Organic Gardening and Farming, and Sunset Magazine.