Si vous n'êtes pas à l'aise avec l'anglais, utilisez ceci :
Cet outil vous fournit une traduction automatisée en français.
Building A Rock Solid Query Letter
Recently I reviewed a client's query letter. It was a hard working query letter, detailing the marketing prospects for the book, her own glowing credentials and the contacts she possessed that would help her publicize the book. But she left out one teeny weeny thing: she didn't say what her book was about! I used to think query letters were relatively easy, but now I realize that a query has to do so many things that it's easy to forget essential elements. Since the letter is your first step in putting your book's best foot forward, you don't want that to happen. So here's a simple rundown on what goes into a solid query letter.
Who Are You?
It's tempting to start the letter by leaping into a breathless description of what you're sure is going to be the best book in the world, but resist a little longer. You want to use your first paragraph to introduce yourself and let the agent know why he or she should pay attention to you. Tell the agent who you are. Describe your qualifications, including a bit about your current activities which will in turn describe your platform. Have you been doing speaking engagements? Do you appear on television? Are you noted in your profession? Have you won any awards? Do people look to you as an expert in your subject? Do you teach? For instance, if you are a workshop or seminar leader in real estate finance, frequently travel across the country, and have 5,000 people attending your workshops every month, you can tell the agent:"Now Ive decided to give away all of my secrets in a book about real estate financing with no money down." Anything that puts you in front of people is a potential place to sell your book so don't forget to mention such activities.
What's Your Book About?
In the next two or three paragraphs of the letter you get to talk about your wonderful book idea and/or story. As a guideline, it may help you to read the backs of book covers. You'll want to do something similar--a brief synopsis of your book with enough spark it will intrigue the agent or any other potential reader, to pick up your book. Use bullet points to highlight what amazing tidbits the reader will get out of the book. Will they get five strategies on how to eat without gaining weight? Or 4 low cost resources for financing a large home improvement project? Or the 6 surefire signs you've found your life purpose? Make this description tight, concise and, of course, hugely interesting. Then you can move on to...
Your Great Marketing Plan--With You As the Star
The query letter should include a brief paragraph or two about how you're going to market the book. Of course, if you go with a traditional publisher you'll get major help in this area from the publishing house. But remember this: no one will be a better advocate for your book than you. And when editors are considering manuscripts they're also considering what kind of a marketing presence they'll be getting with the author. You'll make their job easier--and your book much more successful--if you can bring your own marketing plan to the table to work hand in hand with the publisher's. Do you have contacts in the media willing to help? Are you good at getting quoted in newspapers and magazines? Do you publish freelance articles that can mention your upcoming book? Put a lot of thought into this. Too many writers go into the publishing process expecting everything to be done for them and then are disappointed. Having a good marketing plan would show a potential agent that you're serious and you understand the business.
The Next Step
Youve mentioned your credentials, described your book and your stellar marketing plan. Ideally, at this point, you have the agent intrigued. You want him or her to say, "Great! What does this person have to offer?" This is where your letter would say something like, "I would love for you to see more and I have a proposal" or "I have 50 pages of a manuscript." Whatever you want the agent to see next, offer it up and ask, "May I send this to you?" Asking permission is always a classy thing to do, it shows you're not being presumptuous. Then you move into a closing that let's the agent know you'll follow up in a certain amount of time either via phone or email (they might prefer email).
When you're done, read your query letter over many times. Have another trusted set of eyes read it for you. It's easy to overlook important points, or to think you've covered something when you really haven't. When you can polish no longer, send it out--many times! And congratulations. You've just made the first step in getting yourself and your book out there. I wish you a successful journey.
© 2006 Sophfronia Scott
BONUS : Can't Write Articles For Links? Write Code!
If you've subscribed to an seo newsletter for longer than a week, you're well aware that writing articles with tips and advice pertaining to your website's subject is a great way to generate links and traffic. But what if you can't write or are afraid to write? Well, if you can write software, you're still in luck! In this article I'll show you a trick that can still garner you hundreds of links and won't require you know the difference between adjectives and adverbs.
I'll use my own little website as an example (I freely admit that I am neither a web designer nor a programmer). My wife and I own By Request DJ & Karaoke Company. Obviously, we specialize in weddings dances, school dances, company parties, and karaoke. We recently went through the process of converting all our CDs to compressed digital audio files which are played from a computer rather than hauling around thousands of CDs. In the process of ripping and encoding our music, I found many tasks were very repetitive and time consuming. Since I know a smattering of Visual Basic, it was simple to write a utility to automate these tasks. I figured that if it was helpful to me, some other DJ might find it helpful to, so I called my utility MP3G to ZIP and made it available for download from my website. I also decided to submit it to a few freeware sites just so it was easier to find.
What happened amazed me. Many of the links to my website from these freeware directories began showing up in Google. Given the name of my company and the descriptions of my freeware apps, this helped boost my site for some very competitive keywords. I decided to submit my software to a few more directories, and that's when I found two very handy tools: PAD files and RoboSoft.
A PAD file is a "Portable Application Description, and it helps authors provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a standard data format that will allow webmasters and program librarians to automate program listings." It takes the tedium out of submitting your software to hundreds of sites by enabling you to enter the URL to your software information rather than retyping all the information for every submission. It was created by the Association of Shareware Professionals (http://www.asp-shareware.org/pad) and is a free utility.
RoboSoft (http://rudenko.com/robosoft) is a semi-automated software submission utility that contains a list of known freeware and shareware directories that accept submissions. It is only semi-autonomous because it won't push the buttons for you, but it will fill in the blanks. This still allows you to quickly enter your software's information to hundreds of websites. Websites who will all link back to your website and most often don't require a reciprocal link. The RoboSoft database currently lists 420 freeware and shareware directories.
In the two months I have been using these tools I have seen my traffic jump from 800 unique visits per month to over 5000, and the link popularity of the page that has my two freeware apps has gone from 7 to 639 according to widexl.com. While these are small numbers for someone like cnn.com, sprint.com, or even napster.com, they are huge for a small site like mine. Plus, they are beginning to get me links from my fellow DJs who have used and appreciated my tools. I'm certain that they will eventually lead to good things.
So, while it isn't a tactic that will make you number for "best website", it will get you a few more links. And it won't require you to submit any articles with tips about marketing your website.
If you've subscribed to an seo newsletter for longer than a week, you're well aware that writing articles with tips and advice pertaining to your website's subject is a great way to generate links and traffic. But what if you can't write or are afraid to write? Well, if you can write software, you're still in luck! In this article I'll show you a trick that can still garner you hundreds of links and won't require you know the difference between adjectives and adverbs.
I'll use my own little website as an example (I freely admit that I am neither a web designer nor a programmer). My wife and I own By Request DJ & Karaoke Company. Obviously, we specialize in weddings dances, school dances, company parties, and karaoke. We recently went through the process of converting all our CDs to compressed digital audio files which are played from a computer rather than hauling around thousands of CDs. In the process of ripping and encoding our music, I found many tasks were very repetitive and time consuming. Since I know a smattering of Visual Basic, it was simple to write a utility to automate these tasks. I figured that if it was helpful to me, some other DJ might find it helpful to, so I called my utility MP3G to ZIP and made it available for download from my website. I also decided to submit it to a few freeware sites just so it was easier to find.
What happened amazed me. Many of the links to my website from these freeware directories began showing up in Google. Given the name of my company and the descriptions of my freeware apps, this helped boost my site for some very competitive keywords. I decided to submit my software to a few more directories, and that's when I found two very handy tools: PAD files and RoboSoft.
A PAD file is a "Portable Application Description, and it helps authors provide product descriptions and specifications to online sources in a standard way, using a standard data format that will allow webmasters and program librarians to automate program listings." It takes the tedium out of submitting your software to hundreds of sites by enabling you to enter the URL to your software information rather than retyping all the information for every submission. It was created by the Association of Shareware Professionals (http://www.asp-shareware.org/pad) and is a free utility.
RoboSoft (http://rudenko.com/robosoft) is a semi-automated software submission utility that contains a list of known freeware and shareware directories that accept submissions. It is only semi-autonomous because it won't push the buttons for you, but it will fill in the blanks. This still allows you to quickly enter your software's information to hundreds of websites. Websites who will all link back to your website and most often don't require a reciprocal link. The RoboSoft database currently lists 420 freeware and shareware directories.
In the two months I have been using these tools I have seen my traffic jump from 800 unique visits per month to over 5000, and the link popularity of the page that has my two freeware apps has gone from 7 to 639 according to widexl.com. While these are small numbers for someone like cnn.com, sprint.com, or even napster.com, they are huge for a small site like mine. Plus, they are beginning to get me links from my fellow DJs who have used and appreciated my tools. I'm certain that they will eventually lead to good things.
So, while it isn't a tactic that will make you number for "best website", it will get you a few more links. And it won't require you to submit any articles with tips about marketing your website.
