You have finished the book. Now comes the part nobody warns you about properly: writing a few hundred words that decide whether anyone reads page one. A query letter is a sales document with manners. It introduces your book, shows it belongs on that agent's list, and then gets out of the way. Plenty of rejections have nothing to do with the manuscript. They come down to small, correctable errors in the letter itself. Here are the ones UK authors make most often, with a fix for each.

Pitching the Wrong Agent

The fastest route to a rejection is sending your thriller to someone who only represents cookery and memoir. It happens constantly, usually because the author found a list of agencies and worked down it alphabetically.

Agents are not interchangeable. Each has a list, a taste and a limit on what they can take on. Before you write a word of your letter, check that this person actually wants what you have written.

A research routine worth repeating

1. Start with a longlist of fifteen to twenty agents who represent your category.
2. Read their page on the agency website — not just the agency's general blurb.
3. Look at what they have sold recently, or what they say they are hungry for.
4. Note their submission rules in a spreadsheet: what to send, how to send it, and how long they take.
5. Rank them, then submit in small batches rather than blasting everyone at once.

One more thing: most UK agencies accept one submission per agency, not one per agent. Sending your letter to three people at the same firm rarely ends well.

Burying the Hook

The first line is the whole game. Agents read it in a couple of seconds, and if it says nothing, they stop.

I am writing to enquire whether you might be interested in my 128,000-word novel, which explores themes of loss, memory and redemption.

That sentence gives away your word count and your themes. It says nothing about the story. Themes are what a book is about underneath; a hook is what happens, to whom, and why it matters that they fail.

Try instead: A marine biologist who has spent ten years avoiding her home town returns to scatter her father's ashes — and finds the fishing fleet she grew up with is about to be sold to the man who ruined him.

Same book, roughly. Completely different reaction. Name a character, give them a problem, and show the cost of getting it wrong. Do that in the first two sentences and you have earned the next paragraph.

Turning the Query into a Synopsis

The opposite mistake is just as common. Nervous authors cram the entire plot into the letter: every sibling, every twist, the ending, the sequel hook.

Your query letter is a pitch. Your synopsis is the plot, start to finish, and it is a separate document with its own rules. In the letter itself, stick to two or three named characters, one central conflict, and the stakes. If a character does not change the outcome, cut them.

Agents do want to know where the story is heading, so include enough to prove it has a spine. They do not need the scene where your protagonist finds the letter in the drawer — unless the whole novel turns on it.

Comparisons That Weaken Your Case

Comparisons are useful. Bad ones are corrosive.

• The mega-comparison: "The next Harry Potter." Nobody believes it, and it signals you have not read anything published in the last decade.
• The mismatched pair: "For fans of Sally Rooney and Bernard Cornwell." Two different readers, two different shelves, no clear pitch.
• The dead giveaway: Comparing your work only to classics, or to authors in a genre you clearly do not read.

Instead, choose two recent books that sit close to yours and would share a shelf in a bookshop, then add one line explaining the positioning. Browse a Waterstones new-fiction table or the deal announcements in the trade press to find titles that are genuinely current. If you cannot name two, you may not yet know what your book is.

Missing the Details That Mark You Out as a Beginner

Guidelines exist for a reason, and ignoring them is read as carelessness. Before you send anything, work through this list.

• Have you spelled the agent's name correctly, including any title they use?
• Have you followed the exact submission format — sample chapters pasted into the email, or attached as a separate file, if that is what they ask for?
• Is your word count honest and rounded sensibly? Do not write 99,000 because it sounds impressive; write what the manuscript actually is.
• Is your genre label accurate? "Upmarket book club fiction" is more useful than "literary/commercial crossover".
• Have you kept the spelling consistent? Most UK agents expect British spelling unless your book is deliberately set in the US.
• Have you checked the letter for typos, and read it aloud once?

None of this is glamorous. All of it is evidence that you are easy to work with, which matters more than most authors realise.

Making the Letter About You

Your biography belongs in two to four lines. Relevant publication credits, relevant experience, a platform if you genuinely have one — that is the list. "I have wanted to be a writer since I was six" is not a credential, and neither is a paragraph explaining that your mum loved it.

The same applies to tone. Do not apologise for taking up their time, do not explain that you know how busy they are, and never issue demands about response times or film rights. If you have no credits at all, one plain sentence is plenty: where you live, and that this is your first novel. Then stop and sign off.

Before You Hit Send

Read the whole letter once more, slowly, as if it arrived in your inbox from a stranger. Does the first sentence make you want the second? Is the book's title, word count and genre impossible to miss? Have you included exactly what the guidelines asked for, and nothing they did not?

Then send it, log it in your spreadsheet, and get back to the next thing — whether that is the next chapter or the next agent on your list. Responses can take weeks or months, and silence is the normal state of affairs in publishing, not a verdict on your writing. Send in batches, keep a record, and keep going.

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