ONE: Never, ever, ever, ever use colored type, either on your letter or your email. This waves the red flag and shouts, DANGER! DANGER! RUN AWAY! AMATEUR! The result most likely will be instant rejection.
TWO: Always use a font that can be read. At the moment, 2009 AD, the font of choice is Times Roman, 12 point. Unless an agent begs you to use Courier, don't do it. This Blah-asaurus type face dates back to the Jurassic Age. Do not use Ariel. Too difficult to read quickly since it lacks a serif (the little foot at the bottom of each letter stem). Don’t even think about using an ant-print-sized font to enable you to squeeze more words onto a page. If the agent opening your query has to hunt around for a magnifying glass. . . guess what? They won’t!
THREE: Avoid indents or fancy bullets. Three standard paragraphs, not four, not five, not one long one. Three paragraphs. Once space between each paragraph. Follow the format suggested in my FREE 31-page mini-query workbook. Click on the Query Club link to the right, sign up for the newsletter and voila! you'll receive the workbook PDF download link.
Remember KISS (keep it simple, stupid!) so you’ll look like a pro and increase the chances your entire query will be read and the agent will ask for a manuscript submission.
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