Most submissions are rejected before anyone reaches chapter two. Usually that isn't because the writing is weak. It's because the package around it leaves an agent guessing, and guessing agents move on to the next email. The good news is that a submission package is a craft problem, not a talent problem, and craft problems can be fixed in an afternoon.
What a UK submission package actually contains
Requirements differ, so the first job is dull and non-negotiable: read the agency's submission page and follow it exactly. Some want everything pasted into the body of an email. Others ask for a single attached document. A few still accept post. If the guidelines say a synopsis of no more than one page, one page means one page.
- Covering letter (often called a query letter) — one page, three or four paragraphs
- Synopsis — usually one page, sometimes two for a longer novel
- Sample material — frequently the first three chapters or around 10,000 words; some ask for 30 or 50 pages
- Author biography — a short paragraph, with no padding
- Comparative titles — two or three, usually mentioned in the letter
- Extras they request — a chapter outline for non-fiction, a contents list, a note on audience
Non-fiction works differently. You pitch the idea and the author's authority before the prose, and the proposal itself becomes the selling document. Fiction is judged on voice first, which is why the letter and the opening pages carry so much weight.
The query letter: three moves in 300 words
An effective letter does three things and stops. Anything else is decoration.
Move one: the hook line
Your first line after the greeting should give the title, genre, rounded word count and one sentence containing a character, a want and an obstacle:
THE LAST FERRY is a 92,000-word literary thriller set on the Isle of Wight, in which a coastguard's decision to cover up a drowning begins to take her marriage apart.
That does more work than a paragraph of atmosphere. Skip rhetorical questions, skip "fiction novel", skip any claim that your book will appeal to everyone.
Move two: the pitch
Two short paragraphs. The first introduces who the main character is and what they want. The second explains what stands in the way and what it costs them. Include the setting if it genuinely matters. Don't tease the ending here — the synopsis is attached for that. Resist summarising the whole plot; the letter's job is to make the agent want to read page one.
Move three: the close
One sentence of biography, and only the relevant parts: publication credits, useful experience, a platform. Then a real reason you're writing to this agent — you've read a book they represent, or their list shows a taste that matches yours. Flattery reads as flattery; specificity reads as homework. Finish with thanks and your full contact details.
The synopsis is not a blurb
The most common mistake is writing a synopsis in the voice of jacket copy. Blurbs withhold; synopses tell. Present tense, third person, main plot and subplots, and the ending. If a character dies in chapter twenty, say so plainly. Agents use the synopsis to check whether the book lands, and hiding the resolution gives them nothing to judge.
Write it as a story in miniature — cause and effect, decisions and consequences — rather than a list of events. Spend most of your space on the main character's choices, and name only the handful of people who matter. Keep it single-spaced in a plain font, with the title and word count at the top, and aim for roughly 500 to 700 words if a page is the limit. Then hand it to someone who hasn't read the book and ask what it's about. If they can't say, rewrite it.
Comparative titles: choose them like a bookseller
Comps tell an agent where your book would sit on a table in a bookshop, and who would pick it up. Weak comps are the biggest names in your genre, books published before you were born, films, or something so obscure that nobody can place it. Strong comps are two or three recent titles, in your genre or for your readership, each with a reason attached.
- Title by Author — for the voice and the wry first-person narration
- Title by Author — for the historical setting and the family-saga structure
- Title by Author — for the same readership: book-club fiction with a moral dilemma at its centre
The wording "for readers of X and Y" works well in a letter. Two comps are better than three, if the third is a stretch. Never compare yourself to a writer you don't read.
Market analysis without pretending to be an analyst
You don't need sales data. You need an hour in a bookshop. Photograph the tables near the front, note which covers and titles repeat, read the shelf talkers written by booksellers, and find the section your book belongs to. Check publisher catalogues for the last few months, scan the books pages of the newspapers, and read reader reviews of your closest comps — the language readers use tells you what they want next.
Then write two sentences in your letter about where your book sits. Know three things: which shelf it belongs on, who buys from that shelf, and what is already crowded there. If your genre is saturated, don't pretend otherwise; say what your book does differently. If a contract arrives without an agent involved, take advice from a professional writers' body before signing anything.
Final polish: the checklist
- Read the agency guidelines again, then check letter, synopsis and sample against them line by line.
- Read your first 300 words aloud. If you stumble, so will the agent.
- Round the word count and state the genre plainly.
- Check every name: the agent, the agency, each comp author. Misspelling these is fatal.
- Name your files sensibly, for example Surname_Title_Synopsis.docx.
- Confirm the sample starts at chapter one, not the prologue you cut.
- Log who you sent what to, and when, in a simple spreadsheet.
- Check your email signature, phone number and website link actually work.
Send it, then start the next thing
Submission is a waiting game: weeks, sometimes months, and silence is common and rarely personal. Once a package is out, stop tinkering with it. If you receive an offer, tell the other agents who have the manuscript and give them a reasonable chance to respond; that courtesy is expected and understood. Then return to the desk and begin the next book, because the most convincing thing a new writer can bring to a second submission is a first one that's already finished.
Photo: kaboompics / Pixabay
