Writing a query letter to an agent is the first time out of the 1000000 you’ll have to try to sell yourself and your book project. I’m sorry, it is just that mercenary! I wish it wasn’t! I wish getting a book published was just based on the merits and beauty of your writing and that everybody would get free books for life, but that’s just not our world. We’re selling you, and we’re selling your book to someone who will help you sell it further, to someone who will then print it and sell it further, to people who will read it and then hopefully “sell” it to others with their reviews and recommendations. We’re selling all the way down in a capitalist hell spiral.
Here’s the final version of my query letter, a.k.a. the one that worked. It was not a cold query; I had a very, very helpful introduction (which I wrote about here), but I still had to convince the agent(s) to represent me. I’m sharing it because I didn’t have a ton of templates to inspire me, especially for nonfiction books. I did one query-letter writing workshop, and definitely used some of the wisdom I got from it, but I’d be lying if I remembered what it was specifically, and I can’t locate any notes. You’ll just have to learn from the final product. I’m abridging it a bit, because my book isn’t published yet, and certain key things may change. But I’m also doing step by step annotations! Here goes [everything that’s in a bracket wasn’t there. The bolding is there for you to notice certain words].
Hanna’s Query Letter That Worked (and eventually led to a Big 5 publishing deal)
[Introduction conveying my credentials, my self-explanatory title, and my excitement] I’m a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Guardian, and many others, with a narrative nonfiction book idea that I’m very excited about. The working title is U up? A social history of online dating.
I’d be thrilled if you’d consider it. Below please find a summary of the project, a paragraph about me, and a selection of my work. I have a full proposal, including a sample chapter, that I’d be happy to send over.
Summary: U Up? A social history of online dating
[Hey, this matters! a.k.a The Stakes] We are living through a relationship revolution, and it’s a much bigger deal than we’ve made it out to be. Online dating is the most popular way American couples meet. “No one goes to a bar to find the love of their life. It’s increasingly hard to date at work because of HR rules,” online dating coach Eric Resnick told me. It’s difficult to casually approach a stranger, with everyone’s eyes on their phones and ears covered by headphones. Gen Z does not know a world without Tinder. And now, AI is helping people chat with prospective dates. How did we get here, and how, exactly, are we navigating this new way of finding love?
[The book’s basic approach:] My book will answer these questions, putting the experiences of regular daters at the forefront. It will be a social history of online dating around the world, starting in the 1960s – yes, that’s right, the 1960s – and going up until today. [Why now?] It’s the right moment to collect these stories: In 2022, Tinder turned 10. In 2025, Match.com will celebrate 30 years since its launch.
[Fun narrative anecdote that exemplifies the approach:] U Up? will follow people like Larry Dilg.
When Larry was a sophomore at Amherst College in 1966, stuffed in his mail-room cubby he found a pamphlet inviting him to join a new dating service. Run by a couple of Harvard students, “Operation Match” would use an IBM 7090 computer to find Larry a perfectly compatible date. It sounded completely futuristic. He’d never even seen a computer — which at the time took up an entire room — let alone use one. Still, with no girls around at the all-male school, he was intrigued enough to fill out the pamphlet’s questionnaire. He obsessed over how to answer the questions, which asked what religion should his date be, whether he was “sexually experienced,” about his SAT scores, and his family’s income. But when Operation Match sent him back what was supposed to be a list of “perfect matches,” there was only one name on it: Mimi Kennedy, a first-year at Smith College, which was just down the road from Amherst.
“I looked her up in the freshmen book from Smith. And there was Mimi Kennedy from Our Lady of Mercy High School.’Oh my god, it's a nun! That's not what I asked for!’ I didn't call her because I thought I obviously did something way wrong in filling out [the questionnaire],” Larry told me.
Larry played in a rock-n-roll band. Larry wanted to get laid. Mimi was an inexperienced Catholic school girl. Naturally, in a rom-com-like twist, a tumultuous several years later, they ended up getting married.
[The opening anecdote’s relationship to the rest of the book] Larry and Mimi’s romance is one of the few glimpses we have of a tech-mediated relationship that has lasted a lifetime. Will those who meet on Tinder have similar arcs to their love stories? Because Larry and Mimi’s experience wasn’t all that different from that of the dating app users of today. The stakes were low, the convenience was the point. Larry immediately made an assumption about Mimi and dismissed her, and he did so as unceremoniously as swiping left on someone with the taco emoji on their Tinder bio (taco = boring, unimaginative). At the same time, it was clear that there was something powerful and enticing about the matchmaking power of a computer. It wormed itself deep into Larry’s thoughts, and did lead him to Mimi eventually. To this day, the two think about why that ancient computer matched them up.
[Coming back to The Stakes, teasing the argument, and completing the historical arc] Half a century later, Kevin, a 30-year-old software developer in Brooklyn, is looking for love via his phone screen. He’d prefer to meet “the one” in person, fall head-over-heels for someone “across the room.” But he calls that a “fairy tale.” He’s a gay man who grew up in a small town on Long Island and although he doesn’t love using them, dating apps have been a mainstay in his life for a decade.
“What's the alternative? Meeting someone at a bar? Getting set up with — and this is a thing especially in the gay community — with a friend of a friend who the friend has clearly already slept with? I wasn't out in high school, there weren't many gay people around, so I didn't really get any of those teenage romances. I never dated until it was online. That's how I was introduced to dating. And so, if I'm single, I'm always going to be involved in it.”
[The following 300 words lay out my argument. This is probably the crux of my letter, but I’m not sharing it publicly because a) my book isn’t out yet b) the argument may change c) every book will have its own argument! The important thing to note here is that YOU MUST HAVE ONE, either in the form of a clear throughline, or a clear takeaway. Read more about the importance of argument here.]
[Here I sum up my fascination with the subject, evident in the word echo that upon rereading makes me want to die. I also sum up what the book will look and feel like] How people find their way in this world is fascinating, and U Up will explore just that. The book will preserve user voices, with their language, charm and views shining through, while adding the fascinating broader social and technological context for each era and facet it discusses.
[I end the book summary with two short sentences conveying what the reader will get out of reading the book, and with one line suggesting who will be the audience for the book by mentioning comparative titles, in my case “fans of” a specific book and two newspaper columns].
About me:
[My book is fun, so I start with fun, then I move on to fancy names in my work history. This section is meant to underline why I am the right person for this project] My husband and I both lied on the questionnaire for the dating app OKCupid, and yet here we are, eight years strong, three years married. So that’s my personal connection to the topic. As for the professional one: I’m an independent reporter with more than a decade's experience in journalism, including staff positions at Quartz and The New York Times. My work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Guardian, NBC News, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Elle, AARP magazine, and others. I’ve covered a variety of topics, from the US campaign trail to a Gilmore Girls fan festival, but in recent years I’ve focused on gender issues and on how people use and abuse the internet. Below please find several examples of my work, including multiple pieces on online dating. A larger selection of clips is on my website.
[Including these for your inspo] Selected clips:
Before There Was Tinder – excerpt of my reporting for U Up, New York Magazine’s The Cut
The online dating beauty filter trap – reported column, NBC News
The complete guide to the online dating industry – explainer, Quartz
There’s a global movement of Facebook vigilantes who hunt pedophiles – longform feature, Quartz
Why Are We So Obsessed with Momfluencers? – book interview for Elle
Do teens use Facebook? It depends on their family’s income – feature, Quartz
The World Hasn’t Figured Out How to Stop ‘Revenge Porn’ – feature, Foreign Policy in collaboration with The Fuller Project
Being an influencer is much harder than it looks – part of a reported series for Quartz
[That’s it! I’d end with some sort of “Thank you for reading and your consideration!”]
Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!
I’m in the process of prepping a memoir, and CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THIS 🫶.
(Truly, it has felt impossible to find any samples that aren’t for commercial fiction)