It should be easy. Write them a quick note, package up your manuscript and send it away – or simply email it. Unfortunately, most publishers (and most agents) don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts. They want you to query first.

Fine, you think. You can do it that way. So you read enough query guidelines that you can summarize the similarities between them without pausing for breath, and fire off a few queries.

All you get in response is one rejection letter after another.

What’s going wrong? It can’t be anything to do with your book, because none of the publishers – or agents – you’ve approached has even seen it. Have you misunderstood the query guidelines? Is there something you missed? Is the tone not quite right? Or what?

There have been entire books written on the art of approaching a publisher, but in essence, it boils down to one simple reality: publishers (and agents) are in business to make money.

The purpose of your query letter is therefore to convince them that they can make money from your manuscript.

It’s about persuasion, or sales. You have to give the publisher confidence in you and your book. You have to give the publisher no reason to doubt.

This means yes, do pay attention to the query guidelines. Don’t waste either the publisher’s time or your own by submitting a genre they don’t deal with. (You’d be surprised how many poetry and short story submissions we get at Nimblewords Books – even though the website quite clearly states we’re a specialist non-fiction publisher only. Even if it’s the best poetry the world has ever seen, from a business perspective we just don’t care. All it’ll get from us is a quick, impersonal rejection letter.)

Do make sure you spell the Editor’s name correctly, if they’ve mentioned this as a criterion. Do check your query for spelling and grammatical errors – because if you get it wrong in the query, the implication is that you’ll get it wrong in your manuscript as well.

Most importantly, though, focus on what the publisher is interested in: the market for your book.

That market isn’t “everyone”. That’ll get you nowhere. Do some research, and be specific. For example, if you’ve written a novel, what is the market for that type of novel? Is it a growing or shrinking market? What differentiates your book from others in the genre? In other words, how would your publisher market you?

If you’ve written a non-fiction book, is there an existing organization with a special interest in the topic? How big is that organization? Are you a member? What specific need prompted you to write the book? What are you competing against? If you can provide actual statistics that show a specific market for your book, and what the competition for your book might be, that would get any publisher’s attention; it would certainly get mine.

The other side of the equation is nearly as important. Who are you? What writing experience do you have? In other words, let the publisher know that asking for the manuscript is going to be worth their while. Ok, so there are books out there that look as if they’ve been written by a dyslexic chimpanzee, but the reality is that they are the exception. In general, you’ve got to know what you’re doing. List whatever writing credentials you have. And make sure whatever you submit is in the best shape it can possibly be.

And that’s about it.