Netiquette for E-Queries by Sharon Pettis

E-queries are wonderful, at least I used to think, until I became the receiver of them. You can fire off simultaneous submissions to as many emails at one time as your mail client will allow. Forget studying the magazine, getting the correct contact name of the editor, or even finding out what kind of articles the magazine publishes. If I send out 200 queries  a week I should have a ton of assignments...right?

(Insert hysterical laughter here.)

If you are not laughing, this probably because you are up to 400 queries a week and still don't have any work. You have been sending email after email and cannot seem to garner a single assignment. You may be a highly competent writer, an expert in the field of night-blooming tulips, but Foresters Online probably won't be interested in your article. Neither will Dog World, or Writer Online for that matter. E-queries may save you a couple of stamps, but they are a complete waste of time if you are shooting them off to the wrong people. Unfortunately, the same rules of snail mail queries apply to e-queries as well.

Don't feel bad. While I am not an expert in night-blooming tulips, I made the same mistake. Then I volunteered to read e-queries for a writing website. It broke my heart to reject queries on domestic violence, an essay on a favorite pet, and the Columbia space shuttle disaster. Most of these were well-written, but our readers want to read writing about writing.

Web magazines are not very different from their print counterparts. They have a highly targeted audience, and sophisticated tools to find out what kind of subscribers they are attracting. And editors at e-zines are just as concerned with you getting the spelling of their 27,000-letter last name right as their cousins at print publications.

So how do you go about crafting an e-query that will knock your editor's socks off? Read on for ten terrific tips that will rocket you to internet celebrity status (maybe):

1. Read the articles on the front page and a couple from the archives. Just like you would study a print magazine, you need to read through the articles on the website to determine the overall style and tone the publication.
2. Look for an “About Us” or “Contact Us” page. You can usually find links to these pages at the very bottom of the home page. These pages will contain (if you are lucky), names and email addresses of staff members, and sometimes even writer's guidelines. Others will have a form to fill out and submit that is delivered to a general email address.
3. When emailing a general email address (info@myfavoritemag.com), ask for writer's guidelines and the correct contact information for the person who should receive it. These email accounts are usually checked by a lower level staff member who will either forward your info to the appropriate party, or answer with the information you are looking for. You don't want your query to get lost in the mix, so just send requests for contact info to these addresses.
4. When sending your e-query, format it as you would a query you send via postal mail. Sending an e-query does not mean that you can address the editor by their first name or ignore all conventional rules of grammar. You want to appear professional, no matter what the mode of communication.
5. Do not send any attachments unless requested! Editors are very virus-conscious, and if they receive an email from someone they do not know, they are likely to delete it.
6. If you get a reply, be sure to include the text of the email they sent you. Editors communicate with so many people on a regular basis they often have trouble keeping track of who is who. This way you can be sure you are both on the same page.
7. Check your email frequently. Editors who respond promptly hate writers who don't return the favor. They want to know that their response is important to you; taking two weeks to respond will make them think twice about your ability to meet deadlines.
8. When negotiating deadlines, try to build in a couple of extra days for technical problems (email, computer c rashes, etc.) When you turn in your assignments early, editors will be sure to use you when they need to fill space in a pinch.
9. When it comes time to sign a contract, know your rights. For more information about rights, check out www.writing-world.com/rights/index.shtml. The world of online rights is very different for those of you who have written for print publications exclusively. The link above tells you what to look for.
10. Don't forget to hit the spell-check button before the send button! Many email clients now have this feature, which can save you major embarrassment over a simple typo.

This article first appeared in the March 25 edition of Writer Online and in SynergEbooks News Flash.