To sell a novel, you’re usually best off getting an agent. To get an agent, the first step is the “query letter.”

A query letter is your mountainous labor of love distilled down into a couple of paragraphs. But not just any “couple of paragraphs.” It has to be a couple of paragraphs that grab an agent’s interest, raise the possibility that you’re a good writer, and plant the idea that your book may have a market.

Also, it can’t set off any danger bells. You can’t come across as desperate (“if this novel doesn’t sell, it’s all over, and I’m taking at least 46 people with me, right after I eat the last saltine in my cupboard”) or hopelessly amateurish (“you’ll notice a lot of spelling errors in my manuscript, but I promise I’ll clean them up in draft #2”).

Alas, some of those danger bells can’t be taught, because nobody knows what they are except the agents themselves, and although they will happily share their information with you there’s no way of ensuring you’ll stumble over it in time.

This is experience talking. About two weeks ago, after I’d sent off some eight e-queries that described my novel as “chick lit,” I came across this blog entry by agent Kristin Nelson. Turns out there’s a shake-down going down in chick lit right now. Chick lit was hot. Now it’s not. And none of those queries resulted in so much as a nibble.

Fortunately I hadn’t broadcast that query to every agent in the known universe. So I revised it to describe my novel as “commercial women’s fiction.” Also fortunately, that description isn’t a stretch. My novel has a chick litty voice, but doesn’t fit into the genre 1:1. No mentions of clothing by brand name, it’s not set in NYC or London, and my protagonist is an animal control officer, not an office employee. Oh, and her best friend isn’t a gay male. ( “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” lol)

Since I made that revision, I’ve queried another five agents, and of those, I’ve received two requests for partials (first 40-50 pages and a synopsis). I can live with those odds :-)

That said, lest I tempt fate, let me quickly add: I’m still a long, long way away from getting an agent at all, let alone seeing this novel in print. But based on my experience, I’d say that with a query letter, you need to walk a fine line between giving specific information about your project and pigeon-holing it in a way that may work against you. If your novel fits neatly into a particular genre, by all means, say so. You don’t want to bother agents who aren’t interested in selling that type of book. But if you can stick to more general categories, you may increase the odds that you’ll at least get a few pages of your ms into the door. Which is what a query letter is supposed to do.