Successful Queries: Elisabeth Weed and “A Killer Wedding,” by Joan O’Leary
Find Joan O’Leary’s successful query to agent Elisabeth Weed for her debut novel, A Killer Wedding; plus, Weed’s thoughts on the query.
Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. In this installment, find a query letter to agent Elisabeth Weed for Joan O'Leary's debut novel, A Killer Wedding, as well as Elisabeth's thoughts on what worked in the query and Joan's thoughts on the submission process.
Joan O’Leary was a producer at The Tonight Show and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of San Diego. She’s recently taken an NYC sabbatical and currently lives in Abu Dhabi with her husband—who yes, she did marry in an Irish castle, but the similarities end there.
Here's Joan's original query:
Elisabeth,
It is so great to "e-meet" you! I understand from Martha that you have kindly expressed interest in reading my novel, A Killer Wedding. I am thrilled for the opportunity to share my work with you and would like to thank you in advance for your time. Given your impressive career and roster of talented authors (I love Meg Mitchell Moore!) I know your feedback will be hugely helpful to me.
A Killer Wedding centers on Christine, a New York City reporter for the cult bridal magazine Something Borrowed assigned to cover a high-profile destination wedding in Ireland. However, her real mission (hidden behind the fluff piece) is to break the story about a scandal involving Gloria Beaufort, the groom's iconic grandmother and the billionaire founder of the beauty brand GLO. At least, that was the plan before Gloria is found dead in her suite on the first night of the wedding weekend. To everyone's surprise, Gloria's grandson and his fiancée decide to push ahead with the festivities despite her suspicious death. The only way Christine can convince the family to let her stay and cover the weekend is if she agrees to steer clear of any...controversial... event coverage. Christine quickly agrees to this (with her fingers crossed behind her back). Can she unmask a murderer by asking questions about custom cocktails while teetering in eight-inch Jimmy Choos? She's going to try.
My novel aims to playfully skewer the excesses of modern wedding culture, keeping readers equally amused and horrified – kind of like most best man speeches! One reader observed that the novel blends the biting wit of commentary à la Miranda Priestley in Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada with the intrigue of a classic whodunit like the hit television series, The White Lotus. Bella Mackie's How to Kill Your Family is also a great recent comp.
As a producer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon I have had the privilege of working alongside some of the funniest people in the entertainment industry. Through their mentorship, I have developed a witty, sarcastic, and (hopefully) entertaining voice. Like the perfect martini, the murder at the center of A Killer Wedding is extra dirty, sophisticated – and possibly a double.
Attached you will find my manuscript and other submission materials. I have also created an online portfolio to offer some insight into the inspiration behind the story. Please feel free to let me know if there is anything else you need from me.
Thank you very much for considering my submission. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Joan O'Leary Robinson
Check out Joan O'Leary's A Killer Wedding here:
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Elisabeth's thoughts on Joan's query:
There are so many things that appealed to me about Joan’s query. First off, it was professional and polite while also being warm and engaging. And now that I know Joan, I can say the same about the author herself.
Joan was able to pitch her novel in one succinct paragraph, giving me a sense of place and tone and plot without summarizing the book. In other words, it read a lot like jacket copy which is something I try to do when I am writing my own pitch letters for publishers.
Joan followed that original “pitch” with how she was thinking about the book—what the themes beneath the plot were, while also giving me marketable comps. She had obviously given this letter a lot of thought and done her homework. Finally, I appreciated her background in comedy writing as it’s incredibly hard to write a funny novel.
Joan's thoughts on the process:
Early in my querying journey, I was lucky to be put in touch with Martha Otis, president of a leading literary agency, who was kind enough to read my manuscript and offer her feedback. So let me start by saying this: Don’t be afraid to mine your network for publishing industry connections. You never know if you know someone, who knows someone, who might be able to help you get a foot in the door.
Lucky (again) for me, Martha was excited enough about A Killer Wedding to offer to make some agent introductions. It goes without saying that having an industry-insider vouching for me was invaluable during the querying process—but I still had to pitch myself and my book. So, onto that!
I tried to keep my query letter to my now-agent, Elisabeth Weed, punchy and buzzy with exciting comps. It was important to me that she got a sense of my voice on the page through my letter so I kept it funny and light, sprinkling in a little bit about my background. At the time I was pitching A Killer Wedding, I was a producer at The Tonight Show so I made sure to highlight this since I was trying to get representation for a dark comedy.
I’d also recently gotten married at a castle in Ireland (the setting of the book) so it felt natural to include that detail in my letter too. I did this more subtly though, by linking an online portfolio where, if curious, Elisabeth could read more about the inspiration behind the novel. Overall, It was my hope that through my query letter, I would be able to communicate not only why I wrote A Killer Wedding, but also why I was the right person to have written it.
That being said, I was very conscious about not writing another novel in letter form, haha—I’d already written a book that I wanted my potential agent to read! I knew a busy, successful agent like Elisabeth would appreciate a tight, succinct pitch. Luckily (a third time! I should have gone to Vegas!), I was right.
*****
From Elisabeth Weed: I’m currently on the hunt for thrillers with voice-y prose, sweeping family dramas, historical mysteries with a touch of magic, a great love story, or anything so scary that I must read into the early hours of the morning to see how it ends. I’m looking for high-concept manuscripts with a subversive premise or voice and a thimble full of weird. Some of my favorite books in the last 10 years are God of the Woods, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Life after Life, Bel Canto, and The Wedding People.