Acceptable format for email queries?

[Sharon]

Hi everyone:

I have emailed some queries in the past to agents and would like again to do so, but . . .

When I copy and paste my query to the agent's website's email it doesn't look very professional. I can not adjust the double lines between my name, address, phone number, and date. The font is larger also with these which I can not adjust.

With this problem, should I not email to agents and only submit by snail mail? I read on one agent's website that she didn't mind what sort of format the submitted email arrived in.

Another question: In the email should I include the name of the agent, the agency, and their address just as I do in a snail mailed query? Or is this not necessary.

Finally: In closing an emailed query, should I put something like sincerely yours, with my name double spaced just below.

Thanks so much for all your help.

[Bernard Shakey]

(1) Don't worry about formatting. It's an e-mail: as long as it's legible, it doesn't have to look exactly like a business letter.

(2) I would definitely address the e-mail to the specific agent to whom it's directed, if that's what you're asking. In other words, don't send an e-mail addressed "Dear Agent." On the other hand, I don't think it's necessary to include the agency's mailing address.

(3) You should sign off just as you would with a conventional letter, except of course there's no signature.

[Gary Kessler]

I'm not sure I understand the problem. You should have pull-down menus on your e-mail that permit you to return everything to "normal" style (which will return it all to single spacing) and that will let you change the font and font size of highlighted ("select all") material.

The only real issue with e-mail is that you should flush-left every line and not try to indent the paragraph openings (of course there would be a single extra line between paragraphs in the single-spaced query).

[Olenska]

I have a related question: If I have the title in itallics in my query letter, should I switch to caps or quotation marks? The itallics don't transfer when you paste it into an email.

[Publius2]

That's what I do.

[Jackie Kessler]

The trick with e-queries is to make sure you don't have any styles set in your e-mail program. You don't know if the agent's e-mail program will recognize those styles. Ever get an e-mail where all the apostrophes wound up being commas, or some other such punctuation replacement? Blame a style that didn't get converted properly.

Don't worry about double spacing an e-query (or, for that matter, a hard-copy query).

And yes, use either underlines offsetting a title _Like This_ or better yet (in my opinion), cap the title LIKE THIS in an e-query.

[Ron]

Don't put any jumping clapping smiley faces on it.

[Ames]

Sharon, are you trying to cut and paste out of Outlook Express emails that you've already sent? I had one *heck* of a time, much as you describe, when I tried to do that many moons ago. I think I finally put that text into Word and saved it as a text file (.txt) to strip out all the invisible formatting that Outlook Express insisted on inserting in spite of my attempts to tell it to do otherwise. Then I could do what I wanted to with line spacing, etc. and had better luck pasting the text from the .txt file to wherever else I wanted it to go.

Good luck!

Ames

[Publius2]

Who uses outlook express anymore?

[katourah]

Publius 2: Just curious. What do YOU use?