Mail Merge How-To:

If you’re going to query a big batch of agents, you’ll want to get comfortable with the “mail-merge” function in Microsoft word/excel (it allows you to use a spreadsheet of names and addresses to produce hundreds of letters without having to type in each bit of information). Here's how:

Make an excel sheet of all the agents you are planning to query. This will become an extremely useful tool – not only will it enable you to rapid-fire generate and print out 100 query letters to different agents with the touch of a button, but it will also help you keep track of what agents have requested your proposal, and when. (The latter capability is highly necessary with the Blitzkrieg approach.)

If there are a few agents you’re particularly ecstatic about, BY ALL MEANS personalize a few of those letters. (Kiss ass all you want – mention a few of their other clients, whether you attended a conference they did, whatever. It might help catch an agent’s eye – but in my humble opinion and experience, not having kiss-ass in all those other letters is not going to make or break your chances of a positive response.)

A technical note about personalization: the MS Word mail merge function generates a new document with ALL of the letters, so once that document has been generated (and SAVED! Save often!) you can meddle with individual letters to your heart’s desire.

Back to the tech hints:

EXCEL SHEET

I know Excel can be a scary program, but what you’ll be doing is extremely simple, I promise.
Make 11 columns, titled:
Status, How Sent, Agency Name, Agent’s Name, Name with Title, Wants, Notes, Address L1, Address L2, Address L3, Additional Contact Info.

Columns 1, 2, 6, 7, and 11 are for your information.
Columns 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 are for the mail merge.

An example entry would be (each line break denotes a new column):

Requested proposal!
Snail mailed
Miriam Altshuler Literary Agency
Miriam Altshuler
Ms. Altshuler
Query and now proposal!
Likes Creative Non-Fiction with strong platform
53 Old Post Road North
Red Hook, NY
12571
845.758.9408 (no email given)


MAIL MERGE:

Draft your letter, leaving space wherever you want something that’s agent specific. I have put asides in [ brackets ] – but you’d just leave blank space there if you were actually drafting a letter for a mail merge.

E.g.,
--------------------
Miss Writes
10001 CyberSpace Drive
New York, NY
10001

[ agent’s name will go here]
[ agent’s address will go here]
[ address continued ]
[ address continued ]

Dear [ agent’s name will go here ],

I am writing to query you about my 500,000 word neo-blogospheric-narrative, Miss Writes.

[Etc.]

Warm regards,
[don’t forget to leave space and SIGN here!!]
Miss Writes
misswrites@misswrites.com (email preferred)
(911) 911-9111
-----------------

Once you have that letter drafted, go into the “Tools” drop-down menu. Select “Data Manager.” A new window should pop up: select your excel spreadsheet as your “data source.”
You can then drag your “merge fields” (which should come up as the titles of your excel spreadsheet columns – e.g., AgentName) into your document in the appropriate space you left.

Then MERGE, baby! (As new document.) Voila. You now have whole ream of beautiful letters, ready to be printed, stuffed, and sent off to agents.


PRINTING:

To print individual letters you must type “S1, S3,” for pages 1 and 3 since Word generates all of the different letters as individual sections (hence, S1).

(This took me about a half hour to figure out. Thanks, Bill Gates.)