How do I use AI to draft a query letter?
Plan, draft, edit and pitch the same book in one project.
Start writing free- AI can draft a query letter structure from your inputs.
- It needs your hook, comps, word count, and bio.
- Generic AI queries read as flat and formulaic to agents.
- Heavy revision into your voice is essential.
- Verify any facts (comps, agent details) AI includes.
Use AI to draft a query by giving it your hook, comp titles, genre, word count, and bio, and asking for a query structure. It assembles a serviceable draft fast. But agents read countless queries and spot generic, formulaic AI writing immediately, so heavy revision into your own voice — sharpening the hook, cutting clichés, adding personality — is essential. Verify any facts it includes (comps especially), and personalize each query yourself. AI gives you a scaffold; the voice and specifics must be yours.
Chapter i·Why it matters
The query is a high-stakes, hard-to-write document, and AI can break the blank-page problem by drafting a structure. But the danger is real: a query that reads as generic AI output signals a lack of voice and care to agents, hurting your chances in a competitive process. Understanding that AI provides only a scaffold — and that the hook, voice, and personalization must be heavily human — lets you use it to start faster without sending the flat, formulaic query that gets passed over.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Hook, comps, word count, and bio as input.
- A drafted query structure.
- Heavy revision into your voice.
- A sharpened, specific hook.
- Verification of comps and facts.
- Personalization per agent, done by you.
Chapter iii·Example
An author has AI draft a query from her hook, comps, and bio. The structure is fine but the voice is generic. She rewrites the hook in her own sharper voice, cuts the clichés AI added, verifies her comps, and personalizes the opening for each agent. The AI draft saved time; the revision made it a query an agent would actually respond to.
In WriteLoom
Stop running your query on a spreadsheet
WriteLoom keeps your hook, comps, and bio together, so an AI-drafted query is easy to revise into your own voice.
Not ready for a workspace yet? Get the free six-part series on winning the writing game: finishing drafts, editing in the right order, querying with real math, and launching on a runway.
Chapter iv·Related questions