Query Metadata Do’s and Don’ts
What follows your summary? The metadata. This gives the agent the quick and dirty mechanical facts about your book in an order they’re used to.
Usually, this follows the format: “TITLE, a XX,XXX-word AGE RANGE, GENRE novel, is perfect for fans of YYY and ZZZ.”
In the metadata, your title is all in capital letters. You then follow with your word count (I round to the nearest 500 words) and then your age range and genre (i.e. adult fantasy, YA rom-com).
That last part, where you say “will appeal to fans of X, Y, and Z,” is called the “comps.” This will be covered extensively in a future post, because comps are their own beasts. For now, note that they’re books (or sometimes films or TV shows) that tell the agent what your book is like. Almost like you’re recommending a book to a friend, and saying “I’m doing it because you loved book X!” You should include the author name, and italicize (not caps lock) the titles.
The metadata is also where you would indicate anything unique about your book, like if there’s a special kind of representation coming from your personal experiences.
Finally, you include your author bio. This tells them a little about yourself, and any writing credentials you may have. For more on this, see this post on query bios.
What Doesn’t Count As Metadata?
How many of your friends and family have read the book, and loved it
How many copies you estimate it could sell in the future
Saying things like “this book is for people of a certain intellect” (seriously, I’ve seen this personally, don’t do this—it’s very offensive)
Saying negative things about the genre you’re writing in, like “this is better than all the other boring fantasy out there” (I have also seen this, and it is also offensive—don’t bash genres, or even worse, specific authors in your query).