The art of submitting a successful query seems to be balancing contradictions. I've become accustomed to seeing conflicting advice: open with an attention grabbing question versus never open with a question. Also, difficult to reconcile advice: strictly professional and just the facts versus sell yourself and don't be modest. Give a full plot summary versus attention grabbing back of the book jacket details only. I understand that different agents look for different things. That alone makes it important to tailor each query to the agent in question. If they want different things, no one letter can satisfy them all. I get that.
But now and then you find the absolute stark contradictions that make it difficult to even submit at all. On one agent's site, a page directed prospects to email only, as snail mail wasted trees. One click over, on the same site, was the injunction that said agent deleted all email, and queries must arrive by mail with a SASE.
I begin to understand why so many authors are considered insane.
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