To avoid incurring EPIC FAIL with your query, definitely read this post on Colleen Lindsay’s blog and all the links in it (even though I mentioned some of them before – read them again).
Somehow this makes me glad that I’m not at the stage of query-writing yet, so I have LOTS of time to research and polish my manuscript and then go bleed over it and polish it again. And again. But then again even your bestest and most-polishest manuscript is bound to fail if your query letter plain sucks. Ah, the hard truths of the publishing world. Isn’t it reassuring?
By the way, did I mention how I’d love to work in publishing despite the fact that I’d have to deal with epic query fails and the all-encompassing slushpile? Well, for now let’s just hope that Light will make it past all that 😉