Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I have a question about whether to include something in my query letter and would very much appreciate some input. I am a journalist in Washington and, after finishing my novel, I sent it to some of my colleagues at different media outlets (I wanted to make sure to not only let friends and family read it to get objective feedback).
They all very much liked the book and several of them have committed to writing a favorable review when it is published.
Since platform does matter, should I mention this in a query letter? If so, should I go into great detail ("I have received firm commitments from colleagues representing publications and websites with a readership of over 10 million per month") or be more vague ("several colleagues who have reviewed the book already have pledged to write favorable reviews when it is released")?
Thanks for the help!

Hmmm, I don't know that I'd mention this. A lot of people query agents with commitments of this nature, but there's a lot that can happen between a book being queried and coming out and being reviewed so it's all pretty tentative. I'd just mention that you have a lot of contacts in the journalism world, which could result in greater review attention. But even still potential reviews are pretty far down the list of factors that go into an agent's decision, so I wouldn't oversell it. The work itself is much more important.