Dear Miss Snark,
I am a literary agent at one of the larger New York agencies (boy, we literary agents love you and your campaign against nitwittery!)
My firm does accept email queries, and I've noticed an annoying, and in my opinion, totally nitwitted trend among query writers recently (I wonder if you're noticed it, given that you don't accept email queries).
I get over a hundred queries a week. Many of the email queries I get sound eerily familiar, as though they're being generated by some kind of automated query program, that inserts one's name, title and synopsis. Perhaps there is some universal form available on the internet being heralded as THE form to use for queries. Each of these supposedly unique queries has same tone, phrasing, salutations and even charming little jokes!
Needless to say, it's quite off-putting to see that writers pitching the singular uniqueness of their novels would use a form or a program that makes every project sound identical. These form queries are a terrible turnoff!
I go through my queries 50 or so at a time, and it becomes so tiresome to receive these that at a certain point I just issue a form rejection without even reading the letter.
I know queries are hard to write and mind-numbingly boring, but what does it say about you or your project if you can't even summon up the enthusiasm to write your own query letter?
Yes, queries have a basic structure. They will all inevitably sound similar. But when they have the same exact wording as 20 other queries in my pile, they get filed directly in the trash bin.
Somewhere in the Snarkives is a post about a company that for a "small fee" will email "select agents" with the great news that you! have! a! novel! just! for! them!. I think this might be what we're seeing here. No more than junk mail gets your attention, does junk email get an agent's.
There are some good places to get advice on how to write a good equery. Sending a query via electrons doesn't mean you switch your brain to Off. And why you'd PAY someone to send form equeries that get tossed is beyond me.