Made My Day

I think I've mentioned here that I work part time at my local library (to help me stay sane--working at home, by one's self, when one is a naturally chatty person, is perhaps not the best plan). We have a wonderful library: great staff, great building, great programs, the works. It's a nice environment to spend part of my week in. It also helps me stay in touch with what people are reading, lets me promote books by the extremely promotable authors I know, and occasionally gives me a wonderful moment of the type that happened to me in yesterday's shift.

I was working at the desk that serves our DVDs, grahpic novels, and young adult sections. One of our regular teen patrons came up to the desk and asked, "Do you know if the new book by Alana Abbott is out?"

Do I ever! "That's my book," I said proudly, to a sort of blank look in response. "It's on display on the table."

I took her to it and handed it to her. "The first one was so good!" she said.

"Thank you!" I returned enthusiastically. She looked at me blankly again, and I said, "By my book, I mean I wrote it."

"Really?" she said in disbelief.

"Really," I said, showing her my picture at the back.

Her face dawned with recognition. "It really is!" she said excitedly. We chatted very briefly after that--she told me about a book she's working on that sounds pretty exciting as well.

It completely made my day.

Query (particularly for fangs_fur_fey people)

Since the fangs_fur_fey group did the wonderful hook contest, I figure they must also know something about query letters. If any of you could answer this--or post it over on fff for further input--I'd really appreciate it.

Back when I learned how to write query letters, it was recommended that you mentioned your audience. This typically meant the general ("adult fiction," "fantasy," etc.) as well as "readers who also enjoyed Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Tattoo" (as an example). Is it still a good policy to pick out books that will have a similar audience--particularly titles published by the publisher to whom you're sending the query--in your letter?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give!