First off, many, many thanks to reader Jim Duncan for this idea. I take no credit for it. (I wish I could though.)
Here’s the deal. The commenters who participated in Agentfail expressed quite a lot of angst about agents who don’t respond to queries. Lots of people think we should respond to every single person who queries us.
So. Want to see what it’s like to manage a slush pile for a day? Think you can spot the good queries from the bad? Wondering how the view looks from our side? Think it’s easy to respond to everyone?
Here’s how this will work.
1. If you’d like to volunteer a query for Be An Agent for a Day, please e-mail your entry to querycontest@gmail.com. It can be a real query or a fake query, but if it’s a fake query, please at least make it a stab at a real query rather than a parody. When you e-mail your query to querycontest@gmail.com you consent to have it publicly posted on the blog. It’s an opportunity for some valuable query feedback. (I probably won’t be able to use every volunteer’s query, so I apologize in advance.)
2. Published (or soon to be published) authors: I need you. I would love it if you would share some of your queries for your actually published books. Please tell me who you really are when you e-mail, but change your name and the title of the book in the query.
3. On Monday the 13th I will begin posting 50 queries throughout the day. (This is a light day. I’m letting you off easy.) I’ll automate them in advance to post sporadically throughout the day, so there will be bursts of queries and then dead periods. It would probably be easiest to track the blog through Google Reader or another feed reader to simulate e-mails coming into your inbox.
4. This is where you come in. You will read and respond to as many queries as you can. You will have one week to respond to all 50 queries. You can draft your own rejection letter and manuscript request letter (personalized or non-personalized, your choice), which you will paste in the comments section of each query. You might even provide some specific feedback to try and help the author if you’re feeling extra conscientious.
5. You may request no more than five manuscripts, because hey, you’re not going to have time for your clients if you request more than five manuscripts for every 50 queries.
6. For the purposes of this contest you are looking for queries that demonstrate publishable potential, not necessarily your genres of interest.
7. Now the fun part: we’ll see how good people are at requesting the queries for books that ended up being published. I’ll post the requested/rejected stats for the actually published books on Monday the 20th, and crown the Superstar Agents who request all of the actually published books. The superstars may win a special prize (provided there are not 7,000 winners). Also, if you volunteered your query, you can track your response rate and feedback to see how your query fares.
8. If you subscribe to the blog via e-mail you will need to click through to the blog to participate. DO NOT E-MAIL ME YOUR RESPONSES. I mean it, e-mail subscribers. You must leave your responses on the actual blog. I’m afraid I’m also not able to offer tech support.
9. I thought about being extra mean and making you also do things like compare contracts and follow up on submissions, but I realize people have day jobs as well. So I decided to make it just slush.
10. Keep in mind that the quality of the queries will be far, far better on average than we agents actually receive, because anyone who volunteers their query reads agent blogs and is thus way ahead of at least 50% of the people who query me. And I realize that some of the test queries may be for books that will subsequently go on to be published books. But still: try and spot the already-published ones.
11. Please don’t give it away when you see your query or if you recognize someone else’s. Just respond with a standard rejection or request.
Also a note about this week: Tuesday and Wednesday the blog will be dark as I’m off to Oklahoma to meet the good people at the University of Tulsa. Thursday I will hopefully post This Week in Publishing, and I’m off again on Friday. I’ll start posting the contest queries next Monday.
Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments section! As always, rules and regulations subject to change without notice.
Chris Eldin says
Oh, this sounds like a LOT of fun!!
Thanks for sponsoring this event!!
🙂
bukarella says
I’m game! How fun!
(Who needs to work anyway, eh?)
-Lyudmyla
Anna says
enjoy your travels! looking forward to next week’s entries…
jnantz says
I’m in. Query is on the way and I will be trying to respond to all 50 if I can.
ElanaJ says
What a fantabulous idea! I’m in!
Dara says
This sounds fun and stressful 😛 I’d like to play! Looking forward to next Monday!
PurpleClover says
Well I guess I should feel obligated to play since I was one of the *gulp* complainers.
But lord knows I’m already feeling inept.
I will get my form rejection typed up right away! lol.
PurpleClover says
Do we have set time frames we need to have the comments posted? Because I’m going to be in school two of the days with no access to blogger so I could get to them in the evening? Is that acceptable or does it have to be done 8-5?
Maya says
I’m excited to participate! I just discovered this blog and LOVE it… I submitted my query already and discovered that writing a query when I HAVEN’T finished a novel is a great exercise. (Haha… not that I tell you I haven’t finished in my fake query letter… and not that I would ever ACTUALLY query without finishing and revising the novel, so please don’t blacklist me, Nathan. 🙂
Maya
abc says
I am very sorry that you have to go to Oklahoma. Singing the songs from the musical might cheer you up, though.
Renee Collins says
Ha! I love that idea! Can’t wait to give it a try. 🙂
Anonymous says
Nathan –
Quick question. I’m considering submitting to this but my manuscript is not yet completed.
What’s your thought here? Could it do more harm than good or could the potential feedback/exposure help?
Serena C. says
I don’t usually comment here, as I am a lurker/learner, but this is such a great idea, I had to speak up and say so. I might have to try it, assuming I can find the time. May even submit a query of my own. At the very least, it will be a blast to watch!
Litgirl01 says
Clever! 😉
JuJu says
Nathan, a question:
Can we use our blog personas as our names in our queries if they’re fake?
I want to do that but I’m not sure whether that will be a source of criticism or not.
Nathan Bransford says
juju-
I’m redacting all names. And besides, if you used your blog persona people would be able to easily tell if it’s published or not.
Endless Secrets says
Hello Nathan,
So I was wondering if I should submit my real query into the mix, because I was planning on submitting it to your actual slush pile. So would it be unwise to toss it in?
Nathan Bransford says
I think it would probably be most useful for people who either are submitting the query for a work in progress or who haven’t yet begun the query process. You’ll get some instant feedback on your query and see if it generates any “requests”.
DeadlyAccurate says
Are you only posting one day’s worth of queries, or will you be posting 50 a day for a week? Because if it’s the latter, I’m going to work on my “closed to submissions” form letter. 🙂
I want to play, and I might even work on a pitch paragraph for the book I’m getting ready to hand off to my agent.
Nathan Bransford says
deadlyaccurate-
50 total, you’ll have a week to respond. I added a sentence to the main post which hopefully clarifies this.
Dorset Girl says
Nathan,
Er, for the published or soon to be published books, pasting pages might be tricky. It will give away the published ones and I’m not sure about the rights situation of pages being posted on the blog.
Any suggestions?
Nathan Bransford says
dorset-
People don’t have to send pages.
Jaime Theler says
What a *fabulous* idea!
Heidi C. Vlach says
Wow, this is a great idea. I’ll dig around and see if I have a saved copy of my first query letter somewhere!
Juliana Stone says
Sounds delicious Nathan!
Sally Apokedak says
sounds like fun!
two things:
1) To be a superstar agent you have to request the five pubbed, or soon to be pubbed, books. That suggests that what is being published is better than what is being rejected. Not always the case. Some great stuff is rejected.
2) since the quality of queries for this contest are going to be far better than what you get, the reading and sifting of them is going to be far harder than what it would be for a normal agent day. you can reject maybe 90% right off the top.
So I’m game, and I’ll try to pick the pubbed books, but I think you should throw a lot of dogs into the mix, too, so we can reject them fast.
Sally (whose form rejection finger is itching for a good workout)
Nathan Bransford says
sally-
Being an agent is not about making value judgments. What is selling is what is publishable in today’s industry. That’s the job of the agent, and that’s what people are looking for in the contest.
Also, there will be less than five published queries in there, so you won’t have to go 100% to be a superstar agent.
And yes, there will be some dogs.
Madison says
I would LOVE to do this! I’ve always wanted to be a literary agent because it’s a very hard and rewarding job, so yeah, I think I’ll join in on this. 😀
Anonymous says
Hi Nathan,
Are you interested in queries for books that got a reputable agent but which haven’t yet sold?
Sally Apokedak says
Thanks for the response.
I know successful agents have to pick what sells. I just really want to pick what I like best. Unfortunately I’m a dinosaur, and I usually don’t like what the rest of the world likes.
=0)
Rachel says
What a wonderful idea, Jim! Nathan, from reading the post and comments, I couldn’t quite tell…is there a deadline on submitting a query? My apologies if I missed that info. Thanks.
Casey McGill says
This sounds like an interesting contest! Best of luck to everyone out there with the huevos to pursue this endeavor. I go to the University of Tulsa (home of the Hurricanes…because we have those at landlocked states…) and can’t wait ’til Tuesday/Wednesday! Hope you have fun on our campus (and with our parking). See you uh…here?
Laura says
This is awesome. Can’t wait!
Furious D says
Cool contest idea, and very educational for writers.
And enjoy Tulsa. I read somewhere that it has a lot of interesting Art-Deco architecture.
Marilyn Peake says
Mira,
Here's how you make a link active…(Hope I can post this; sometimes all the instructions become an active link, just from typing in the commands):
First you write:
< a href=
…BUT DON'T LEAVE A SPACE BETWEEN < AND a.
Then you attach the actual link to that, leaving no space after the =.
Then, with no space after the link, you put in whatever name you want to appear, e.g. Come in Character Blog.
Then, with no space after the name, you add: < /a> … BUT WITH NO SPACE AFTER < .
And that's it!
Anonymous says
Nathan:
For ‘about to be published authors’ (contracted but not yet published), can we ssubmit our query but without wanting to read the queries? Sorry, but I just don’t have time to read the slush, but I wouldn’t mind submitting my query under fake name/title if you would like.
Thanks,
Author guy
Hilabeans says
Excellent contest!
Thanks for reading our posts and creating fun interaction opportunities. Also, thank you for providing a great example of how to build our platforms.
Have a safe trip to OK,
hhs
PS- Can the special prize be an internship and/or having you critique our completed mss?
Jen P says
Now showing on MediaBistro : GalleyCat – Agent for a week contest there goes any hope of you having a quiet week Nathan, good luck, safe travels.
MzMannerz says
LOL – sounds like a fun contest. I’m not doing it, though. 😛 I already have a job and am trying to write to boot, so I will trust that there are enough agents who know what they are doing (including you) that I don’t need to prove I could do it better. I am the reigning princess of enough territories. 😀
But it sounds fun and I can’t wait to see how everyone else does!
Rick Chesler says
Publishing industry article on CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/06/print.on.demand.publishing/index.html?iref=t2test_techmon
Marilyn Peake says
Mira,
Darn! I left out one of the computer commands in my previous post about how to make links active. Here goes, second try:
First you write:
< a href=
…BUT DON'T LEAVE A SPACE BETWEEN < AND a.
Then you attach the actual link to that, leaving no space after the =.
Then, with no space after the link, you type: >
Then, with no space after that, you put in whatever name you want to appear, e.g. Come in Character Blog … Spaces between words in your title are O.K.
Then, with no space after the name, you add: < /a> … BUT WITH NO SPACE AFTER < .
And that's it … I think. 🙂
Kristi says
What a cool idea…I would love feedback on my query so this will motivate me to finish it. Enjoy your time away this week.
Oh, thanks Nathan for sharing how to hyperlink a few weeks ago…I am so technologically impaired and was actually able to do it in my blog. I felt really smart for about 3 minutes! 🙂
Anonymous says
Here’s the above link enabled:
CNN Publishing Industry Article
Mira says
Marilyn –
Wow, thanks. I appreciate it – I’ll copy and paste is so I can use it.
Always wanted to know how to do that. 🙂
wickerman says
Sounds good.
Can;t wait to participate. However, if i do well, Nathan has to write a publishable book by Christmas to get the inverse experience 🙂
PurpleClover says
So Nathan – If it’s a success are you going to use this as a gateway tool for all your queries?? You know cut down on your inbox and let your readers make the decisions? haha.
Shannon Gugarty says
Very very interesting idea. Will get me some experience with writing my query (FORGIVE ME FOR MY SUCKY ONE NATHAN), but I can’t really do this. I… kind of have school and crap. Good luck to those actually playing, though! You will need it.
I’m guessing from your wishes on your query, I should include the first five pages. Sweet.
T. Anne says
Rick Chesler, enjoyed the article thanx!
Tumblemoose says
idea!
yet one more reason why you’re the rockinest…
George
Lea Schizas - Author/Editor says
I’d love to play, Nathan, but I already get tons of queries each day as submissions editor.