If you haven’t yet finished your queries, please continue to leave your requests and rejections!
But also, please note a programming change: I’m changing the deadline to Saturday night Pacific time, at which time I’m going to close the query threads so I can start compiling some stats. Monday morning I’ll reveal which queries were for books that went on to be published and reveal the Superstar Agents.
Now then. When I announced the contest I really had no idea how this would go. I thought there was a chance people would only make it through five queries and think “This is hard,” or people would breeze through all 50 and think, “Is that all?”
So. For those who have already ventured into the land of agentdom, how was it? Was reading through 50 queries easier or harder than you thought it was going to be?
(And allow me to brag that I made it through 76 real ones yesterday.)
Nathan, you evil bastard, stop supplying me with interesting, time-consuming ways to procrastinate!
This was hard, man. I had to concentrate and think and everything and given the state of my brain cells that aint easy.
Seriously, this was hard and I kept finding myself turning nasty just like those little brats in Lord of the Flies.
Word Ver: dogicali. Any of you west coasters loose a pooch?
“Compared to negotiating ownership of intellectual property…”
isn’t that exactly what an agent does?!
I chose about the same–but only because I’ve done some work that’s similar to going through slushpiles, and since I find agenting so interesting, I knew what I was getting into! That said, I thought I would have an easier time figuring out where my accept/decline point would be; I got caught up in thinking about how and where I could sell different books, and I ended up with a preliminary spreadsheet of 9 to request and 14 queries that I marked as maybe because I found them interesting…until I didn’t. Now I’ll go back to the 9 I picked out for manuscript requests and I bet the final five will be much easier to see this time around.
I haven’t checked the submission guidelines, if there were any, for these queries, and I ignored anything that I could reasonably excuse as a faux pas in favor of focusing on what the author said about the books. While it’s not exactly standard, the first few pages of the story helped me quite a bit. I know queries are hard to write, and when I was undecided at the end of the query, the first few paragraphs usually cemented my decision. I definitely felt better about my decisions, at least.
And now I’m off to start in on my responses!
Thanks for hosting this. It’s definitely been a great learning experience.
I expected it to be as hard as it was, but it still gave me insight into the process, how it works, and how it feels to read all those queries.
It was an exercise in empathy. Writing is also an exercise in empathy, on some level, and reading is too.
I finally made my choices, replied to every query with slightly personalized responses, and I am exhausted! Not sure where I should list my choices, but here they are…
I requested full manuscripts for the following queries:
# 2 – SHIMMERING DESTINY
# 9 – IF IT AIN’T BROKE
# 10 – ON ONE HAND
# 17 – INUGAMI
# 39 – THE COPYCAT KILLER
If I hadn’t been limited to five manuscripts, I would have requested more.
I noticed a few people thought the sample pages were a better tool to decide whether they should accept or reject, to the point where they thought maybe the queries aren’t necessary at all.
I can understand that. I mean, the sample pages can tell you if the author can write or not. But without the query, there’s no way to know if the story is sellable. All the writing skill in the world won’t help if the novel is about a young orphan whisked away from his hateful aunt and uncle to become a wizard in a magical land…
Anyway, if it were me, I’d want both.
Often wanted to tear my hair. or throw something.
But I notice that after a while you get the hang of things.
And spelling, grammar and punctuation matter the world.
OOooh no. I think I made a mistake when I was putting everything together and I missed one that I meant to say yes to! (I forgot to bold it on my spreadsheet, lol!). Marilyn posting the title just reminded me that I meant to choose it!
Can I go back and delete my rejection/request and swap it over? Or would that be against the rules?
Man, being an agent is confusing sometimes!
Here’s my experience … you just get a kind of word fatigue; each bad sentence is a blow on a bruise. You wind up passing at the first mention of fairies or werewolves or a story that will change you awareness of this or that forever. You get jaded and mean. Good stuff jumps out, but there isn’t much of it and it has to jump high and fast to get your attention.
I wound up not finishing … not really caring if I was right about the trucker book or the CAT scan guy got published, though just for the record those are my two most likely candidates, and neither one of them was fiction.
73 in one day. You must have a mutant power, dude. Use it only for good. Or … or — maybe you’re a fairie or a wizard or something, and someone will write a really really bad book about your adventures. I sure hope not.
Re: “And spelling, grammar and punctuation matter the world.”
ROFL! Please tell me that was on purpose.
It’s kinda fun but I’m not doing this 365 days a year.
However if you had my job anything would be better.
🙂
It was definitely harder the first day. I couldn’t believe I was really going to do this exercise with so many other pressing things to do, but I made a commitment to finish. The second day was easier, and I became quicker with my rejections and more choosy about my asks.
One thing I’m getting more of a sense about is the ‘voice’ of a character in a query. I could never quite figure out how to get the voice across in a letter about the story before. After reading just 25 letters, a glimmer of awareness is forming in my brain and I’m so glad I decided to do this. Thanks, Nathan!
I’m starting this contest out a bit later than most, but I have found it very educational as I am in the process of writing my own query letter. I just want to thank you for giving us this opportunity. More than anything I have found it quite entertaining! I had a harder time with the rejections than the requests for a manuscript. There were so many that COULD be good, but the query just didn’t pull me in.
Much harder.
Details of my thoughts about this are here.
The reader’s digest version:
1) There are a hundred ways rejection does not equal bad work.
2) Standing out is tough when the crowd is so big.
Thanks for this. I feel I have achieved enlightenment (well… in this area, anyway).
Harder, because I had a lot of trouble leaving comments. It wouldn’t let me sign in after the first one and I got kicked out several times.
The Premios Dardos Award
For You:
https://bookworm-megs.blogspot.com/2009/04/april-blogging-day-16.html
I’m not finished going through all the queries yet. So far it’s been an incredible learning experience. I like reading others’ queries…seeing the scope of ideas as well as the various styles of query letters. I’m a little disappointed in some of my fellow agents-of-the-day. Most are very polite and respectful. However, some of the comments are downright hateful…Mr. Snark, I’m especially thinking of you. Maybe you’re trying to be witty, but it comes off as childish and malicious. It took a lot of guts for people to post their queries. Let’s be respectful of that.
Thank you for running this, Nathan. Some of the weaknesses of my own query letter are now quite apparent. These 50 queries and the feedback offer some great lessons.
Nathan (aka- agent all the time),
This was a blast- thank you for running this contest. May the best “Agent for a Day” win!
To get through the queries, I read all 50 of them once. If they “hooked” me or got me in some gut level way- I put the number of the query down on a post it note.
The others that hit me wrong (for whatever reason) I posted a form rejection letter.
I went back to the numbers I listed on my post it note- (eight intrigued me) then re read them all, and then narrowed down my choices and sent five a full request. This was what seemed to work for me.
I can not wait to see the results (on Sunday?)
Thank you again for this fun challenge.
Sincerely,
Lois Lavrisa
Your Agent for a day
2 eye-opening things for me:
1) I honestly thought the publishable, “real” successful queries would be instantly detectable – that they would just sparkle like stars in a coal mine or something. They didn’t!
2) I thought it would be easy to reject everything and focus only on the ones I really ~loved.~ Except:
a) I didn’t fall in love with any of these based on the query alone.
b) There was only one query that made me absolutely sit up straighter and think yes yes yes THIS, this is what I want – and I wound up rejecting it, after a painful process of deliberation.
Because what I was reacting to was the intention behind the concept, not the concept itself, or the way it was presented to me.
That was a painful moment.
But it really drove home for me how important the query is. No matter how in love an agent is with your idea, if you can’t show them that 1) you can write and 2) you have a fully formed and logically realized work, it can’t succeed.
I STILL want to do this every day. 😀
________
Bookshop’s final request list:
#9 – (urban YA)
#20 – (personal memoir)
#27 – (dystopian YA)
#36 – (women’s literary)
#38 – (YA fantasy)
Anon @ 11:36pm:
[“Compared to negotiating ownership of intellectual property…”
isn’t that exactly what an agent does?!]
Not as I understand it. The author retains ownership rights, what is negotiated are the rights and rates for the distribution of the work.
The agent must first find a suitable buyer for those rights, and then must negotiate favorable terms.
Nathan can probably add a lot of clarity to that if I’m off base…
Thanks for putting this up, Nathan. I’ve spent the day flicking through, and although I haven’t played agent so far it’s been a useful afternoon.
I’m impressed at the high standard. One or two writers seem a little young and not quite ready for publication (that isn’t meant to be the fob-off it sounds like), but there were none of the lame ducks, pseuds, or nutters I’d expected. Conversely, there weren’t many that I was desperate to read more of, but that says more about my tastes – I’m not one for genre fiction – than the queries themselves. Fighting through the slush pile really is a subjective thing.
Doing this also made me think of my own novel, and any potential queries I may write, in a more detached way. That’s very useful.
With wanting to give the authors the benefit of the doubt–and trying to ascertain which were “real” books that had sold!–it was time-consuming and required some thought. But overall, it was easier to decide than I thought it might be. This wasn’t so much because the queries were so poor (I made allowances for the fact that most authors hate to write queries!) but because a lot of them were GOOD…but NOT QUITE THERE.
Those “good, but not quites” are enough to keep anyone guessing!
But overall, Nathan, this was FAR too much fun. I enjoyed it immensely.
Janny
I never thought it was easy, so I voted “about the same”. The biggest issue for me was the scrolling (my computer started acting wonky) and that my Open ID stopped working. I will say that it was time-consuming though, more so than I would have thought. I do understand why most agents don’t provide feedback – sometimes not for me means just that.
That was fun. Seriously fun. But I have no qualms sending a form reject (as a pretend agent) or being on the receiving end of one (as a writer). I thought it was great how often my mind was made up after the first paragraph – and even better when I didn’t want to stop reading until the very end!
I can’t even begin to express how much fun I’m having doing this. I wish it were my full-time job.
I’m not done yet, what with another full-time job keeping me busy most of the day, but I will say this – I found myself skipping past first paragraphs a LOT. people felt such a need to explain why I had this letter in my hand, and I just wanted to shout “tell me about the story already!” I wasn’t expecting to be quite so strongly opinionated on that front.
I also have found that I know right away if I want to reject a story. It’s deciding if I want to request pages that’s harder. Even so, I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made so far.
I thought this was a GREAT activity. I can’t wait to find out which ones are going to become published! I would also love to learn more about being an agent–and specifically how to become an agent. Perhaps a future blog topic?
Ok, sorry–
I totally spaced out on the “how about a blog post about how to be an agent” comment I just posted. I just found it in your FAQ. Please disregard that portion of my previous post. I must have blinked and missed it (probably a result of reading and posting on 50 queries right before!)
Thanks so much for this opportunity. My concern is that I would start off being too generous and burn up all of my available requests. What I found was that I really could tell, in a skim, what appealed to me and what didn’t. Not necessarily what was the best or the worst, but what I could get behind with enthusiasm.
I was surprised at how annoyed I became at any query that was long enough to require scrolling. I have a big monitor, and any query that fit on the screen in one piece made me less frowny.
I put myself on a time limit and queries that intrigued me I placed in a MAYBE pile. Sixteen of the 50 wound up being MAYBE. But even when I grabbed the 7 that really jumped out at me, when I started analyzing them, I’m having trouble picking 5.
For me the problem is deciding whether there is a market and whether a good idea with a so-so query is going to work. Only one jumped out as a must have.
Another couple that were really well written queries are just subjects I can’t get the energy to care about, but I know they will do well on the market. I wouldn’t rep them as an agent because they don’t fit my style, but for this contest I wonder if I should include them.
Does that make sense?
Hi, Nathan,
I had a TON of fun, but also definitely learned how hard it is to be selective when you have a handful of “good” queries on your hands, and have to pick the truly great. That made my palms sweat, let me tell ya!
Blasting through the queries was easier than I expected, and much more enjoyable, but then the narrowing it down was what destroyed my mind. Also, I didn’t have the heart or stamina to give individual critiques, and used a generic, pleasant form letter. I get it now in a way I didn’t quite understand before.
I blogged about it, too (https://rebeccaknightbooks.blogspot.com/)–it made a huge impression on me.
You should definitely do this again some time! It’s great to have a reality check every once in a while, and it makes us appreciate things from the agent’s perspective ;).
Thanks again!
Easier, but only because I used to be an editorial intern at a publishing house and thus spent all day, every day reading the slush pile. It’s definitely hard work!
The hardest part was having a strict limit of five, because I was always worried I’d use them up and then find better ones. However, I only ended up requesting three, so I guess it worked out all right.
This was super educational for me. After reading through all these, I’m glad I’ve ever had a positive response to a query! Wow. Maybe it’s called the slush pile because it turns your brains to slush after awhile? I did find myself rejecting some right off the bat, without reading all the way through.
Nathan,
I would be a horrible agent. You’re amazing. I wished all of them had included the first 5 pages. Some contained ideas I loved, but writing I didn’t love.
…and then it all starts to blur…
-Rain
I actually really enjoyed it. My querty was one of the 50, so I got a great deal of helpful feedback, and I also saw what separated mine from the ones I would choose, especially how much tighter they were. It was about as hard as I figured it would be. I teach, so I know all about the time it takes to go through a stack of stuff and evaluate it. I tried to stick to what I thought could have a market, but I doubt I got all the published ones (think I got at least one, but no more than that).
I took #10, #25, #27, #38, and #46.
I know very little of the YA market, but a few just sounded like something my students would dig.
Keith Champagne
I selected #9, 10, 17, 36, and 48.
i chose #21, 25,34, 35, and 49
from agent Backdoor Trojan
Suzuki Volkeswagon reporting for duty.
I selected queries 37, 27, 26, 12, and 10.
This is agent Katalina Marie and I chose numbers 12, 27, 32, 45, and 46.
Agent Aisling Richards
Selections: 6, 15, 45, 46, and 48.
I thought this exercise was a great idea. I really enjoyed being able to see what agents have to go through on a daily basis. It definitely gave me a look at the other side of this industry and I definitely loved taking part in this!
Agent AM
Selected #14, #20, #24, #35, #42.
This was a great experience! But definitely much more time-consuming than I’d originally expected.
Agent Manny filer,
I chose queries 6, 27, 33, 45, and 49
Agent Quintus Blackburn
I chose #’s 17,29,33,35, and 36
This contest was really fun, and it showed a hopeful writer a look into the business of finding an agent! Being an agent is very tedious!
I have chosen my five, #11, #17, #21, #27, and #48.
I really enjoyed the experience, but found the work to be very tedious. I respect those who do this kind of work day in and day out.
Again, I appreciated the experience and I hope to one day get a chance to participate in another ‘Agent for a Day’ event.
Have a nice day,
Veronica Lovette
Agent Jackie Moon
I thought this was kind of fun, but harder than I expected. The ones I thought would be published were:6,18,33,35,and 48.
9, 20, 23, 30 and 35
This was hard! I enjoyed the chance to do what you do ;3
Scarlett Cyrus
Pepe Habanera
I have choosen numbers
9 17 20 33 & 37
I really enjoyed this excersise
Happy Gilmore
This was a fun activity and i appreciate you taking your time to do this for us. I chose 6,21,27,23, and 48.
The query-looking-through itself was about the same, but it took more time than I expected.