Whew! All 50 queries have been posted. You’ll have until Sunday Saturday evening to complete the project in case you were tied up today.
Also, with this many comments it’s almost impossible for me to keep up — I need your help to combat the trolls. Please e-mail me any comments that you find inappropriate.
Most importantly: thanks for playing! What did you think of the contest? Please post your initial thoughts. We’ll be back throughout the week to discuss more.
Lois says
This is insane! I want to help answer each one with one comment. Get to the point, I don’t have all day!! ha ha. Thanks for this.
Jeanie W says
Wow, Nathan. Great contest. Thank you so much for taking the time to set it up.
I wish I could participate fully, but this is a busy week for me. I did read about twenty entries, enough to develop a tendency to quit reading queries that required any extra effort to decipher the writer’s meaning.
Kahlessa says
I’m a bookseller with one of the large chains and I found this contest intriguing. It’s fascinating to view the process that determines which books end up on our shelves. If the queries were for nonfiction books, I would have taken part (schedule permitting). As a bookseller, I find it far more difficult to recommend fiction than nonfiction. There’s so much subjectivity in what different readers consider a “good book”. One person’s pleasure is other person’s punishment.
So when customers ask me to recommend a “good novel”, I ask what titles they have enjoyed and try to find something that will fit. Sometimes I’ll ask a co-worker who seems to have similar tastes for suggestions. But I never tell a customer, “I know you’ll love this book.” That is not something I can guarantee.
Cat says
Well, I read 36 queries so far and I am totally exhausted. With my writing, 3 kids on easter holidays and a household to run I can’t do more than those. I requested 4 but didn’t keep track of the titles, sorry.
I got a whole new understanding of the workload of an agent and I learned that this definitely is not a job I’d enjoy doing. My side will always be that of the writer. But I do sincerely hope for an agent as devoted as you, Nathan.
Kristi says
I agree with Neil…I got to the point where I knew from the first sentence or two whether I was interested or not, and I often just skimmed the rest of it. This might be why I only ended up with 2 that I liked enough to request (10 and 27). Interesting contest.
Dara says
It’s great! And it really gives me an idea (at least on a very small scale) of what an agent has to do everyday.
I stopped yesterday right at the halfway point and I’m hoping to finish today. It definitely makes me appreciate what an agent does even more so than before.
Anonymous says
My query was one of the posted ones. Reading all the comments led to a sleepless night. I must need thicker skin.
My first reaction was to feel like I’d gone to an eighth-grade dance and not only did all the girls refuse to dance with me, but the boys dragged me out back and took turns beating the crap out of me. I found it’s hard to get that many rejections in one day.
There were many constructive comments and I took those to heart, even though some of the suggestions were contradictory. There were a fair amount of requests and that made me feel good. There were many replies where my reaction was, well, I’ll bite my tongue and wish they’d done the same.
Now to rewrite my query at least one more time.
Amethyst Greye Alexander says
Mr. Bransford,
It didn’t take me long to understand what agents mean when they say a large part of choosing to pass or request has to do with gut instinct. Sometimes it only took the first line to know (though I committed to reading the whole query, regardless). In the end I had two definite requests and four ‘maybes’ which I pared down to three to stay within my ‘five requests’ limit.
The exercise has proven to be incredibly valuable, I think. It gave writers the ability to see mistakes they may have made from an impersonal, objective place. Personally, I appreciate that understanding.
Will be writing my letters throughout the week. Thanks for the ‘game’!
Amethyst Adams
Anonymous says
Anon–
That must have been hard to see all those rejections. By the end of the day, I was praying that my query wouldn’t appear (it didn’t). It’s possible that your query lacked zing, or if this is your first novel, it’s possible that this manuscript might need to be your practice novel. It’s a little known fact that JK Rowling wrote two practice novels for adults before she wrote Harry Potter. So keep writing!
Adam Heine says
A couple of people commented on the number of fantasy/sci-fi entries, so I thought I’d count. Here’s what I came up with:
YA: 12
Thriller/Suspense: 11
Literary: 5
Fantasy: 5
Mystery: 2
Science Fiction: 2
Middle Grade: 2
Memoir: 2
Non-Fiction: 2
Commercial: 1
Romance: 1
Women’s Fiction: 1
Not Sure: 4
wickerman says
Done.
I think I only requested 3.
My main issues with everything is that my laptop is old and slow and it took forever to load the front page with 50+ posts on it 🙂
My biggest cause for rejection was usually a query that told me a lot about things that had nothing to do with the book. I also passed on romance almost automatically, because i hate it and wouldn’t know a good one from a bad one.
All in all, I finished with about 2 hours of total work on it – in addition to my 12 hour day of ‘real’ work yesterday and two kids, dishes, laundry etc.
Not an easy job this agent stuff (and or course this exercise is but one aspect of a much bigger job) but it wasn’t the end of the world that many people are making it out to be.
I personalized all but maybe 5 responses and left comments in about 8-10 of them.
I wish more people had included samples and I think I asked 5 or so folks to re-query with sample pages for further evaluation.
great experience!
Lauren H.K. says
Adam, thanks for doing the genre breakdown. I also noticed the abundance of thrillers and YA while I was reading through the queries. I wonder if it’s a good thing that I’m writing a YA thriller…?
The genre breakdown reminded me of some of the query stats posts Nathan’s done of the past year or so. Sounds like the random sample of queries turned out to look a lot more like Nathan’s inbox than he might have anticipated.
Monika says
To the last anon, that’s exactly why I didn’t volunteer a query. If I receive three rejections in a week, I mope for hours. But now I wish I had offered mine, just to see the feedback.
I salute your bravery! If it’s any consolation, all of the query were rejected more than they were accepted. And none of the queries were terrible — merely incomplete.
Anonymous says
This was an intriguing idea that went awry. Reading the “rejections,” all I from them was arrogance dashed off by rejectees. The pseudo revenge element of this – ah ha! I can reject, too! – was a bit pathetic but, I suppose, if it prevents a Columbine or post office meltdown or road rage incident, it was worth it. The lack of imagination exhibited by a group of people (who also seemed to participate in the agent fail debacle) was telling: while many aspiring writers claim to want feedback, comments – TIME – it was clear from many of the breezily “written” comments those were not quality responses they themselves were willing to produce.
Christine H says
One thing that I’m realizing is how the same book could be represented in very different ways by a query. Books are necessarily rather complex – they have to be in order to hold a reader’s interest for X-hundred pages.
A query is just a short blurb.
My book is a fantasy-adventure with a romantic subplot and literary aspirations. So what do I focus on for the query? If I just focus on the fantasy part, it could sound too much like a routine genre story.
If I focus on the romance, it may sound too light and not interesting enough for readers who want more action.
If I try to focus on the deeper themes, it may sound boring.
I could conceiveably write three queries, at least, for the same book – each focusing on a different aspect. The question is: Which approach makes it more marketable?
That question, I feel, hasn’t been answered yet. perhaps there is no answer. But it would be interesting to post, say, 3 different ones on my blog and see which is more appealing. Maybe I’ll do that, if I have the time.
Owl Sprite says
Anon 8:02:
I did not participate in AgentFail, and wasn’t planning to participate in this, either. But I got sucked into it for a while anyways.
The core problem – for me as well as for real agents – is the time involved in crafting detailed replies. I tried to at least mention the title of the book in each of my rejections, and give some suggestions if I had any, but I spent 4 hours on 23 queries, and didn’t even reply to all of those.
The day is only so long, my friend. “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.” – Robert Frost
Bane of Anubis says
Christine, I’d say it probably has to do as much w/ the agent you’re querying as anything – e.g., writing an excellent romance query might not stand out as much to a predominantly sff agent as a lesser written fantasy-adventure query.
Anonymous says
From; The World’s Gratest Arthur
Since my query obviously got lost or accidentally sent to junk-mail, I am posting it here for comments. I do not fear the snarks among you as this is the best query you have ever red.
Dear Mr. or Mrs. (or possibly Ms.) Agent,
I am querying you about my psycho-thriller/suspense novel, “The Agent Who Hated Arthurs.” This is the 7th book of a trilogy, and I have already written 5 of them! There are 52 more plotted, so you can be sure that you will have something to sell every year of your career.
I have been writing seriesly for nearly three weeks, two days, five hours and 59 seconds and have writen 22 novels in that amount of time.
My first is a science-fictiony S-F novel, another one is S-FF-SYA-SF, two are YA about young adults in the tween stage who self-imolate and cut themselves, but nobody does anything becuase they (the young adult in question)is a rock star/model/actor/environmental-activist/skydiver/cat-lover///time-traveler who, after giving herself a paper-cut, always goes back in time and stops herself from cutting in the first place.
I have also written literary novels about a mad-scientist who grows Dinasaurs from (big twist here) RNA instead of DNA. Another is a gripping suspense-novel where there are no characters, absolutely NOTHING happens, then, at the end, the reader finds out it is all a dream.
Another book that is a sure best seller that will sell millions of copies around the globe is “The Lascaux Cave Painting Runner.” Think “The D’Vinci Code” meets “The Kite Runner,” but set 30,000 years ago… When the Xqituthuthu Clan’s greatest mind, inventor of the campfire and irony, is found dead while scratching his new invention, a round thing that can be used to move objects, onto a cave wall, and the only clue to the murderer is a clever mathematical equation that won’t be rediscovered until Einstein, the only person who can solve the crime is a young man from ANOTHER CLAN! who is greatly despised by this clan because they believe that eggs should be broken on the small end, and that they are descendant from Gods who came to Earth from the sparkly things in the sky in a giant FLAMING SHIP and manipulated some strange miniscule ladder (too small to see)in an ape’s body to make humans before they left again in their ship and left a prophesy that one of them would return again in 28,000 years and perform miracles in a desert city. At this time, all other clans believe that humans were created by snails as a way to get around. (The major religion involves carefully carrying snails from one place to another). This book, which took me a whole 48 ours to write, runs 429,400.2343 words. (All dialog is writen in the native language of the tribe, which isn’t completely formulated yet, so has fractional words!
I have written several others, though the above books are my favorites. I know it is hard to believe, but ALL of these are AVAILABLE for agenting.
My currant book, as I said, 7th in a trilogy, is a highly commercial book that is also an absolutely mind-blowing novel that will completely alter your views about humanity and snails, and make your brain ooze out of your ears. Yes, before you ask, all of my books contain snails — it is the common thematic element, like John Irving and bears.
Like Harry Potter, this novel will transcend all age ranges. In fact, Harry Potter makes a cameo appearance, along with Leonardo D’Vinci, Galaleo, Newton and pop culture phenomonan Sanjaya! so that it will appeal to almost everyone.
I cannot tell you more about this searingly stupendous project until you sign a series of non-disclosure agreements and a No-Harm contract, since 9 out of 10 people whom have red it, have gone mad and writen me that they are no longer taking submissions, even though I see in the trade magazines that they still think that are making sales! Absolutely delusional.
I saw the 10th person on the news, jabbering about some nonsense that he had sold a book called “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!” Imagine that!!! How stupid. Of course, people are prejudiced against zombies! Who would read that? So, of course, he must have gone mad two.
Anyway, I am sure that you would like to become the world’s richest agent by selling all of my 22 currant novles, and the many more that I will write, so look forward to hearing back from you by 1:01 pm today. If you are off by 30 seconds or so don’t panic! — that’s what the extra minute is for, incase you don’t synchronize your watch daily by the national attomic time agency like I do.
Thanks so much for your time, and I look foward to a long and mutally profitable relationship.
Sincerely,
World’s Gratest Arthur
Deniz Bevan says
Can I go back and request two that I rejected? I realise that’s not proper agent behaviour…
hannah says
“it is the common thematic element, like John Irving and bears.”
^I laughed so hard here.
Therapist/Writer says
I guess I’m a little harsher. I would have asked for pages from only two: #10 and #37.
Anonymous says
It seems some of the guest agents need to brush up on their skills.
A mystery novel’s word count range is typically 65-80K. I kept seeing ‘agents’ rejecting stories because 70K was too short.
Tamara says
Nathan – This experience is invaluable. I have a much clearer idea of what to write in my query letters. However…from the comments, it’s obvious how subjective agenting is, so no matter what you write, you just never know.
I’d love to ask for more than five (hate that rule, btw! lol).
You’ve certainly succeeded in giving us a taste of what it’s like to be an agent.
Thank you.
Anonymous says
Christine H.,
I really relate to this concern too.
I think a book that has different tonalities (an adventure, character development, fantasy, etc.) that are well blended is a VERY exciting book.
To me, as a reader, it appeals on many levels of satisfaction that a more superficial genre one-tone may not.
But how do you write a query that doesn’t sound like you threw everything -including the kitchen sink- into a novel?
(i.e., Dear Agent, Editor, etc.
Here is my…lit fic, romance, fantasy, chic lit of 700,000 words…)
Boy, I sure would like to take a look at some of the queries that would have preceded some of my favorite mixed novels too.
One of the things that most stands out in this blog is how this community really tries to come out and help each other.I appreciate that so much.
And just look how many people genuinely apologized when they realized they might have inadvertently been being otherwise.
Anyway, if anyone out there can comment further on Christine’s question, I’m interested too.
Lisa R says
Dear Nathan:
I think this was so instructive for me as a writer–especially in terms of my queries. I think your job is way harder than I thought it was. Not that I ever thought it was easy but after about 23 queries I felt pretty weary! But I could kind of see the queries that just nailed it (for me personally) and I could also see how some queries are ALMOST there but not quite. I could see how some of them sounded really good but just were not interesting to me personally so now I have a whole new appreciation for the old “agenting is a subjective business”! This will really make me go back over my own queries and try to improve them. I thought this was a great exercise for aspiring writers. Thanks!
jimnduncan says
Anon said, “it was clear from many of the breezily “written” comments those were not quality responses they themselves were willing to produce.”
The point of this activity was not to comment on queries but to gain a better understanding of what it’s like to have to go through the slush every day and try to find material you might think is publishable. The query feedback, while helpful or useless depending on the comments, was just a side effect of the process.
When I came up with this idea and passed it along to Nathan for possible use on the blog, it came out of all the recent posting on the blogosphere about how/when/if agents respond to queries. It became apparent to me that many writers just don’t have a real understanding of just how hard and time consuming it is to go through the vast amounts of slush that pop into their inboxes every day.
My approach to querying, which I call, for lack of a better term, realistic pessimism, is that the assumption for querying should be that you will receive a form rejection. This is based on the simple fact that the odds of producing a publishable book (different than just writing a good one), and managing to find an agent who loves what you have written, is looking for your particular kind of story, and believes the market is looking for said kind of book are really, really slim. Really slim. Just because you’ve written something fabulous does not mean you are owed a publishing contract. It doesn’t work that way, and sadly, I think many writers unfamiliar with the industry believe that if they write something grand, it should sell.
My main goal for suggesting this Agent for a day idea to Nathan was to inject a little more reality into people’s minds about what one aspect of the industry is like. It seems to have done that based on a lot of the comments I’ve seen here so far. Now if this activity could just be sent out to the million or so writers out there who really do need this information.
Eva Ulian says
I loved it! And having had a mountain of rejections I knew exactly what to say- but I didn’t, I added more than “this is not for me”. Having studied umpteen books on getting published I was able to offer positive suggestions as to what the writer could do to improve his/her chances of getting published.
Now I’m wondering (seriously) if some agent would like to give me a job!!!
Eva Ulian says
PS I have spotted 2 queries that will go on to be published but I did not ask for them as it’s not the kind of novel I enjoy, however I know some agent will have picked them out. I will list them here as soon as I finished reviewing all the other queries.
Ceadrick says
I chose 10, 17, 27, 37 and 46. I thought they were the best overall. The rest I would have my assistant send a form rejection to. It took hours to read all of the letters, and I just don’t think I would have the time to personally respond to the other 45. I can see how much work this is, and that doesn’t include the rest of your job. Thanks for the eye opener.
Anonymous says
From; the World’s Gratest Arthur
Dear Mr., Mrs. or Ms Agent,
I now have 24.33 novels to agent as I have written 2.33 more since I queried you a half-hour ago. Oh, now I have 25 novels as I have been multi-tasking as I was writing this query.
Sincerely,
World’s Gratest Arthur
P.S. NOW I have 32 novels available for representation…
sally apokedak says
@world’s greatest writer.
Thanks! That was great fun!
Jabez says
I thought this was very rewarding and entertaining. It was insightful seeing queries all in a bunch instead of in isolation and detail like usual. You get a different perspective for how queries stand out and what elements don’t play as well because you see them over and over.
One question I had for Nathan, though: Do you think the quality of these queries was better than what you usually see in a group of 50 queries, and if so by how much?
Nathan Bransford says
jabez-
They are definitely better. “How much” is difficult to quantify, except that I normally request about one or two out of fifty and probably would have requested around 5 or 6 here.
Vicky says
I reviewed them all in one day and thought I would never want this job. Since I average 100 emails a day in my marketing job, that says volumes – LOL. Worse, I think I'd become known as Axe Agent or something horrible like that because I only requested *1* complete and *3* partials.
As I read the queries, I grew increasingly annoyed at the large number that showed the authors haven't done their homework. There is so much information about how to write a dynamite query that I lost all sympathy for these writers. In other instances where the premise and character development were unclear, I figured chances were extremely high the manuscript was not publishable quality.
I hereby terminate my short-lived career as Agent for a Day and now have even more appreciation for my own agent & Nathan. Au Revoir!
Ceadrick says
I also thought 6, 9 and 48 were interesting, but we could only pick 5. One thing I noticed reading comments is how subjective this process is. This leads me to believe that you have to hit the right agent on the right day to have a shot. Now if I could read minds over great distances I might find an agent!
Ink says
Bane of Anubis,
I have to admit that when Jordan did that little push off… well, I tried to ham it up as I knew there wasn’t no chance I was getting up for the blocked shot. But, you know, an offensive foul? On Jordan? Championship final? Last second? I should’ve known better. Should have just hacked him and made him make the free throws. At least we might’ve got the ball back with some time on the clock and Stockton might’ve found Malone for a little jimmy. But, hey, I’ve been in the second most posters of any player in the NBA! (I just edged out Craig Ehlo)
Best,
B. Russell, Utah Jazz (Author of Jordan’s a Jerk and the bestselling Positive Thinking: Getting Over Bitterness)
Colorado Writer says
Mostly, I don’t know how your eyes don’t glaze over by query #10.
hannah says
Re. people flagging word counts–I noticed that too. People saying 50K is too short for YA? Browse the YA section and you’ll clearly see that’s not true.
bookshop says
I’m in this weird position. I think there was a bit more pressure in this case because of the contest aspect of the challenge: *pick the three published works from among the mix*.
As of right now I only have 4 requests, most of which are YA. Of all the ones I’m still considering for the 5th spot, they’re *all* YA (well, #6 says it’s commercial but comments seem to agree that the query fits YA better). So my choice is stymied by the knowledge that surely your 3 published works wouldn’t all be from the same genre, right? So there’s a whole element of consideration there which wouldn’t exist under normal agenting circumstances.
If I were an actual agent I wouldn’t have felt compelled to leave all the extensive query feedback that made the work of responding harder.
I were an actual agent, I probably would have put my top queries in a pile, gone back and read them later and seen how I felt about them, then request fulls/partials of my favorites and winnow the rest out with encouraging notes.
I tried to do that here, but by the end I was wishing I didn’t have to focus on picking what was publishable/marketable, because mostly I just wanted to pick only the ones I really got excited about.
I *still* wish we could do this more often. 😀 I love it.
Bane of Anubis says
bookshop, perhaps Nathan will have query Mondays – where Monday query submitters agree to be ranked by his legion of blog fans and then he requests partials from the top X choices 🙂 – then the legion of angry writers can go to town on each other instead of on agents – at least on Mondays.
Dara says
Well, I just finished and realized I only requested four. 😛
Perhaps I’m too picky. Or I just don’t have the eye for it. Or both 😛
My picks: #9, #10, #27 and #38.
Jabez says
Thanks, Nathan. That’s actually a great job of quantifying it.
Adrienne says
I loved this idea (though knew from the off that it would be way too hard for me to participate) and have been following it the last two days.
I must say what gets to me most in the comments sections are the statements of how much people respect what you do and how tough it must be. Not that those comments aren’t valid (and I totally share the opinion), but that I would imagine this contest isn’t really a true reflection of what you have to deal with. This is (and again this is a hypothesis) a reflection of what you would have to deal with if everyone understood how to write a decent query and followed the submission guidelines. This contest didn’t include the utter tripe that agents ALSO have to deal with.
This contest also didn’t deal with the rejection response, that is to say, people will not be given an opportunity to see what happens when they engage in a dialogue with a rejected author through personalised rejections.
So I have to say, it’s pretty impressive to see what a hard job you guys have in the best possible situation, let alone the stuff you have to deal with in the real world.
And also, dude, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep crafting these insane contests! Not that we aren’t grateful . . .but dude!
Harsh Critic says
Ceadrick, wow, you picked the exact same five queries that I picked!
I feel like Elaine in the Seinfeld episode where she shares the same movie taste as another guy at the video rental store. It ended badly for Elaine though.
:)Ash says
Anon 7:19am:
I’m sure it was very hard getting so many rejections in one day; keep in mind, though, they were rejections from other writers, not agents. So, they don’t really matter, and this gives you the opportunity to work on the query so that the actual agents request pages.
Just work on your query and make it the best it can be. And don’t be ashamed to get help. Writing a query is very different from writing a novel.
I’d suggest posting your query in the SYW (share your work) forum at absolutewrite.com. There are many helpful people there who are more than willing to help you clean up your query.
And you may also want to join a critique group. I don’t know what I’d do without mine.
Good luck!
:)Ash
Sarah Laurenson says
Very interesting exercise. Thank you, Nathan!
I asked for 6, 10, 36 and 41. I have to give a big shout out to 9. If it weren’t for my quesy stomach, that would’ve been my fifth request for pages. But oh my, I just could not handle reading any more.
Scott says
I’d like to add that, if a query seemed good I tried to mention it, even if the material wasn’t something I was interested in. Again, I’m not sure if we were supposed to pick the books that got published, share and compare what we picked with each other, give legit critiques of just do Nathan’s extra work like good interns. 😉
bridge says
Wow..this was a learning curve. I understand why there are form letters, fist the time thing, but toward the end I was more frustrated, more cynical, and tired of reading so I would have more of a tendency to pass off a rude comment or a more harsh rejection than I would have toward the beginning when they didn’t all sound the same and run together.
I loved this.
Anonymous says
Nathan said:
“… I normally request about one or two out of fifty and probably would have requested around 5 or 6 here.”
Hmmmmmm, just wondered if you’ll actually request manuscripts from those queries? That would be very cool. 🙂
Christine H says
Anonymous 8:48 – Okay, now I guess I HAVE to put my query on my blog. But I have to say that I have written about 30 versions of it, and I don’t think any of them have really nailed it. And I don’t have time to polish it today. But I’ll put one up.
My first chapter as well… or, at least, the current version of it. I’ve been working on that lately, too, to get a really crisp first page for Flogging the Quill. But that also I haven’t achieved yet.
….because I spend way too much time HERE !!!!!
Word verification: Walest. Adj. the most Welsh.