233 queries in my inbox today, 233 queries in my inbooooooxxxxx, take one down, request a partial, 232 queries in my inbox today.
232 queries in in my inbox today, 232 queries in my inboooooxxxxxxxx, take one down, gah rhetorical question?, 231 queries in my inbox today.
231 queries in in my inbox today, 231 queries in my inboooooooooxxxxxx, take one down, aliens are you sure?, 230 queries in in my inbox today
And so on.
Open thread! I will be dipping in and out as I’m catching up.
Anonymous says
ANon,
you prolly don'ty need a prologue. Just call it CH 1 instead and rest easy. Keep it simple. Most newblogues (= prologues in newb novels, newb = unpublished), aren't needed, or indicate that the story is starting in the wrong place.
Jen P says
Sad for the staff and customers of Borders UK. News in BookBrunch
Lots of good discussion surrounds the news, including future of publishing. And…"a vibrant and more interesting trade is taking place in smaller shops. People who want to buy serious books can still find them; people who want to write are not without hope of finding a publisher."
So, for the love of bookshops, which books do people have on their Christmas lists, or are you buying for others?
Nathan Bransford says
Sarah-
I've seen word counts in queries of 400,000+. I don't remember the genres though.
Scott-
I do see lots of books with word counts around 50k, but that goes for non NaNo times as well. I think overall the query surge is a combination of the holidays and NaNo. It comes at a really tough time though because I've been out of the office and things are always hectic around the holidays.
anon@1:39-
I'm about a week behind on my queries, but if you queried before then and didn't hear back 1) check your spam filter, and 2) requery, but be sure and include your original query so I know when you sent it.
moira-
I receive e-mail alerts whenever someone comments and I read every single one.
Moses-
As Bryan/Ink points out, I'm a Kings fan, which is my cross to bear. Although they've been pretty good this year!
anon@4:21-
FAQs. There's a post on all things prologues.
Anna L. Walls says
Oh My God!!! I'm so sorry that I contributed to that not so long ago. Thanks for answering me. Do you need a bigger shovel?
Anonymous says
Does anyone still use email? what with the social net msgs and G-Wave and Skype and all that, I haven't even checked my email in over a year. Not sure I ever willa gain, but it seems like, as usual, publishing is in the dark ages and still uses email. Will this last or will they convert like the rest of the working world?
Nick says
"BACK UP YOUR WORK!!!"
Aye, always do. I have a copy here on this laptop, on three separate flash drives, and on a data CD, just in case. I keep it most up to date on the black flash drive and here on this computer, but every week or two I'll make a copy to the other spots, just to be sure.
Had a scare the one night. Thought my computer was going to crash just as I finished writing the third chapter and had hit save, but it was just running a bit on the slow side, thankfully.
Sad to say my story's moving a bit slow right now. Tonight's the first time I've touched it since Wednesday last, and I barely did anything then. But I was off with friends Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Thursday, naturally, I was with family and the missus. And Sunday was the Merseyside Derby and no way in hell will I ever miss a Liverpool game so long as I draw breath, especially not one as big as the derby. And then yesterday I wasn't feeling well, so I took a nap for the first time in my life (seriously, even as a baby I refused) and then was all out of whack today because my brain was trying to tell me 1am was more like 10am and so yeah. Surprised I got anything done today actually.
Still, I'm happy with what I got done. Story's actually moving again, comparatively to the last couple times I worked on it. Almost done the fourth chapter now, and once chapter five begins the protagonist comes back into the story after disappearing at the end of chapter 2 and then things really get moving, what with the protagonist being the actual detective and therefore capable of doing real detecting whereas the narrator is trying his best for the past two chapters, but bless him he just doesn't quite have the skill for it.
But I'm rambling again.
Anonymous says
Anon 5:21:
While email these days is mostly used by spammers and MLMers, you can bet that publishing will be using it for another decade or so, even if the rest of us have moved on. So put that email acct login info in a safe place and be ready to bust it out when you query.
Some agencies, however, are now using the online form format, so perhaps email will go away in publishing, too.
For now, the living fossil of email still walks among us.
Ink says
Nathan,
Though it kills me to say it, your Kings have actually been better this year than my Raptors. Though our brutal schedule might have a bit to do with that, and the introduction of 37 new players to the roster. But I've never known a team to have quite so allergic reaction to playing defense. Lots of phlegm on the court up here…
And your boy Evans looks pretty good. But that kid Jennings might steal the ROY from him. He's like a little Iverson who remembers to pass occasionally.
Nick says
Oh, Nathan, just remembered a question. Does it matter how long a synopsis of a work in a query is? Personally I think I'm most effective when I do the teaser-y sort of summary one expects to find on the back of a book, but I've seen sample queries (which have been marked as accepted) which take things further. Is one a bit more likely to hold ground with agents, or is like everything else and it varies from person to person, or does it just genuinely not matter?
Anonymous says
Nick,
You should realize that all those backup media you mention have 1 glaring weakness: they're all in the same place, i.e. your house or wherever you live. So if your house burns down, WHAMMO there goes all your files, backuops and all.
For something irreplaceable, such as your novels, your family photos, etc., you should keep an external rive in a safe deposit box or somewhere off-site of your home in case of fire, flood, etc.
Also, if you have a gmail account you can back up 2 GB online, which is enough for all of your novels, so there's never any excuse to lose those. Plus, then you can access them from anywhere with an i-net connect.
Anonymous says
Nick2,
Most agencies post guidelines about what they want, inlcuding the length of the synopsis. Whatever they ask for–give them. If they dont' specify but just say "snyopsis), then the length is up to you.
You will p;orbably need to have at least 2 versions: a 1-pager and a 3-pager. Sometimes a 5-pager. That way you have short medium and long, and can give them whichever is closest to what they ask for with little extra work.
Anonymous says
nathan,
How about a post on novel publicity for new authors?
Nick says
re: 530
True, but I always keep the black one on my person. If the house catches on fire, I will hopefully be able to make it out with that unharmed. At the moment I also have a copy saved to my email (which, I know, can be lost) from when I had to move it from another computer to this one and didn't want to use my flash as the other computer was infected and wasn't sure just how far the virus had spread, though I knew it had gone pretty far.
And re:532
Thanks for the info. Haven't looked too much into the specific guidelines of everyone yet, as right now I'm just collecting links to people who are said to represent my genre, and then when the story's finished I'll start looking at guidelines and saying "Okay, do this and that, etc." I just look at the occasional sample query at places just to sort of see differences in what different agents like and try to see general trends across agents. I intend to write all of my queries from scratch, make each one personal, but it's helpful if I don't need to make them too wildly different. I admit I can be a lazy SOB when it comes to things like that.
Anonymous says
Am I ready to bring my novel to the world withthe following:
1) one-liner logline style descrption
2) 1 paragraph summary
3) 1 page synopsis
4) 3 page synopsis
4) 5 page outline
5) 1 minute book trailer
6) ?
Anyhting I missed?
Mira says
Okay, time to check in. I'm almost done but I'm 9 pages over.
I need to do a review of all the literature on this topic. That's challenging because I haven't read any literature on this topic.
Can someone do a review of all the literature on the oppression of women in the U.S. and e-mail it to me in about 30 minutes?
Thanks. You're the best.
Oh. I suppose I should say something on topic.
Um, Go Kings! Yea, Kings! Best team in the world! Whoo-hoo, Kings!
Yeah!
There.
jamesbent says
That's pretty freaky – I was just walking around at lunch thinking "I wonder what an agent's inbox looks like" and I came on here to ask if you could post a screenshot of your inbox (blanking out the names of course), but the numbers are pretty convincing.
jamesbent.com/blog/ – 1000+ word offbeat fiction shorts
Susan Rati says
Nathan,
So, there's been this question burning in the back of my mind about the evil rhetorical question.
All rants I've read have been about questions of this form: "Have you ever wondered if there were aliens in your underwear drawer?"
I'm thinking more this form: "Little Freddy found aliens in his underwear drawer. Should he follow them to their spacecraft? Mommy thinks his homework is more important. The voices in his head tell him to kill them all. Blah blah."
Does this sort of rhetorical question make an agent want to put out his eyes?
Anonymous says
Mira,
I will do that for $100. Rightnow.
Shall I email you my paypal address?
lotusgirl says
Whoa. Dude. That's what you get for taking Vacation.
Elisa says
Someone way back posted a question about what becomes of a NaNoWriMo project once the month is up.
I just published a novel that began as a NanoWriMo project in '06. Made it to the 50K mark, and it took me two and a half years to revise it. The worst part was cleaning up all the wordy, passive prose that came at the hands of trying to make my word count at the time.
I don't know if I'll ever do NaNoWriMo again because of that, but I'm damn proud of the way the novel turned out.
Nathan Bransford says
susan-
I don't have a problem with all rhetorical questions in a query, it's just usually inadvisable to begin with one.
Laura Martone says
I'm with Jade… while I heartily congratulate everyone who completed the NaNoWriMo challenge, I honestly hope that they're not querying the day AFTER completing their hastily written novels.
Am I crazy, or have we learned nothing about the necessity of revision? Sometimes, it pays to be impulsive. Querying agents is not one of those times.
Vacuum Queen says
I bought 2 books for Christmas gifts today….the third book in the Mysterious Benedict Society (yay!), and This Book is Bad for You (or something like that…I couldn't find the first in that series, but I found that one). I hope I have happy recipients. I don't usually buy hardback, but figured I would right now.
What books are you guys buying right now? Just curious. My verification word is "payers" because that's what we all are this month.
Moses says
Ah, the Kings. Now I understand the Lakers thing. The Kings got hosed by some of that "bad" officiating that Donaghy talked about in game 6 vs the Lakers in 2002.
I understand the cross bearing, though. Other than the Suns, my teams are all from Atlanta. The one year the Braves won the Series I was having so much fun in college (at UGA, no less) that I wasn't even paying attention. Seriously, the ONE year of my life they win the Series I wasn't paying attention.
Woe is me.
Moses says
Not to scare anyone too badly (though I guess it should), but I have a friend with a gmail account and recently her entire inbox disappeared. That's right, GONE. Poof. Be careful.
Mira says
Anon 5:57
Darn it. I wish I'd read that first. I would have taken you up on it.
But since no complete and thoughtful review of the entire body of literarture on the oppression of women showed up in my mail box, I just made something up.
I said the literature sucked, and needed to be completely revised and was obviously written by men.
That ought to cover it.
Okay, I'm done. I'm 11 pages over. I need editorial notes. STAT.
Btw, in terms of the oppression of women, now that I've done my paper, I just want to announce that I'm leaning toward: "yes, women are oppressed."
It's a close call, but I think factors are in favor of the oppression thingy.
Now, I have to figure out just who is oppressing them…..?
Hmmmm.
Sandra G. says
Most excellent post – thanks for the smile.
CaitieCatherwood1314 says
Nathan, what do you think the chances of a book similar to the style of Anne of Green Gables doing well is?
Kristi says
I would also like to point out that Nathan is the #1 most queried agent according to Querytracker so I'm guessing he doesn't get much down-time as far as queries go, even when it's not the day after NaNo.
Blane A. Harrington says
And my little query is poised, like an invading surfer about to drop in a local's break. Not that I surf. Nathan, here is why you should request more of my manuscript: you'll be doing something that has never been done before in the history of the universe.
Ink says
Mira,
The publishers, of course.
Tricia says
Ouch! good luck with that.
I also queried another agent with my NaNo novel today. Oops! Good thing it was my novel from 2007 and not the one from 2009.
Nathan Oser says
Nathan,
I live in Japan in the countryside where it's hard to find books in English and have been buying heaps of books through Amazon. The shipping is killer. I decided to check out the Kindle after reading your post on e-reader myths. Turns out they just released an English-compatible version over here. I'm thinking it might make a nice X-mas present for myself and maybe take some pressure off my wallet.
But what I wanted to ask, since I've been out of the American culture loop for a while, is just how 'everyday' are these things getting. Is it like the land-line to cellphone or tape to CD transitions? Are most of the people you know in the industry using them?
Thanks,
Nathan
Nathan Bransford says
nathan-
Yeah, just about everyone in the industry now has an e-reader of some form or another.
Anonymous says
Nathan, you had me laughing so hard I almost peed my pants. I'm glad to see I'm not the only crazy one!
Cam Snow says
230+ queries in a day? If it's like this for all agents then there's no wonder I keep getting form rejections (it can't be that my writing stinks, right?)!
How many seconds does it take to realize something is a "Form rejection" on average?
Mira says
Ink
Oh yeah. I forgot about them. Those darn publishers, always running around oppressing everyone.
Glad you've finally decided to see the light. I knew I could convince you; my arguments are irresistible.
Nathan, now that I'm done with my paper, I can pay attention to more important things.
For example, I couldn't help noticing that you're not actually my agent yet. I know, weird, huh?
But I was thinking – wouldn't it be refreshing to NOT have to read my query letter?
That's what I offer you. Query letter freedom. Yes. I will be your client, WITHOUT a query letter. You will never, ever, ever have to read a query letter written by me.
Speaking of irresitible offers, well, there you go. Special offer, just for Nathan, who had 233 queries letters in one day. Sheesh.
Okey dokey. Time for all hard workers to go to sleep.
That includes you Nathan. You're a hard worker, too.
You, too, Bryan.
Um, and everyone else.
Rest time.
Polenth says
I got a new snail.
Wanda du Plooy says
Okay, after going online to research NaNo novels, I am with one of the persons who said she will have to wait for January to query!!! I have been writing since july and just waiting for my critics to finish reading then the last edit and I wanted to query before christmas holidays!!!! I will just have to wait Sigh…
Wanda du Plooy
Amanda Acton says
I just finished my NaNo Novel. I should totally send it off to your inbox. There's a weird little planet and a mad professor that plans to build a steampunk cow and fly to the moon. It's a sure winner. Hekekekekeke…. 😛
I just had someone crit a piece and get confused because I mentioned summer and December together. The Southern Hemisphere is not a myth dear friends….
Rena Rossner says
I did Nano too. My plans for December? 50,000 more words. My plan for January? more if I'm not finished. And only then will I re-read the entire thing and start the revision process. It's really hard for me to understand how anyone could have finished a novel in one month, but you never know. Novels are getting shorter or so it seems and there is genius out there. Maybe Nathan will discover some today in his inbox. I'm sure reading the blog posts here is a good diversion!
I know I'm probably behind the times because books take a long time to get to Israel but I'm reading "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and really enjoying it. What did you think of it Nathan?
– Rena
Anne Lyken-Garner says
I didn't sent you one. Promise. I suppose you won't get a chance to read this either. Mine is the 146th comment. Good luck.
Charlee Vale says
I hope I'm not too late to get in on the open thread…
I have a question that I really can't seem to find the answer to anywhere!
Nathan, what is the protocol for querying when you intend to use a Pen name? Do you query as your real name and discuss it with the agent later? Do you actually mention it in the query?
This might be useful knowledge in the future…
Steve says
Nathan,
Everything I've seen on this question has been pretty vague.
What is the impact of making some or all of a work in progress available online as regards eventual prospects for traditional publishing.
I am in the early stages of a YA novel, and although I expect to explore traditional publishing, I may also ultimately self-pubish or even present the novel as blog fiction.
My main goal is audience, although I'm not adverse to money.
It seems like putting the WIP online would be effective in getting feedback from potential readers, and exploring the size and shape of my potential audience. But would this represent a "kiss of death" to a traditional publisher at a later point?
-Steve
Annie Reynolds says
Hi Nathan
I have loved the open thread day, reading all the questions and finding answers. So I have one of my own, when you are asked for 2 sample chapters do they have to come from page 1 so to speak, or can they come from deeper into the novel where the characters are already set up and the plot is more advanced?
Thanks
GhostFolk.com says
Hi, Scott.
The last fifth of an MS edit actually reverses time. This is a fact and cannot be disputed.
The first fifth of an Ms edit is called Johnnie Walker at my house.
Geoff Stokker says
Nathan
I live in South Africa and am sending out queries to agents regarding my completed manuscript. I've been doing my research and have grafted hard on trying to get the perfect query letter for my work.
But the thing that bothers me is the question whether my being outside of the US and on the other side of the world counts against me with my queries.
Would it count against me?
stacy says
Apologies if this was already suggested for backing up files, but DropBox works wonderfully for that. You can store up to 2 GB online for free. I use it all the time to transfer files to and from school.
K.L. Brady says
Just sent out an email blast to the 600 people in my writer's association that you, dear Nathan, were experiencing a shortage of queries and are desperately seeking new submissions from first-time novelists who have just completed NANO.
**evil laugh** hahahahaha! hahahahaha!
KIDDING! You can pick your heart up from the floor now.
I'll wait and hit the send button on that one tomorrow. 🙂
Cam Snow says
I think Nanowrimo should have 3 months:
(1) November – write novel
(2) December – edit novel
(3) Januay – query novel
But that would take waaaay too much time – i mean, why bother editing, that is what editors are for, right? 🙂