The voting is in, and wouldn’t you know: as of this writing the project that received the most votes as a query also received the most votes as a partial.
The query system works perfectly, right?!!
As always: it’s not quite that simple.
Without prejudging what conclusions people have reached, there are three main things that I personally hope people take away from the experiment:
1) The query system isn’t perfect.
When I read the queries, I thought all of them were strong in their own way, especially for a random sample. In the end though, I thought the two most promising queries were SHORELINE and UNREALITY CHICK. SHORELINE had an intriguing plot but I worried that the description of the narrative felt a little scattered, and UNREALITY CHICK had a compelling voice though I worried that the query relied too much on the voice and lacked plot detail. Since a strong voice is rarer and more difficult to convey in a query, I ultimately voted for UNREALITY CHICK as the best query.
However, I ended up changing my vote when it came to the sample pages. While again I thought all five samples were good in their own way, I thought SHORELINE had the most engaging and polished writing and it had my vote.
So. Even an agent changes his vote from query to sample pages. Does this mean the query system is broken?
Again, not that simple. Even though some queries were stronger than others, I think the strengths and weaknesses in each query did actually reflect strengths and weaknesses in the corresponding manuscripts, just as tends to happen in real life. Is it an exact one-to-one match between query and manuscript? Definitely not, which is why some queries fall through the cracks and why everyone should strive to write the best query possible. SHORELINE probably showed the largest disparity between query and manuscript, which is reflected in the voting. But across the board, my likes/concerns in the queries really did correspond to the likes/concerns I had about the manuscripts.
I think you can also see why I now ask that people send the first five pages with their queries.
Ultimately, while the queries were definitely good, I don’t think I would have requested partials in real life, and I believe the partials need some more work and polish before they’d be ready. But very solid efforts all around and keep in mind that…
2) Taste is subjective.
I don’t think I’m going to win a Nobel Prize for showing that the query process is subjective, but a subpoint I want to make is: subjective is not the same as arbitrary. Even people looking hard for the best arrive at different decisions and have different criteria for what that means. Everyone who participated in this experiment was approaching with roughly the same goals, and yet even the winning choice in both polls had less than a majority of the vote.
Same thing in real life. When agents talk about the importance of fit and loving a work, this is what they’re talking about. Even a group of very informed agents will have different opinions on the same queries and manuscripts, and they’re bringing years of expertise and experience to bear. It’s not a sign the system is broken, it’s built into the system: there are lots of agents (and opinions) in the sea.
3) Time is of the essence.
And the last thing I want to suggest is to consider how long it took to read and think about each of these queries and samples, and multiply it by ten a day and consider that behind each query is a writer whose hopes and dreams are hinging on your undivided attention. It’s just not possible to give every single manuscript an in-depth look at 30 or more pages. Some sort of shorthand is necessary.
And all things considered, given the time constraints I still don’t know if there’s a better replacement out there for a query + short sample, even with its imperfections. Queries really do give an agent insight into the overall work, with the sample pages providing another glimpse.
Queries aren’t perfect, but they’re the best system we have.
But enough about my thoughts, what do YOU think?
Did this experiment increase or decrease your faith in the query process? How much of each sample did you need to make a decision? Do you have confidence in your choice? Has it changed the way you look at queries?
And of course, one last thanks to the talented participants for offering their query and samples! I’ll leave it to each of them to decide if they want to de-anonymize themselves and talk about their experience.
I thought this was a fantastic experiment–as well as an object lesson in why we writers need to be careful not to query too soon. I found it especially interesting to see the correlation between weaknesses in the query and manuscript pair, and I wonder if this correlates to weakness in overall novel structure.
I would love to see a future blog post on how to tell if you are querying too soon–from an agent's perspective. I've blogged on pre-submission checklists before, but it really took seeing this and doing the math to understand. (Now if I could only find a foolproof method to know if my own work is ready!)
Thanks for putting this together and for all the time you spend helping us understand the submission process.
Let me try that again:
anon-
But in this scenario the plurality didn't choose the partial that I feel is the strongest. If I cede control over queries to the Internet how do I know they're going to reflect my own views? I'm not totally convinced that the crowd is better at choosing what is most likely to sell, especially when you bring in the crowd jockeying you see at places like Authonomy. Having the Internet rank queries or partials assumes that everyone is going to vote in good faith and let the system work on its own without trying to artificially influence the voting. I've never seen that actually happen.
I found the exercise interesting and pretty useful in my own efforts to land an agent. I discovered what I felt was the strongest idea led to the strongest writing. That in mind, I might only ask for a simple logline were I an agent, as it would save me time.
Or, I might have more of a form as my submission policy, rather than a full letter. I made up my mind very early in both the letters and the samples, and only read completely through the query whose hook I liked the most (SHORELINE). The sample pages required only a few paragraphs.
I know people go crazy over voice, but I don't find too many out there that are that distinctive. The hook in the blurb and how cleverly it's presented is what tells me an author "gets it", and if they've got a good one, chances are they're experienced in all the right things and know how to conduct their craft.
A hands-on approach is always a good teaching method, when it can be used. Thanks for the lesson. My choice was not the popular one, but that's consistent with my reading preferences. Keep working on that first draft, William.
I found some of the stories seemed different than I had expected from reading the queries. What was chosen to be in the queries didn't always highlight what made the story interesting.
IMO, the query system could use some upgrades, so that all writers would have the choice of email or the postal service. It's more cost efficient for the writer to use email. Nathan, why haven't more agents, editors, etc. updated their submission methods (are there underlying reasons)? I'm glad you accept email queries, but is it as efficient or does it allow more bad queries to sneak through?
Functional but not perfect–that's the query system. But really, that's most things in life, isn't it? My cell phone is functional but not perfect. So's my computer and the quilt on my bed and the school my kids go to.
I'm tired of the query-haters who think that because queries aren't perfect, they are useless. Is your phone useless? Is your quilt?
@Nathan
But the crowd did reduce the list to two queries + partials to look at out of your list. If the Internet could source you down to 10-20 queries to look at rather than 300+ each month, then using the Internet might be worth it. Regardless, you'll have to inteprete the Internet results.
Think Digg. You might want to view three or four pages of results, but that's a lot easier than reviewing 10-20 pages of results.
Of course, this approach is also imperfect, but I don't think any one person has enough time for a perfect solution. There are just not enough hours in a day.
Phoebe – great idea and yeah, I already edited up the query to get rid of that 🙂 Thanks again for pointing that out!
@ Nathan: Jumping in midstream, here, but I agree that "majority rules" is not the way to go. A few people are always savvy enough to jockey the system. It ends up being like high school, where your design was better but the cooler kid won the class vote for the senior week tee shirt design.
Something that is really runaway amazing will rise, but that presumably would make it through the query system anyway.
Plus, I do not want to be an agent, Sam-I-Am. Not even on a dare. A little piece of my heart would die everytime I checked my inbox and saw 117 new messages.
I don't think my opinion of the query process has changed, but seeing the queries AND the related sample pages, reading other people's comments and then getting Nathan's viewpoint has really helped to demystify the whole business of getting your query noticed and acted on. The comments alone are a superb focus group! I hope you'll do this again, Nathan.
I was surprised at how quickly I was able to come to a decision about which projects would interest me. So if I were an agent, would I have made "the right choice?" Who knows? The least-liked proposal could turn out to be a bestseller somewhere down the line, because it hits something that the reading public (a fickle beast at all times) happens to like.
I would encourage all five submitters to tease out every lesson that can be learned from this, and get those mss finished. And good luck to you all.
This was an interesting experiment with such powerful lessons.
So we live and die by the query in getting an agent to pay attention. And, my attempts at queries put the fear of failure into me faster than anything else. I'd rather write a complete new novel than deal with queries. Oh, I've done that.
So, the takeaways for me…query agents that take the time to review at least five pages in the initial contact and try in some way to write a better query by distilling the gist of the novel down to the simplest form that conveys the theme of story.
On a side, I'm disappointed to learn that I'm a Nobody is not finished. I really liked this one.
d.g. hudson-
Well, e-queries are both more efficient and allows more bad queries to sneak through. In the end I much prefer it because it's way easier to click send than to stuff envelopes, but it's not without its drawbacks.
anon-
The partial results were in line with the two I thought were the strongest, but at the query stage the crowd actually ranked the one I thought was second (but a very close call to being first) #4 out of 5.
And this was a situation where the five people entering stepped aside and didn't try to influence the voting – in real life with real queries at stake I'm not sure I could see that happening.
I'd love it if I could trust the Internet to really whittle things down, but I don't know if I've yet seen how that would be possible. There's just no real way of stopping people from artificially influencing the voting, and it ends up making it more about how effectively people work the system than the quality of their work.
Question:
Nathan, is that true about mentioning in your query that it's your first novel? Another poster commented that it would put an agent off. Would that put you off in a query?
andrea-
No, it wouldn't put me off at all. In fact I recommend that people who don't have other writing credits just say "This is my first novel."
I agree with K.L. Brady above: I really feel much more informed about how the query functions and how a query looks from the agent's POV. Up to now, I've been seeing my query-in-process from my perspective; but I'm going to start over with a blank page and write it again, hopefully, seeing it from an agent's perspective.
Jan: I, like you, wrote a lot of book and then ran into narrative problems that I believed were fatal obstacles. I put my novel away for over ten years and only recently went back to it. The reason I mention this is to assure you that you are not alone and to encourage you to keep going. In my experience, the most difficult thing to accomplish is designing a great character. Plots and stories and narrative structures are a dime a dozen. These are mathematical problems that can be solved with a bit of thought and creative thinking. I'm no expert, but I am in the same boat you are. If I were you, I'd simply come at your story from a different angle; don't be so locked in to the narrative with which you started; seek input from friendly critics (most of which you can and should ignore, but will spark your own ideas), and think your way around your narrative obstacles. The character is everything. If you love yours, then simply…write a different story.
Thanks very, very much to Nathan and the 5 authors.
MJR
100,0000 words for YA is not too long.
Every teen reader I know picks the longer books over the short ones.
Check out the Twilight, Eragon, and Harry Potter word counts. Three of the most popular ever YA books.
@anon and @Nathan
WeBook.com is an internet site that does a pretty good job of whittling down the pile. Check it out when you get a chance.
I can see where being an agent in quite a tricky line to walk. When I first started reading the sample pages I wanted to read through them all from beginning to end so I could make the best informed choice. However, when I came across writing that felt awkward or in need of some deep revisions still, I found myself skimming for another half page and then giving up on the sample.
The only one that kept me engaged long enough to read the whole sample, and want more, was Shoreline.
As the others have said, thanks to all who participated. I DO believe there are great story ideas in there from everyone. I just think some are a little further along on the revision stages than others.
Whew, that Levine is quite a talker…
Now, down to business. I never did read through to the end of either of my requested partials: (UNREALITY CHICK or SHORELINE). Both were good, but I didn't "fall in love with them." As a busy pretend agent with my own clients, my fequent blogging, my delightful but demanding children, and my amazing wife whom I daily thank for keeping the house from falling down around our heads, I have to fall in love with something before I will take it on. (How many times have you heard a busy real agent say that!?) This process did confirm for me the crucial importance of the query, followed by the first few paragraphs of the sample.
I'd like to thank all the writers for submitting their work for a critique by the masses, and wish them all the best in their writing journey.
So I see that I'm basically a horrible agent, but putting that aside, a question for you Nathan, if the query is the first thing that an agent sees, what are your thoughts on getting someone else to write your query? I've heard that some writers have been doing just that. Do you feel that's cheating or does it matter if the writing sample is solid and the query was just a tool to get you to the front of the line? Thanks.
I would definitely still champion the one I voted for. As I said yesterday, I think Shoreline had technically better writing, but if I were some sort of Junior Assistant Agent Person and could only handle like one client, I would take Unreality Chick because I think its writing would ultimately guide it to better sales, and therefore make it easier to get to a publisher, because at the end of the day everything really is about sales. If I could pick more than one, I certainly would have requested more from both authors. Definitely all the samples could have used polish, but as-was, well that's been handled just above.
As to my level of faith, I'd say it stayed the same. Certainly it gave me a bit more insight into the process, but it neither increased nor decreased my faith in the flawed-but-works system of querying.
Thanks for this, Nathan, and thanks for everyone who put themselves out there. Maybe if I have an at least once-edited MS by the next round of this, I'll join in on the author side.
I still think Webook.com has crafted a system worth going mainstream. The author is anonymous and the raters are anonymous. You can try to link directly to your submission to campaign, but it will only generate a random submission for your friends and family to rate. I guess it's possible for them to keep rating other people's work until they get to yours, but it's unlikely that anyone would sit through that. Already, there is a large volume of work there. I really see no way for writers to play the system. Also, there's a box to check if you rate something low simply because you're not interested in the genre or subject.
I don't work for webook.com. I'm just honestly answering the question about what might be better than agents receiving a million e-queries and hardly having time to see the trees in the forest.
I believed in the query process before, and I still do. It was a fun exercise. It blows my mind how fast Nathan responds to queries/partials. Especially the partials. I didn't have time to read 30×5 pages so I stopped after a few scenes for most of them.
Nikki – I didn't know if the authors wanted to detailed critiques or not. You might try putting your query up for critique in the forums. One idea: after reading your pages, I thought that you should mention how Maya's siren powers don't seem to work on Nate. Saying they get off to a "rocky start" seemed vague. Great pages though – I voted for you both times because I think your concept is so unique and cool!
William – I thought the query needed to stand out more. It reminded me of Looking Glass Wars. I wanted to know how it was different from other fall into another world type stories (same for Unreality Chick). And the beginning pages were confusing to me, and they did feel rough like you said. Hope that helps!
I wonder if anyone will ever have a video query system…2 minutes to chat up your book via your computer's camera and then send to the agent. Of course, we'd then get uber professional movie makers, but maybe a chat from the author that is under 2 minutes would give an agent's eyes some needed relaxation and perhaps a different view.
That could have a billion problems too, but I somehow had this idea while reading your post. My mind is obviously wandering today. I'm so not signing my name. 🙂
Thanks, Nathan, for setting up this great interactive lesson. I didn't submit a query, but reading the queries and the partial manuscripts from an agent's POV was very enlightening. As a picture book author, I've never submitted a query before, but that lovely task is heading my way quickly as I'm working on my first adult novel.
Although it can be hard to pinpoint what is the one thing or two things about a manuscript that pushes it back across the line from being considered to not being considered, I think making sure it is the strongest it can be in every way is the best a writer can do. As you mentioned, checkpoints for readiness are strong voice, specificity of plot, precision in writing, polish. And as far as reading queries/samples, the gut feeling is as important as reasoning it out. If I lost interest, for whatever reason, I couldn't vote for a piece.
I have a better appreciation for what goes on on the agent's end.
I think the query system works. I wrote in my earlier comments that I would not have picked any of these for a partial and I stand by my position. Though all of them were interesting – with thousands of queries being submitted weekly (?) – my understanding is that a work has to be a perfect storm of good writing/an interesting hook/marketability to get a second look. None of these pieces completely fit that criteria.
I have been a buyer for a bookstore – and let me tell you, people are picky. They are not going to spend 10-16 dollars on a book, especially from an unknown author, unless it is amazing. If the average american only reads about 8-10 books a year (and I think that's a high estimation), then your book has to be incredible for them to deviate from tried and true authors.
Nathan, you have an incredibly difficult job and I am honored that you gave us a window into your world. Thank you.
What a great experiment! I must admit bias because Nikki (Shoreline) is in my writing group. I've always thought her writing was fantastic. While I appreciated hearing commenters praise her work, I also enjoyed the constructive criticism. It helped me gauge my own critiquing skills.
Thanks to all of the brave authors who posted their work, especially Nikki!
Jan (UNREALITY CHICK) – Your pages reminded me of my own first novel. I have it sitting in a drawer because I too ultimately decided it was flawed. Great voice and writing style…I'm sure your WIP will benefit from everything you learned!
I took my comments down. I'm not sure what to say about this, so I think I won't say anything.
I mean, aside from what I'm saying now.
Writers – thank you. You should be proud of yourselves for putting yourself out there. I hope you are! I hope you keep on, keep on, keep on!
Forgive me if I'm wrong, Nathan, but was there not a time (years ago?) when you asked only for a query without sample pages?
So I'm interested in your opinion of the experience:
Do you feel you have found more good books through the combination? Do you feel that the addition of sample pages has added confirmation to the choice you would have made based on the query alone? Do you feel that the sample pages have prevented you from making a mistake (missing a promising book/ spending time on a work that didn't appeal to you)?
On a related note:
Leaving aside the skewing of votes, I don't think it's a good idea to let internet ranking determine an agent's choice of work to represent. Should the day come when my book is presented to a publisher, I want the person presenting it to believe as firmly in its value and salability as I do. I don't want them thinking, "Well, its ranking on SlushMaster was good, so I'll give this a shot."
Should the day come when publishers buy books because their internet ranking is direct predictor of their sales to the general reading public, I'll change my mind.
Margaret Yang: My quilt is useless, actually. The reception is terrible, the battery life non-existent, and all the voices come through muffled. I've had enough. Next week I'm getting an iBlanket.
ulysses-
Yeah, until about a few years ago I just asked for a query. Quite candidly, the biggest change has been that I request far fewer partials (percentage-wise at least) than I did before.
For the projects I've taken on through the query process, I would have requested the partials whether they included sample pages or not. The sample pages were just gravy. On the other hand, the sample pages have stopped me from requesting partials for projects where the query was really strong but where I wasn't connecting with the sample.
That said, there definitely have been a handful (though less than five) instances I can think of where I saw a poor query followed by strong pages and ended up being surprised. So you never know.
I still think the query system is the best we can do with out limited human abilities.
I felt like I only needed to read five pages to make a decision, and it really wasn't about the "hook" or something really dramatic going on. It was about the writing- the voice, the style, the craft. That all became apparent in the first few paragraphs.
Jan – i think Reality Chick could work – it just needs a lot more work. I know you wrote your story years ago but have you seen Life On Mars (UK or US), i prefer the UK version but its similar although more adult. Copper gets run over and wakes up in 1973!
William – i read the rest of the pages and i really love the story so if you revise and edit it and hopefully it will get published, i would definitely buy it coz i'm really intrigued as to how it pans out.
"Subjective isn't the same thing as arbitrary" – this is EXACTLY what I needed to hear today!
Do you ever do this agent-for-a-day thing for nonfiction?
Jan…
Ultimately mine wasn't fixable when I wrote it, which is why I had thirty pages floating around on my hard drive and available for this.
(…)
And thanks for all the folks who liked Beck. I like her too. Too bad her book ultimately sucked 🙂
Its a strong premise.
The old saw/phrase proven wrong.
"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." Nietzsche
The idea that Becky, by facing her fears could end up in a worse situation than dead or stronger; but crippled and unable to awaken.
The firmly premised skeleton is there and maybe this is fates way of trying to get you to rework the premise from scratch. With sincere respect I didn't want to "like Becka" I either wanted to "be her" or "save her." Go down the rabbit hole "as her" or be her "secret companion" who has already survived trying to conquer my fears and failed dozens of times before some twist of fate simply handed me the solution just to make me and my 'survive at all costs attitude' go away.
It's an awesome premise and I wouldn't give up on the story kernel just let the reader and Becka suffer more together as they become one.
"A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" comes to mind as a work you might like as a model. You need to bare your soul to write a story like that. Don't give up.
—
Nikki's query skills and Shoreline pages were of matched set quality but I have no skill at evaluating that genre and plan to read it as a study of a female writing a female lead.
As an Agent I rejected it because I wasn't qualified to get behind it.
—
Black Emerald was different and began in the old school way without an explosion or sudden death. Same as Shoreline I plan to read it in full and was not qualified to judge it in a quick pass.
It caused me to think about beginnings because I still like stage setting and opening shots that establish the time and place. But… Its something I think about. Reveal a moment? Then do the establishing shots. A style change I might or might not make myself.
Black Emeralds writer is very cerebral and would make a great crime writer within or without the fantasy shells and framework. Such things are often part of a warped criminals mind where they live in the alternate reality and the detective must try to enter that world without going insane himself.
Your internal verse external action thought balance and adult style are crimped by stories natural boundary.
That's a superficial surface judgment before a complete read for my own study skills.
Criticism is very difficult to get
a good critique is worth about 5000$ or a bottle of someone's favorite poison depending on whether you know other writers or have to pay.
It's worth it to take chances like this type of exposure of your work.
I 'm hoping your Fate character is truly evil so I can get to like her as The Eternal Tomboy Princess Archetype.
Thanks for sharing.
—
I'm A Nobody.
You rock dude.
8-9% is a 12.5% bump overnight.
I'm fifty and the voice spoke to the 15-25 year old in me that went through those doors after the girl and took the beatings and survived.
Keep up the good work and keep taking risks. The whole exercise was based on
a random number generator that Nathan used to pick the queries.
He's in temporal fiction withdrawal without his weekly "Lost" fix.
Thxs 2All for the experience.
The thing I found most interesting is how important it is to get the query right so the pages aren't ignored. After I read the pages to Shorline, I changed my mind.
I originally voted for I WOULD HAVE LOVED YOU ANYWAY, largely on the strength of the opening paragraph of the query letter, but when the partials came out, I changed my vote to SHORELINE. I found I didn't have to read very far into the sample pages to decide which one I liked best.
If anyone wants to experiment further with query letters, I've created a website that functions as a virtual slush pile. It's only recently gone live and is in fact being beta tested, but I'd welcome some more queries for our slush pile right now:
https://www.querytest.com/
What you do is submit a query, then "read slush" by viewing other people's queries and simply saying whether or not you'd request pages based on the query letter. All feedback is anonymous and private. The feedback you receive as a submittor is a percentage–how many people said YES to your query. Reviewers can also briefly comment on your query if they wish.
The site is quite new and parts of it are still under construction, but I've already received 25responses to my own query letter, and the feedback has been really interesting.
Nathan sez: "I still don't know if there's a better replacement out there for a query + short sample, even with its imperfections."
I sez: Cold. hard. Sales. Who cares what it's about if it's already been selling, right?
anon-
I sez: self-publishing first isn't for everyone, or even most people.
I learned a lot from this exercise.
The past few days have been extremely busy for me. I had thought maybe I wouldn’t participate in the exercise, since I didn’t have time to read all the pages in the excerpts. When I read through your instructions, Nathan, saying that we could approach this task like a very busy agent and that it was OK to not read all the pages, I decided to take that approach. The excerpt I voted for after reading only the first page or two was UNREALITY CHICK. The excerpt for which I loved the very beginning, stopped reading when the book slowed down for me with the arguments among the cousins, but captivated my interest enough for me to want to eventually read the entire excerpt was SHORELINE. Interestingly, I didn’t vote for the query letter for either of these books.
After participating in this exercise, I feel that the first five to ten pages should always be requested along with the query letter.
And I learned something else that I think is extremely important for writers. A rejection doesn’t mean that a writer doesn’t have something almost marketable. What a shame it would be if the author of SHORELINE received piles of rejections and gave up, thinking that perhaps they weren’t a good writer! Of course, this would probably be way too much work for busy agents, but it would be awesome if there was a query reply that let the author of a rejected book know when the agent thought the the author was skilled at writing. I read a statement by a successful, published author that said writers often give up just when they’re on the brink of huge success because they don’t realize that they’ve arrived at that point. That author explained that their success happened after many years of struggling to get published.
The problem for the writer…and I’m not saying that a busy agent needs to solve this problem…is that a simple rejection doesn’t provide any guidelines as to the problem with the manuscript. Is the writing horrible? Should the writer give up on ever becoming a writer? Or does the manuscript simply need to be edited more tightly? Is the plot not the best one for the themes presented? Is the manuscript remarkably wonderful, but the agents whom the author queried all temporarily more interested in a different, more popular genre? Is it just the wrong time to be trying to sell that particular book? It isn’t practical for a writer to write fifty versions of the same book in a blind and random attempt to try to fix whatever the problem might be with their manuscript.
First, thanks to those who were picked for being brave and submitting! Second, Nathan I do not envy you your job.
Now with that being said, I took quite a bit away with me. I have to look over my query as well as my MS and make them equally strong.
Honestly, it only took me a few paragraphs to make my choice with the samples provided. My choice of query was opposite of my choice of partial. I understand that this can and will happen. I know that if I can't get sucked in within the first few paragraphs, I don't want to read the rest. So the same may be true for my own book. What if someone doesn't get into my first few paragraphs and puts it down?
Food for thought.
Again, thanks for this experiment. It helped a lot!
Nikki,
I’m just beginning to read all the comments here, and discovered that you wrote SHORELINE. Congratulations! You have some real talent. I feel your frustration about wishing you could get a more detailed critique. Hope you find success with your book!
Query + book trailer?
Would a "book trailer" accompanying the query have any merit? Obviously the writing of both the query and sample pages must speak for themselves, but wouldn't a glimpse at the author behind the words be worthwhile?
Would it give an agent a sense of an author's passion, marketability, creativity or craziness? Or would it simply be an extra link to click and take time away from other queries?
Though the query process seems viable, I don't think a modern touch would hurt. Then again, seeing 100 cats in the author's house might be a deterrent…
Jan said (about her book, UNREALITY CHICK):
"And thanks for all the folks who liked Beck. I like her too. Too bad her book ultimately sucked :-)"
You sound like a writer. LOL. How did you arrive at that conclusion? My impression from the comments I’ve read so far is that, with editing, UNREALITY CHICK could not only get published, it could also be a very popular book. Did I miss something? You go, girl! Don’t give up.
Nathan – I believe, as Ink suggested, that perhaps Pinky and the Brain are exerting extraordinary psychic powers over your Blog. The word verification for my comment this time is "brave". LOL.
Nathan, I always wonder about finding the right "fit" with an agent. Since most authors don't write the same book over and over, what is the difference between an agent "loving" your book or knowing they can "sell" your book? Wouldn't an agent naturally choose knowing they can sell over "love," since they might not love the author's NEXT book (but still be able to sell it)?
It seems so much of an agent wanting a book is plot related, when it should be quality of writing related. Or, I'm just over-thinking things??
curious-
Another way to think of it is, agents love books they think they can sell. But agents don't love (or think they can sell) the same books.
This experiment was a lot of fun, Nathan. Thanks.
Ty, I actually have a book trailer for Shoreline! I have never submitted it with my query – and am curious to know from Nathan if this is something worth including or do agents gloss over that?
Honestly, sometimes I feel with the query process that the stars have to align, the planets have a synchronistic orbit, and God has to move earth and mountains before we find the right agent, at the right time in the publishing industry, with our book fitting the exact interests of an agent and then an editor and publishing house. It seems overwhelmingly impossible and some days depressing. This experiment just continued to show how subjective this could be and that many things have to fit just right for there to be a published book. I try not to let it get to me, but finding a first agent is hard. Thank you for sharing. What does it take to become an agent? Because I enjoyed that process. 🙂
It's funny, because with the query I voted fore Shoreline. When the pages got posted, I read a little bit of Shoreline and got bored of it (it was just too descriptive at the beginning with not much about Maya's powers described). And Unreality Chick's first chapter was very interesting, but as soon as I got to the second chapter in the world Beck was in it was a little too descriptive as well, like describing everything she was thinking. Got very tiresome after awhile.
The one I chose ironicly enough, was I'm a Nobody. That was the only one I read all the way through.
After seeing the polls, I re-read Shoreline. I can see why it got the majority vote, but still wasn't quite for me.
All of these were awesome though, I love this experiment! You guys are all great writers.
yes, I'm here….I WOULD HAVE LOVED YOU ANYWAY. This is the first opportunity I've had to respond today. I really do appreciate the opportunity to participate and all who commented. When I finished my first draft it was 134,000 words…I know! In revision I've struggled with my beginning most. Maybe that's why it seemed to jump around…I was trying to keep some aspect of the first draft and now I can move on. The premise for this story came from a real life experience. Only when my senior picture showed up with a letter (albeit not quite as threatening, but still with a promise to find me)I panicked. My rescuer was an Arkansas State Trooper, but it could have been Reid…at least in my dreams. I know the story will come together. I won't stop until it does. A big congratulations to the other 4 brave souls. I lick my wounds with gratitude. Now back to work.