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Be An Agent for a Day II: A Sort of Scientific Test of the Query Process

April 26, 2010 by Nathan Bransford 95 Comments

On Thursday we discussed the query process and whether or not queries adequately reflect a underlying work’s quality. Can someone really make an assessment of a book project based on a query? Really really?

Let’s test it out. Here’s how this is going to work.

Today I will be soliciting queries from you, the esteemed readership of this blog. I will semi-randomly select five of them. (I say semi-randomly because I’m going to choose one genre from which to select the five queries, which should eliminate any possible Internet genre bias.)

Tomorrow I will post the five queries on the blog. There will be a poll and everyone will have an opportunity to vote on which one they would request if they were an agent.

On Wednesday I will post links to the first thirty pages of these novels so that everyone will have an opportunity to take a look and vote on which partial they think is the most likely to sell to a publisher (and like any busy agent, you need only read as much of each as you need to make a decision).

On Thursday we shall compare notes, see if the most-requested queries corresponded with the most-liked pages, and discuss What We Think and What We Have Learned.

On Friday we dance!!! (Just kidding, on Friday we recap This Week in Publishing).

If you’d like to volunteer your query and first 30 pages for public consumption/semi-competition, please e-mail said query and pages to [redacted]. UPDATE 9:22 PM PDT: ENTRIES ARE CLOSED! THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR ENTERING! It would be great if we could leave the sample pages up as long as possible so that people can continue to check out this sort-of-scientific experiment, but after the contest concludes if you need/want me to take your pages down for any reason I shall do so, and of course all rights belong to you. If you are chosen, please keep your identity/participation top secret while the experiment is going on so as not to compromise the voting.

In case you missed last year’s Be an Agent for a Day event, the posts can be found here.

SCIENCE!!

Well, sort of…

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Be An Agent for a Day II

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. L. T. Host says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:36 pm

    I'd LOVE to send my query and pages, but I think they'd be easily recognizable as belonging to moi. I'll be an agent, this round. Should be fun!

    Reply
  2. Margaret Yang says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    So…are we the genius or the insane? Just askin'.

    "So, what are we going to do today, Nathan?"

    "Same thing we do every night, Bran Fans, try to take over the world!"

    Reply
  3. algonquinrt says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    Are attachments allowable for the contest?

    Reply
  4. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    alognquinrt-

    Yes, please!

    Reply
  5. Ink says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    My sister was once addicted to that cartoon. One of her cats is named Brain. Though whether it likes being named after a mouse, I don't know.

    Gonna get my agent hardhat on. Mmmm, queries. Tasty.

    Reply
  6. sagelikethespice says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    I love that we're losing the genre bias 😀

    Reply
  7. Amanda says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    Oh, how fun!

    And this is the second time in less than a week where I kick myself for not being finished with my revisions. Guess that tells me I need to get off my butt.

    So, for this contest, I shall put off the role of Lax Writer and put on the hat of Busy Agent 🙂

    Reply
  8. shellder says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    You realize there's still the gap between "most likely to be requested by an agent" and "best".

    Reply
  9. Peter Dudley says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:54 pm

    Nathan, if another agent ran this contest and you subsequently received (and recognized) one of the five selected queries, would the fact that the partial had been posted on the internet taint your view of the submission in any way?

    Second question: Would the voting results influence your decision to ask (or not) for the full?

    Reply
  10. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:56 pm

    Peter-

    No and no.

    Reply
  11. Mira says

    April 26, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    Okay this is just too interesting. Darn you, Nathan.

    Love the video, very funny.

    Love that you're doing this!! Kudos to you – sounds really fun.

    The odd thing is, right now, I'm busy typing a paper that's due in four hours. And it's a critique of research studies.

    So, I'm in that mode, and I have some concerns/suggestions about your design. 🙂

    Are you open to my comments about that either here or by e-mail? Or do you pretty much already know it, and prefer to just go with what you've got as a sort of mini-scientific test?

    Either way, it's cool and sounds fun.

    Reply
  12. Kathryn Packer Roberts says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:05 pm

    Nathan, you better do this contest again. In, say, three months. =) Maybe then my first thirty pages won't be in ruins. But, I do have a great query…I hope.

    Can't wait to see how this all plays out.

    Reply
  13. D. G. Hudson says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:10 pm

    Good Luck to all participants! I'll just watch from the sidelines. (and offer my voting).

    Reply
  14. Debra Driza says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:19 pm

    What an awesome contest–can't wait to read the entries! Thanks for doing this, Nathan–a good way to prove agents aren't *really* insane (or…are they? :D)

    Reply
  15. Nick says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:21 pm

    Count me in on the agenting front. Now, what have I done with my glasses and tweed jacket?

    Reply
  16. Francis says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:27 pm

    Oops, I didn't send it as an attachment! Sorry 🙁

    Looking forward to read those queries. Query Shark is barely able to quench my thirst!

    Great event, thanks for organizing it! Lost's a rerun this week, we should have one more extra hour to read entries!

    Reply
  17. J.J. Bennett says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:35 pm

    Nathan must the book be finished? Or can we use something we are working on for the test?

    Reply
  18. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:36 pm

    j.j-

    Doesn't have to be finished.

    Reply
  19. Chibi says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:46 pm

    Wow, this sounds so cool. I'd be incredibly tempted if I had anything even remotely close to that stage. It should be really interesting to see what comes up.

    Reply
  20. Moira Young says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    Nathan, are you going to create a cut-off point, or can we submit all day? (Asks the one on her coffee break at work who would rather submit something in a non-frenzy after she gets home.)

    Reply
  21. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 5:56 pm

    moira-

    No cutoff point, but I'll probably pick them sometime late tonight.

    Reply
  22. Jaycee Adams says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    BA*D! You do this now, when I'm in the middle of rewriting my story and haven't got a tolerable beginning any more… And no query-writing talent to speak of… And I'm busy visiting family and friends I haven't seen in years… And I'd better get a 3-month raincheck or I'll never hold my breath until I turn blue again!

    Rot in heck, Nathan. May cats jump on you while you try to sleep. May dogs never do what you tell them. May you live in interesting times.

    [/hatemail]

    Have a good day.

    Reply
  23. Marilyn Peake says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    Your contest sounds like fun! … although to be truly scientific you would need a random sample of writers that include non-readers of your Blog and judges that are trained as literary agents. 🙂

    PINKY AND THE BRAIN – that was one of my family's most favorite cartoons ever. LOL. Love the opening lines!

    Reply
  24. Anonymous says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    I think there is a small flaw in this experiment. Since your primary audience is writers, their tastes will differ from the general population. This experiment would be more interesting if you had a wider population of readers.

    Reply
  25. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:05 pm

    As I said, it's a semi-scientific experiment – it's a very small sample size, there's no control group, etc. etc. etc. This is just so people can get a sense of whether they think queries and sample pages correlate in quality.

    Entertainment and educational purposes only!!

    Reply
  26. Dara says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    Sounds fun! I shall be an agent this round 🙂

    Plus that video makes me smile. Takes me back to elementary school…

    Reply
  27. Marilyn Peake says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:15 pm

    Nathan,

    Sounds like fun! I did notice that you called this "A Sort of Scientific Test of the Query Process". I wonder, now that you mention it, who the control group might be. 🙂

    Reply
  28. Mira says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:16 pm

    Nathan – okay. I do have an eensy suggestion….which I'll say really fast so you don't get too irritated and that is to pick randomly from the same genre.

    But either way, no big.

    And I promise that's the last you'll hear from me on that. It's just terrible timing, since I'm frantically typing a paper on this topic as I speak.

    The whole thing sounds very fun, and you're undoubtedly putting in alot of extra time to do this, which is appreciated.

    I'll look forward to the entries – good luck everyone!

    Reply
  29. Susan Kaye Quinn says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    But we don't know ahead of time what the genre is going to be?

    Looking forward to stepping into your (impossible to fill, because you are really a robot from the future) shoes! 🙂

    Reply
  30. Anonymous says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    Wouldn't it save you some time if you told us the genre? Or am I missing something?

    Reply
  31. Anonymous says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:24 pm

    Um, crap — I just entered but didn't redact my name from my query — was I supposed to, no, wait, you will, right?

    Reply
  32. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    anon-

    I'm not sure what the current genre breakdown of WIPs is, so rather than trying to guess at which genre is going to be best represented (for a larger random sample size) I figured I'd see what comes in and then whittle down from there.

    Reply
  33. Nathan Bransford says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:26 pm

    anon-

    Yeah, I'll redact names.

    Reply
  34. Em-Musing says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:33 pm

    Are you going to tell us the genre you're selecting?

    Reply
  35. Katy says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:39 pm

    this is an awesome idea — i am excited to read! also, you are going to get several hundred volunteers, i bet. hope you weren't planning to get any work done this week…

    Reply
  36. Mira says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    Oh for goodness sakes. I made a suggestion that you were already following. Lol.

    That's funny.

    Gosh. Hope I didn't do that in my paper too.

    Bet I did. 🙂

    Fun, Nathan. Your blog is so fun.

    Reply
  37. Leah Petersen says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    I love this, if nothing else, to see what others are doing with queries and try to figure out how to get mine right. Can't do too much of that.

    Reply
  38. Margo says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:44 pm

    What a great idea. No queries from me, but I'm up for the reading, voting, and learning!

    Reply
  39. jamesg says

    April 26, 2010 at 6:49 pm

    Nathan

    'I'm going to choose one genre from which to select the five queries…'

    What's the Genre?

    Reply
  40. Chuck H. says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:06 pm

    Okay, I'm in, query and pages sent and everything. Lookin' forward to the agenting part.

    I loved Pinky and the Brain. I still have an awsome T-shirt my kids gave me for Christmas with the Brain on the front.

    WV: bermer – combined bummer and berm as in when you swing a little wide on a curve and hit the edge of the road. Bad for motorcycles – bermer!

    Reply
  41. J.J. Bennett says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:10 pm

    I'm dieing to see what ends up coming in and is posted. It's like Christmas morning and I get to unwrap gifts!

    Reply
  42. J.J. Bennett says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:11 pm

    I hope there's not an ugly Christmas sweater in the bunch…

    Reply
  43. Other Lisa says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:14 pm

    Great, another procrastination opportunity… 😀

    Reply
  44. Joseph L. Selby says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:20 pm

    It's great that you love your job. I am not so masochistic as to want to be an agent. The last Agent for a Day reinforced this notion. 🙂

    Reply
  45. Kristi Helvig says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    I'd love to be an Agent for a Day, so while I won't enter myself, I can't wait to see the entries.

    @ Margaret Yang. Jodi Anderson wore your Maass-keteer hat while introducing Donald on Sunday – it was hilarious! 🙂

    Reply
  46. Liberty Speidel says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:27 pm

    As someone who's been working on her query lately, I'm all over this contest! Just hope my genre is the one that gets picked! Thanks for the opportunity.

    Reply
  47. Mike Jastrzebski says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:29 pm

    I'm looking forward to test driving your job. My guess is that it will be a lot harder than we think.

    Reply
  48. Kimber An says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:29 pm

    I'm Pinky! Narf!

    Reply
  49. sex scenes at starbucks says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:33 pm

    Aw. I was all excited about dancing on Friday.

    Reply
  50. Sun Up says

    April 26, 2010 at 7:35 pm

    I am excited. This was so much fun last year. I can't wait. -bounce bounce bounce-

    I'm not submitting anything. I JUST JUST started back on my own manuscript…but goodness…I would love to have submitted something. My query writing needs a bit of brushing up. It's pretty good…but I'm a perfectionist with certain things.

    Oh..Nathan this is just the next best thing to dipping hot McDonald's fries into a strawberry milkshake.

    Crap…now I want that. And taco bell.

    Reply
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Hi, I’m Nathan. I’m the author of How to Write a Novel and the Jacob Wonderbar series, which was published by Penguin. I used to be a literary agent at Curtis Brown Ltd. and I’m dedicated to helping authors achieve their dreams. Let me help you with your book!

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