This Week! Publishing! Positive style!
Thanks so much to everyone for participating in positivity week. Judging from the feedback and comments, in these tough times people definitely could use some more positivity, so consider this a humble request to go out and spread it.
It’s also why I didn’t participate in the Twitter-fest #queryfail, in which agents and editors Twittered in real-time yesterday about the queries they were rejecting. Seems like a good opportunity to remind everyone who is thinking of querying me that you do not have to fear becoming blog/Twitter fodder. Ever. Never ever. Not when you’re querying, and not when you’re a client.
First up, it seems fitting to link to an end-of-publishing-as-we-know it article, this time by former book editor Marion Maneker. Why during positivity week? Because even though he believes there are going to be major changes at the publishing houses, ultimately the digital era will be good for writers.
While we are thinking positively, you’d better start preparing yourself for success, right? Well, agent Rachelle Gardner has a post about some steps to consider as you contemplate the time commitments that come with being a writer.
In case you need proof that the mainstream publishing industry is increasingly gravitating toward celebrity books and bestsellers, HarperCollins this week launched an imprint devoted to celebrity books and bestsellers. Why is this good news for positivity week? I have another place to send book projects!! Imprints opening: good.
Reader Neil Vogler pointed me to a new e-book experiment by UK publisher Faber and author Ben Wilson, who are attempting the Radiohead “pay what you want” model. According to the article, only 38% of users paid anything for Radiohead’s album “In Rainbows” and the average among those who paid was £2.80. But hey — experimentation: positive.
As mentioned on Wednesday, Amazon entered the iPhone app fray with a Kindle-linked application, and Wired surveyed the other book app companies. The consensus: unafraid. I find all of this extremely gratifying. Anything that can get on-the-go people to buy books is going to be a major boon to the book business.
Do you have a publishing emergency? Author Lynn Viehl is (hilariously) standing by.
The new edition of MentalFloss contains a list of the 25 most influential books of the past 25 years, and the Washington Post’s Short Stack blog took issue with some of the choices. Here’s hoping your book make the next list!
And finally, we opened positivity week with Muppets and it seemed only fitting to close positivity week with Muppets. I give you: a Bert & Ernie gangsta rap mashup:
Anonymous says
From the continuing chatter on queryfail, looks like there’s gonna be another one. They got a lot of publicity. Be careful where you submit your queries, folks!
Kate H says
Umm . . . could anyone understand a word of that video?
I miss Rubber Ducky . . .
Marilyn Peake says
Mira –
Thanks so much for the compliment!
Ode to a Deleted Post? Is that a new sub-genre or something? 🙂
I’m psyched that it’s now officially Read an eBook Week.
Anonymous says
Vitoria,
I respectfully disagree. Almost all of us started out like these authors. We didn’t learn by being made fun of, we learned by getting a reject and then digging deeper to find out what we did wrong. One guy’s last name was made fun of. There are far better ways of teaching. As far as the nine book deal goes, why would you make fun of that? Agents want continued business. This person may have needed to be rejected for other reasons, but having a plan for continuing their writing isn’t one of them. And yes there were mis-spellings pointed out by some chick who was an intern.
This is one of those cases where you needed to follow the whole thing before you can say they didn’t do anything wrong.
Anonymous says
Well, The Guardian wrote an article about queryfail and is now mocking some of the same queries, going so far as to call some of them “insane”:
The Guardian article
One of the “insane” queries is about vampires that have wings and are half-breed angels. Why is that being mocked?? It’s a popular type of character in fantasy.
Anonymous says
Anon,
I learned by doing research. I think if this teaches something, it’s that you should take the time to educate yourself rather than just throw yourself out there and amass rejections that are in many cases (not all) avoidable. Not every bump and bruise in this process needs to be experienced firsthand. This is an industry where learning from others, successes and failures, will greatly help the early stages of the game,
Yes, in some cases it’s gone too far, but writers really need to develop a thicker skin. This is a tough business, kids.
Anonymous says
Anon @ 12:42 P.M.,
I saw that on queryfail, too – a guy’s unusual last name, first mentioned by a big literary agent, got a lot of laughs and a comment by the literary agent on how bad that name would look on a book cover. So, it looks like an author can be rejected because of their last name. What does that say about rejection letters from certain agents? It says that someone can work very hard at writing, but receive numerous rejections simply because they had the wrong last name. Who knew that was going on?!? It’s the same reason that mean kids make fun of other kids in the schoolyard. This is very sad!
Anonymous says
Analysis of queryfail:
Another example of the social unrest that takes place in times of economic stress. Kindness and manners are the first casualties, as much greater value is placed on the dog-eat-dog approach.
Anonymous says
I noticed on queryfail that, when the editors and agents mock typos, they sometimes make typos in the same sentences that are mocking typos. What can you learn from that??
Anonymous says
Is there a list somewhere of agents who WON’T participate in queryfail? That would be valuable.
Anonymous says
Anon 1:08,
I went out and bought two books on how to get published. I still made mistakes thatI eventually learned about from blogs (not sites making fun of other people). I again disagree, we learn from experience. There is absolutely NO job that you immediately know how to do everything correctly. You could research forever and not learn everything; meanwhile the book you have written is not what they are looking for anymore.
Anonymous says
Two more points about queryfail…
One of the indie press Editors was making fun of query letter typos while using typos in her complaint. I checked out the website of her publishing house. Within seconds, I found typos in the excerpts of books she’s offering for sale.
And to the poor guy whose last name was mocked by literary agents at queryfail…If you look up that last name on Google, you’ll discover a VERY SUCCESSFUL author/painter and several businesses with that same last name.
Anonymous says
The guy whose last name they were making fun of shows up later, and has no clue what has happened, until another person tells him he is going to have to change his last name.
Matt Wagner says
I'm an agent who also participated in #queryfail. I can't address 200+ comments, but I can say that other agents and agencies, including my own, have shared anonymous failed queries in the past, with the intention of helping authors understand our own process. I've even heard stories of failed queries at writer's conferences, so it's not the first time I've heard an agent or editor talk about failed queries. That said, the idea of getting a few people together for a real time chat about this stuff was, I think, a good one. It was the first time I've ever participated in a twitter chat and it was probably busier than anyone expected but that's because the participants found it valuable. I think it's fine if you want to blackball agents who participated. That's your right. It's also fine that Janet Reid and Nathan have their own perspective. I also agree with Janet Reid's point that many of the queries discussed represented the most egregious examples of queries gone wrong, and that may relate to the nature of a 140 character max, but again, it was a conversation, not a blog or a book. Fwiw, next time I would avoid quoting the guy who wanted to write about bedding hundreds of exotic dancers, but otherwise I would behave just as I did. Also, if his story is truly marketable and my pass was an #agentfail, another agent will pick it up and you'll see it in stores 24 months. So good luck to him, it's just not my thing.
What I can tell you is that I was not out to mock authors or the writing process. Q & A was welcome and respected, and so was dissenting opinion.
Please keep in mind, this is a subjective business, and nothing would make me happier than to hear that a query I passed on because I just didn't "get it" would become a terrific bestseller with another agent.
Good luck to everyone with your future queries and books!
Kim Kasch says
Don’t know if you already saw this but thought you might like to check out ”GalleyCat”
sylvia says
I’m pleased to see more agents becoming aware that authors should be given the option of “opting in”.
It’s frustrating that some can’t see the difference between “discussing problems with queries in general” and “discussing the general problems with this specific query” and mixing apples with oranges.
I do recommend that people unhappy with the concept read the #queryfail twitters and make judgements accordingly, rather than blacklist everyone on Colleen’s list.
Anonymous says
Matt,
Your participation was not one I even noticed. I have no intention of blackballing all participants, just the ones who said things they shouldn’t have. I hope the next queryfail is handled better. Twitter is very hard to follow and I feel your efforts would be better on a blog site if you truly want it to be a learning experience, and anything such as names or titles, even subjects, can be deleted by an administrator. Very little that was posted on that site was educational.
Anonymous says
I think it’s just plain silly to call it “education.” It really wasn’t. It was venting. But venting publically, online, for the world to see.
There ARE writers who would sign up for this. They do all the time at Query Shark. But, then, see, you’d have to take time and explain what to do or not do (as in “educate”) and we all know that isn’t nearly as fun as complaining.
For every agent out there that gets a stupid writer query, trust me, there are ten writers who have been screwed over by an agent. Want them to start a twitter to complain about each one of you and your inablilities?
That would be silly, wouldn’t it?
Of course it would, because it wouldn’t really accomplish anything. It wouldn’t get a writer closer to publishing a book, or an agent closer to selling a book. I say the agents that participated should themselves chalk this up as their own “education.” It didn’t work. And it didn’t produce anything within the industry other than uproar.
I almost can’t believe they are still planning another one. WOW! Now THAT is an agent I wouldn’t want. After all this, and there’s gonna be another? Ick.
Heather says
[…](Thanks to agent (!) Nathan Bransford for the link)[…]
Rachel Udin says
When I was little, I would make stories, I would make them for myself and basically talk to the wall about them since no one was there to write them for me. So I verbally made up stories. I didn’t know I wanted to publish a book until I was 13 and I missed writing in school journals which were no longer required. That’s when I faced reality and started educating myself on how to be a writer. I knew it’s different to write your own stories for yourself and your friends and to get published.
After reading how hard it was in the late 1800’s, educating myself on the industry and how it changed, reading agent blogs, and getting rejected, I learned the most important thing is for writers to have a thick skin. It’s not about others making it “harder” for you. It’s about you getting your work up to snuff.
Why are you writing? Why do you want to get published? I think these are fundamental things for every writer to think about before sending out letters to agents or editors. I see Editors and agents a litmus test of seeing if your stuff is up to snuff and to help develop a “shut up” attitude. Do you want to go All [redacted author name] who made that stint on Amazon over a badly reviewed book and then went down to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts to promote her next book on a famous religious prophet? (If you know who it is, please don’t insert her name).
If you want to be famous, popular, this is not the industry for you. If you want to be liked and worshiped, why are you in the arts at all? There are better professions for you. Being a writer is like learning how to be a masochist. You are a sadist when you write, but once you say, “Yes! I should get this published,” it’s a shut up process. Someone insults your ability to write in a review? You shut up and don’t say anything. I know that it’s hard to learn, heck, even I can’t do it that well, but I think one should celebrate the negative and positive rejections they get. Even if the agent says, “You are the most horrid writer I’ve ever seen!!” I would celebrate that rejection, because every rejection makes my writing better than it was before.
Writing AND publishing is like a never ending climbing of mount Everest. No one ever gets to the top… There will *always* be someone throwing rocks at you. If it’s not your parents for saying, “What the hell are you doing in there all day?” Or people telling you your genre is not a “legit” genre or people telling you to write something else, or someone telling you that you don’t count as a writer because you only write one genre, or that because you write more than one you aren’t “focused”, or because the writers in your critique group can’t tell you why your work isn’t working, but they know something is wrong… or being told lightly it stinks… or because you got OMG 100 rejections and now what are you going to do? Or because you sent a story you like to all the magazines and can’t find a place for it to get it published before despite your best efforts and it passing the critique bar at X number of sites, or a story you’ve worked hard on fizzling in a plot hole, or finding that your *perfect* agent has rejected you, or you find out that you can’t get your story published through an agent, because you’ve been rejected by them all… are you still going to write? If you are going to stop, then let me ***THANK YOU DEEPLY***. Because that gives me more of a chance to be published over you. It makes me ask the question of if you wanted to be published at all.
Because if Mur Lafferty had stopped, she wouldn’t have gotten published. No, she did a podcast after getting all those rejections and kept writing.
So if those writers don’t learn a thick skin and don’t overcome those rejections, then how do you propose they will become better writers? All artists need someone to beat on their ego and work to become better than they were yesterday. No matter how snarky people get, how much it makes your fists shake, writers NEED rejections, and I would argue, form rejections. If you want to be coddled, and you give up half way.. I am still going to say a Big THANK YOU. You just helped me eliminate my competition by taking yourself out of the race.
Ultimately, your “preciousssss” (yes book reference) will be fodder for ridicule and criticism. If not when it’s published, then when you die. People will be talking about its suckiness for the years after its published. And as a writer I embrace that fully!! Bring on how it sucks before I get it published so I can fix it and become a better writer, so Joe Schmo critic later doesn’t say it sucks based on those things. Let me have a book banned. Let’s bring it on!! ’cause I see it as better rejected by an agent now than have it go to store and find out it sucks later and be ashamed of it.
Also for those who wish to coddle new writers, when do you expect to teach them about the downright harshness of this industry? I really mean it. ‘Cause that’s the first thing I say to new writers who wish to get published. You will have to learn how to just take it. And since I don’t coddle them, they grow faster and catch up faster than the ones I see coddled to death. But that my opinion and experience.
BTW, I’m up for #querywin and #agentfail. Shouldn’t we also have #agentpass too to be fair? Round2 of Query fail should be interesting too.
Melanie Avila says
Thank you so much for the week of positivity! My week was quite hectic so I’m just now getting to it, but I appreciate the effort!
And I looooooved the video!
The Unbreakable Child says
Nathan, as usual I’m late to the party. But I can still tap into your positive week and be grateful.
Grateful for agent’s like you!
Classy you!!
Anonymous says
I’ve got a better idea that queryfail.
How ’bout some successful authors have a tweet session on all the stupid things agents have said in their reject letters.
Fairs fair. If everything rides on the query letter, you’re missing the blockbuster ‘S.Meyers’ type books.
The fact that such a massive percentage of newly published books fail to sell shows that something is missing somewhere.
I’d say literary snobbery is to blame.
FAIL.
Good on you for not participating Nathan.
Anonymous says
During Query fail,the participating agents kept moaning about writers not following guidelines. My observation has been that many agents have more than one place where they post their guidelines, and some have different sets of submission rules. As a person (yes, writers are people too) who was told to resubmit “following the guidelines” I found the agent to whom I sent a query, was listed in three different places. This resulted in three different submissions criteria. I told the agent, and the last I heard she was going to check on her various listings. I was so embarassed and disappointed in her and her agency that I didn’t submit the third time. I figured these agents were looking down their noses at writers, and who needed that? These agents want to be courted. They want you to read everything they blog or post so that you will tailor your query to fit them. Fine. I am willing to do that. I am willing to put in the time. But I think agents ought to put some time in too and check every place where their guidelines appear before complaining that the people who query them are idiots who can’t read directions.
Anonymous says
Other than not querying the agents who participated in QF, how can writers protect themselves against future public ridicule? Can we put a disclaimer on our queries and submissions requesting confidentiality? No doubt QF agents would make fun, but how would a professional agent feel about that?
Anonymous says
For some reason I just found out about this, and was similarly appalled–by the defense of the event as much as the event itself. Kudos to you, Nathan, for not taking out your own issues on everyone else by having a “let’s laugh at all the stupid authors without whom we, uh, wouldn’t have a job” moment.
I hope we don’t ever again hear complaints from any agent who participated in this about authors publicly calling him/her out for non-responsible, unprofessional behavior (you know, like not responding to a query a year after it was sent). What’s good for the goose, after all…
What a joke.
Schaz says
I found a source that compiled all of the @queryfail tweets into an html file – there are definitely two approaches visible in the tweets.
One voice is professional and civilized. The other voice is snarky, and obviously trying to find things to mock. I got the feeling that the snarks were playing to the crowd.
I read through the comments and only noted who was speaking when a comment struck me as really good or really bad. Funny how the really bad were almost entirely one person.
Many of the comments that struck me as really good were Matt’s. Good job, Matt (despite the “yuck” one).
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