Why you don't get published.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Q & A 46 Requesting Comments
Would ending a query and sample package with "Ps. Any critiques and comments are highly and humbly appreciated." be a good invitation to find out what the agent really thinks or would it be a major faux pas?
Odds are, if an agent gets to your P.S. and is interested in your book, she was going to make some comments anyway, and you don't want those comments to change from "Send me that book," to "I was going to ask for the book, but now that I realize you are annoyingly obsessed with alliteration, sorry."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Oh, please don't do this.
Maybe on a requested partial or full, but not a query. Do you really want to receive the same form rejection you would have anyway, and be left wondering whether the agent rejected you cause you came off as pushy or self-entitled?
There are so many reasons you can be rejected--why give them one more? Write the best query you can, submit your pages to the crapometer or another critique group, and while your queries are out, keep writing. That's the best anyone can do.
I agree with adding zombies. Every novel can be enhanced by an undead horde.
Both EE and Kis are right about not asking for a crit in the query. Looking desperate for a reaction won't help your case.
Why don't you submit your stuff here? We'll give you LOTS of criticism--I mean critiques.
plus--it's just rude.
Do YOU explain to all the people you don't buy things from WHY you're not buying the things?
Think of all the things you don't buy in a day--you'd be exhausted if you had to explain all those choices.
I would take it for granted that they know you want feedback. If they are an agent/editor they know we writer types are emotional black holes of neediness. You don't need to ask/beg.
wwkyz, you are incorrect in one of your assumptions. The writer is hiring the agent; not the other way around. The publisher pays the author, and the agent is paid from what the author makes.
Yes, contractually, the check typically goes to the agent directly, but this is about administrative handling of funds; it does not change whose money it is. The agent is paid for a service by the author.
So your example doesn't work. It works for the times when editors don't give feedback, for they are the hiring/purchasing party. This is not the case with agents.
Until the industry can remember this fact, things will continue to be screwed up as they are now with agents holding far more power than they're entitled to have. (Miss Snark excepted; just because I think I might have a small crush on her.)
ok--then switch it.
do you explain to all the employers out there who are looking for employees why you are not taking the jobs?
"the agent is paid for a service by the author." Not for reading the query. They do that for free.
Rejected,
There is a difference between the guy I pay to mow my lawn (if I had extra money to pay him after my weekly trip to the liquor store) and the agent who eventually takes me on (if I don't drink myself to death first).
If the lawn guy stood there with a moue of distaste and said, "You know, this lawn just isn't quite right for me. I'm just not having strong feelings about it, at all. I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else to cut it," then indeed the world would be screwed.
And hell, I could hire any number of people to be my agent, if I didn't care about their ability to actually SELL my book. But the truth is, agents are more like the good mechanic in a small town like mine: "Geez, we're all booked up until the 29th. You can live without a car for three weeks, right?" Now just imagine how long I'd be waiting to fix my car if each car took months or even years to fix?
Truth is, as long as there are more authors (even good ones) than agents, we're gonna be left ringing doorbells and begging.
Now let's all say the serenity prayer thingie.
"Lord, give me the strength to change what I cannot accept, the serenity to accept what I cannot change, and the restraint not to blow my neighbor's mutt's head off the next time it craps on my flower bed."
Post a Comment