bookpublishing

Allan Mott at Bookgasm.com wrote a clever and amusing list titled 50 Reasons Why No One Wants to Publish Your First Book. Most are so outrageous that there’s no question why a particular book idea wouldn’t be considered by any publisher. I especially love when around #29 (”Everyone who attempts to load a copy of the manuscript onto their Kindle is found dead three hours later) they begin to delve into the realm of extremely ridiculous. But others, like #27 (”You know the talented creative writing professor who told you your work showed so much creativity and promise? Turns out what he really meant was that he wanted you to blow him.”) may not be far from the truth, at least for someone out there. Check out the rest of them via the link above.

Mott’s poignant and somewhat harsh advice comes on the heels of a trend sweeping Twitter nation: Queryfail. Begun by Tweeting literary agents under the leadership of @Colleen_Lindsay, a FinePrint Literary Management agent, Queryfail resulted from agents’ frustration with authors who have a lot of difficulty adhering to submission guidelines. This is (in my opinion at least) a humorous yet informative way to instruct potential authors how NOT to query. Real author submissions are posted on Twitter (but authors remain anonymous) followed by the #queryfail hash tag. Queryfail Tweets were becoming so popular, they became part of an entire event–queryfail day occurs every Thursday. Here is an example of failure queries:

• “My book is differentiated from Twilight because the vampires have wings, and are half-breed angels”
• “My book is about a friendship based upon mutual vomiting practices in high school”
• “Easily the boldest novel so far written in this fresh century of ours”
• “My credentials for writing this book include: A divine mandate to speak the word of God”
• “43 years of toiling within my own mind have come to an end with this manuscript!”

The list above was collected in this UK Guardian article, which also admires Queryfail as a “hilarious, and educational, read. I particularly like the tautological ‘This is my first attempt at writing a fictional novel,’ and the wonderful typo of ’she mustard her power,’ but I’m bemused as to why ‘This book is The Notebook meets The Lord of the Rings‘ was passed over.”

Despite best intentions, it wasn’t long before a wave of backlash rolled in. Agents spoke out against it and authors began boycotting agents who participate in Queryfail. Reported on GalleyCat : Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford decided not to participate, declaring “positivity week” on his blog instead. His post generated more than 200 comments. Here’s an excerpt: “in these tough times people definitely could use some more positivity, so consider this a humble request to go out and spread it … 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.”

Colleen Lindsay, a FinePrint Literary Management agent, responded: “The idea wasn’t to mock but to educate. We were pointing out mistakes that people make over and over again in their queries, as well as those queries that were clearly sent out without any regard to spelling, grammar or typos. We used no personal identifiers of any sort, and didn’t mention names or titles of books.”

It seems that there is just as much support for Queryfail as there is uproar. Agent Elaine Spencer explains that Queryfail is simply a “tough love” approach to author submissions, not unlike the reaction bad performances get from bad-boy judges/hosts Simon Cowell (American Idol) and Chef Gordon Ramsay (Hell’s Kitchen). I agree completely. Since when was making fun of people’s bad performances unpopular these days — you have seen American Idol, right? In my opinion many of the harsh reactions are deserved; these submissions don’t follow guidelines or are mass-mailings without attempting to hide it. If the author can’t make a real effort, why should an agent take it seriously? For those submissions that do follow guidelines, the agents who participate clearly state that they always respond with constructive criticism–that is, as soon as they wade through an inbox of 500+ submissions. If this is the way agents blow off steam in the meantime, who is it really hurting?