First, an explanation. #queryfail is an event that happened on Twitter, where agents and editors Tweeted about why they rejected queries. Sometimes it was a sentence from the query, sometimes it was a comment like “four paragraphs about his education, not a word about the book.” All author identifiers were removed.
Now, of course, because it’s the internets, there’s a lot of squawking about how unprofessional it was of these persons to post such things, how they are mocking hardworking writers, blah blah blah.
Sorry, but this hardworking writer says suck it up. Here’s why.
- Agents and editors are not public servants. They work their asses off for not much money because they love books, but they do need to pay rent/mortgage/cat-food bills. They don’t do that by coddling writers–until/unless you actually manage to land one, and then you better keep the coddling needs to a minimum. If you want to be in the business, better to learn that now.
- Hell, let’s go with the obvious. QueryFail (should have) taught people to FOLLOW THE DAMN GUIDELINES. Those aren’t random rules set up to annoy you–the agent or editor has put them in place to make her (it’s usually her) life easier, and she will not smile on the courage of your convictions if you send her what she specifically asked not to see.
- Rejection is a fact of life in publishing. Again, get used to it.
- Everyone wants to work with people who share their values and views if possible. #queryfail just gave you a list of people who think #queryfail is informative and in other ways a good thing. Don’t agree? Don’t query them. You’ll be happier, they’ll be happier, the world will be a Better Place.
I have to wonder how many of those being loudest are actually actively querying. I know how it is/was for me–email queries with no response at all, SASE after SASE after SASE coming back with rejection slips, email rejections in answer to my email subs…revise the query, revise the book, revise the query…
Imagine you’ve sent out a hundred queries, and every last one has come back with “not for me.” Now seriously–what would you give to know if it’s the query, the book, the market, or that Eau de Workout Socks you spray on every envelope?
So come on, writers. Build a bridge and get over it. And then get back to writing, now that you know who you don’t (or do) want to query when the time comes.
(In the interest of full disclosure, yes, I have queried at least two of the agents who participated. Yes, I would have been upset to see mine there–in a full headdesk “shit, that was stupid!” kind of way. Then I’d fix that damned query. Probably pout a bit. Have some ice cream. Then get back to work.)
If you want to learn from it, you can find #queryfail here. If you want to kvetch, you can comment here, or take it where they all agree with you. Google can help.
Okay, time to “kvetch.”
1. No, they’re not public servants, but doing this isn’t getting them paid either. And not posting to queryfail doesn’t mean they’re coddling authors.
2. There are ways to do that without taking examples of what other people have written and putting them online, keeping their name hidden or not, WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION.
3. There’s rejection, and kicking people while they’re down. Perhaps that phrase is too strong for this, but it’s the closest I can think of.
Imagine you’ve sent out a hundred queries, and every last one has come back with “not for me.” Now seriously–what would you give to know if it’s the query, the book, the market, or that Eau de Workout Socks you spray on every envelope?
Unless you’ve been put on Queryfail, how are you going to know? Besides, there’s a simple way to sort that out – show it to other people you trust to be honest and ask them for constructive criticism. There’s no doubt some of the stuff there is amusing, but I cannot bring myself to laugh at someone else’s misfortune.
I don’t see anything wrong with the good intentions that started this. Yes, it’s educational, but surely there’s better ways to go about telling writers how to query well that will strike a chord that’s better than doing this.
I’m not querying, but if that makes my opinion invalid somehow, go on and tell me.
1. Doing this might make them receive less awful queries–which means they waste less time on bad queries, AND have a better chance of finding the good stuff from the bad query-letter writer once he fixes his query.
2. Fair Use–educational purposes.
3. I’d rather have that “kick” and know what I did wrong, then get knocked down again and again and have no clue why.
By example–if my query contains something like what appears on queryfail, I’ll know to fix mine.
The people I know and trust aren’t agents, and don’t know what agents want to see. I don’t know anyone at all, I’m pretty sure, who has put more time into learning to write a query than I have–and I’ve done that by reading what agents say about it. This is a litttle different from Miss Snark–she had it on her blog, iirc, that emailing her was an invitation to being “Snarked” on the blog–but not that much. She did the whole letter, or hook, or first page, not just a sentence.
Not querying doesn’t make your opinion invalid, but I do believe if you had a bunch of “not for me” letters in your desk, you’d feel a little different. Maybe you wouldn’t–you’d know better than I would.
1. If the people are dumb enough to not read enough information on querying properly, then they’re not likely to be reading queryfail.
2. Fair use?
3. I see your point here.
And perhaps people you know and trust aren’t agents, but I’m sure they have enough imagination to put themselves in the shoes of one and try to look at where you went wrong. A lot of people we know are writers, after all, so they can imagine, if nothing else.
Perhaps I’d feel different, perhaps I wouldn’t. From what I can imagine, I’d be going around asking people how to fix it instead of preferring to watch others be humiliated. I know you’re not doing this, but it sounds like people are using it as an excuse not to be directly criticised.
1. ahh, but they might!
2. “Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review.” Wikipedia
Over on PubYe we did a synopsis challenge last year. People complained about the wordcount limit–which was pulled straight from agent’s blogs on what it SHOULD be–insisted it couldn’t be done, some wrote synopses that had me headdesking… These are wonderful writers as well as people I value highly, but my hours and hours of Snark-and-Others reading told me they had it wrong.
It’s possible I am the one who’s wrong about how to do it. But if I don’t agree with the queries of anyone I know, how can I ask them to fix mine?
Very valid points. 🙂 I still don’t agree – it just doesn’t feel right – but I’ll concede. And thanks for explaining fair use.
Couldn’t agree with you more, KDsarge. We as authors almost always complain about form letters and no feedback on our queries. We get feedback, and we complain.
Honestly, I have no sympathy for people whose queries were quoted. The first draft of my query sits immortalized on Evil Editor’s website with a pretty horrific spelling error. When talking about my character going to “public school” for the first time, a single letter got left out of the first word that changed the entire meaning. It never went to an agent with that typo, thank goodness, but if it had, I would’ve totally deserved QueryFail. (Actually, I think EvilEditor was worse because I got entire paragraphs about what a screw-up that was.)
I can see why some people are upset about #queryfail, but I thought it worked fairly well in practice. The vast majority of the tweets (such as KD’s example at the top of her post) were vague enough that nobody would even be able to tell whether it was their query, yet still specific enough to be helpful. (I did have a problem with the ones that were specific enough to be instantly recognizeable.) Some of the queriers were obviously clueless; others weren’t, but were making mistakes that a reasonable person might make and might now know not to make. Not all the tweets were negative, either – some of them gave examples of “querywin”.
Since I read agent blogs, I have a pretty good idea of what to do and what not to do, so #queryfail felt rather redundant. Are there people who read agents’ tweets but not their blogs? Maybe, especially with all the discussion that’s now happening around #queryfail. Might those people have been shooting themselves in the foot with their queries (despite a potentially good novel) and now know better? Maybe — at least that’s what the agents were hoping.
Getting back to KD’s actual post, I particularly liked #2, for two reasons. (1) Agents get a huge number of queries – and their job isn’t reading queries, it’s acting as intermediary between their *existing* clients and their publishers. (2) Therefore, the queries that have the fewest trip-ups and the clearest information about the story – in other words, the ones that are easiest to read – are going to be the ones that are read the most closely. Most agent complaints are related to one of these two reasons. If you view them from that angle, they suddenly make a lot more sense.
It does make you wonder, though, how so many series show up, as it does seem like every agent and/or editor doesn’t want to hear about series. 😉
Katrina, that is EPIC! I may be snickering about that all day.