If you're a new or wannabe author wandering around in a haze of confusion over the often inexplicable mysteries surrounding the publishing process, or even if you're an established author, you might find it enlightening to check out the recent QueryFail and AgentFail online "events."
QueryFail was the brainchild of literary agent Colleen Lindsay, who set aside a day for agents on Twitter to post their gut reactions in real time as they were reading queries. Although most of the examples were so obviously bad, they probably won't help the good writers out there, if you've sent out queries to dozens upon dozens of agents with not much in the way of response, you might want to check it out. Favorites include the likes of "Easily the boldest novel so far written in this fresh century of ours," and "43 years of toiling within my own mind have come to an end with this manuscript!"
In response, some less-than-happy writers struck back with their version, AgentFail, which Jessica Faust of BookEnds opened up to authors (who could post anonymously on her blog) allowing authors to vent their grievances with agents. Frequent complaints included comments like "How difficult is it to have an auto-responder so that IF you don't
respond, I know you at least got the email and it was not a glitchy
thing?" and "Making sure web submission guidelines are up-to-date. I've queried
agents who say they rep my genre on their website, only to receive a
rejection because... they don't rep that genre."
In case you missed the whole affair, Colleen Lindsay has announced the next Queryfail ("Queryfail 2: Queries Never Die"), scheduled for Friday, April 17th.
And for all the frustrated authors out there, agent Nathan Bransford is sponsoring a "Be An Agent for a Day" (actually a week) contest on his blog.
In a related note, literary agent Rachelle Gardner recently posted 10 Things to Expect From an Agent (hat tip to Janet Reid).
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