be an agent for a week

13 Apr 2009 news 0 Comments

Thanks to Edi at Crazy Quilts who just hipped me to this intriguing contest: visit agent Nathan Bransford’s blog and enter to “walk a mile in his shoes.”  You agree to read 50 query letters in a week, and then you try to decide which five manuscripts you should request.  Can you pick the actual letters and manuscripts that became published books?  Do you care?  Laura–if you’re reading this, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you ask to use my query letter in your course on how to get published?  I read every book and article I could find on how to write an effective query letter, and it paid off: a fair number of editors wrote back and asked to read my manuscripts.  But that’s as far as I got–next came very kindly-worded rejection letters, complimenting me on my beautiful writing, but assuring me there was no market for my kind of stories.  Bransford refers to this as “publishable potential,” which makes me cringe.  I like the idea of this contest–writers often complain that agents don’t get back to them within a reasonable amount of time, if at all.  And he’s trying to make it clear that the lack of response isn’t just an agent being rude or inconsiderate–they’re simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of queries they receive every day.  I’m “talking” to an agent next week, and don’t want to jinx myself, but it’s hard for me to sympathize.  Agents feeling overwhelmed only hammers home the fact that the system–as is–doesn’t work.  Why would I aspire to choose the same books some agent managed to sell and get published?  That assumes that I AGREE with their choices of what’s “best” and what’s being offered to the public right now.  I hope the contest proves MY point–that there isn’t consensus on what constitutes “publishable potential.”  How diverse is the selection of query letters?  And how diverse are the contest entrants?  There were 172 comments left when I checked his blog a moment ago…I guess ultimately I’m not that interested in learning the inner-workings of a system that I don’t think “works” all that well…

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