Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Stupid Things This One Guy Did

Today we got a query on colored paper from someone who had some program to reverse his text. In other words, to read the query, I had to go to the mirror above the sink in the bathroom and hold it up.

Not only that, at no point did he really mention what his book was about. He mainly focused on the fact that his writing credentials were having lost a contest to host SNL in some "anyone can host" contest NBC ran in 1977. Yes, that's right, he lost the contest. Oh, and he has a novel, or something, but he didn't mention what is was about and I was already pretty annoyed, so I don't think it mattered.

Look, don't send us text that is unreadable unless we figure out how to do something to it. I didn't think I would have to say that, but apparently I do.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Age and Gender

Blog Readers: More on my blog in general in the comments section.

Ms. Rejector,


I am a sixteen year old female author. I have one full length novel (unpublished), under my belt, as well as one half of another one. My question is, respectfully, do age and gender play a major part when a manuscript is being taken into consideration by a publisher? I know it ultimately boils down to the quality of the work as to whether or not it is picked up, but in those first stages of consideration, is my age working against me?

Gender does not work against you unless you are a male writing a story about lesbians. That is the once case where it works against you.

Age does. Don't mention your age if you are below 21 years old. It's not lying; it's just not something you should mention before they see your novel and love it.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

And the hits keep coming. Hits of awesomeness.

This is a continuation of the material I quoted in this post. He/she also references some replies, so read the comments. Not that it helps.

P.S. No offense meant to Peter. Sorry, but I'm just quoting the material.


That's right, Deb. You can make 4000 queries over the course of a couple years and that's what I did.
No hyperbole. Prob'ly more. It's easy to do with the internet, one single query at a time, wait awhile, requery some.

Advice: take the time to at least put the agent's name on your form queries. And yes you too can do 4000 if you like. And get just ONE snot-nosed reply, such as from Peter Rubie. Or this asshole "leesmiley."

Yes, you bet, none of the 1999 people rejected have gotten anywhere -- so far. Anyway, it's most probable. It's easy enough to take a representative sample, and easier to check who's made deals with whom, and so on. Then search your own computer records with a search to see if anybody who queried you has made a deal.

That's right, read each individual paragraph for its own. This is internet. You've got to speed up your own comprehensions, people. If you can't, join "leesmiley" and get nowhere, forever.

Oh. Sorry, at least two snot-noses here. Andrew Wheeler, genius.

Out of time. Work to do.