Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Interning, Links, and a Shout Out
There are a lot, A LOT of really bad ones, so when you see that an agent has only requested 1 partial out of over 100 queries remember that most of the stuff they read was horrid. You can officially take my word on that, and I want to request more than Awesome Agent.
I've also noticed that what people say about the intern or the new agent reading slush is true; though, naturally, I can't find any of those posts right now. We're more willing to look at something than an agent might be. I'm sure Awesome Agent has requested way more since taking me on than she usually does, just to prove a point. And it's working. Already I look back at some of the first things I requested and wonder what I saw, and it comes down to them being the best ones of the batch, regardless of whether they were good or not.
But I have seen some good stuff, not a whole lot, but some. And that is awesome. You know what else is awesome? Getting an email that says something I picked out of the slush has agent interest/offers elsewhere. Why is that cool? Because it means that something I saw in the slush got a real agent's attention. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right.
In other news, the lovely Candyland is hosting a contest over on her blog. It's for a good cause, like how the entire writing community pulled together for Do the Write Thing for Nashville. Candyland is using her blog to support the Joy 2 the World non-profit organization. In Candyland's words:
"Matt Brady is New Medicine's bassist, and an avid supporter of the non-profit, Joy 2 the World, which generates micro-credit loans for the women of Ghana to encourage independence and empowerment.They're an amazing organization who helps build wells for clean water (as opposed to river water), create pre-k schools with hot meals, give loans to women for small business start-up and awards scholarships to those attending school.
To read Matt Brady's amazing journey in Ghana, click HERE.
To read more about Joy 2 the World, click HERE."
You can win some awesome stuff, including page/chapter/query letter critiques from industry pros like Natalie Fischer and Michelle Wolfson and autographed books, swag from the likes of Kimberly Derting and Sean Ferrell, and gift cards from T.H. Mafi.
There are plenty of ways to get entries, so head on over to The Misadventures in Candyland and check it out! :)
And something funny for those of you who read this whole thing and hopefully clicked through to a few of those links.
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8 comments:
If my 12 queries come back with no requests (and 3 of them have), I might have to beg/borrow/steal you away and make you glance over my query letter. I promise, if it needs any work, it doesn't need that much. I won a contest and JS. Volpe edited it, and that was after I'd edited it 3 times among peers, so it should be good to go. Honestly though, I don't know why I'm not getting more requests. Maybe it's just the market.
Yay! Thanks for the post!!! <3
Random question: you say that it's cool when you get an email that says something you requested has interest/offers elsewhere. Does that mean agents want to know when other agents are requesting from you? Like, if they request and it's not an exclusive, do they want us to tell them that we've sent it out to someone else already?
Thanks for the post and the insight! :)
I can only imagine how bad those queries must be - you are a brave soul.
I can't imagine reading all that slush. I remember reading about 8 queries last year during one of Nathan's "Agent for a Day" contests. After those 8 my brain felt like mush.
Kudos to you.
After reading sites like SlushPile Hell and Query Shark, I can imagine what you're going through!
But it must feel wonderful to find those gems.
Girlamce I SO agree with you. When I talk to my friends they are like "You need an agent? what?" It's refreshing to see you talk about the inner workings of a literary agency! I heart it!
I must have missed something during my 2-month, 60-hour per week seclusion in clerical-catch-up-at-work hell... I totally didn't know you were interning for Awesome Agent! Congrats, Amanda, I'm sure you're rockin'!
1/100?? Holy cow... I'd love to see what you do everyday...
Okay, checking the links now. That's a lot.
PS. Give my regards to Alot.
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