What a good idea and I just wish it was mine. We all like a good moan and sometimes we like it too much. But praise and good news are more uplifting and often more useful. So, those of you who over-indulged in the opportunity on Bookends to off-load about agents should make a return trip back to a new Bookends piece here and see all the very excellently positive things that people also say about their agents.
And remember that when you are feeling aggrieved that someone who isn't your agent and therefore owes you nothing doesn't drop everything to reply to you fully and immediately, it's because a lot of the time they are quite rightly and inevitably working for their existing clients.
Understanding a) what good agents do and b) the commercial reality of earning a living as either writer or agent, is an essential step in the process towards becoming a professional writer, because a professional writer is not just someone who can write but someone who can work intelligently and knowledgably within a very difficult market. My blog aims to help you understand the market from lots of different angles, and here endeth the lesson on agents.
Now I will put my soap-box away and ATTEMPT to make a decision about who has won my Worst Query Competition. You would not believe how difficult this is proving, and just how much Green and Black's I have had to consume in the course of duty.
4 comments:
I've just blogged about the whole "Fail" game of tag. I hope this is the end of it, because I truly can't see anything positive whatsoever coming out of this.
I think in determining the winner of your contest you have to consider
a) whose entry was the most amateurish, and
b) that it was clearly me
Dear Nicola Morgan,
I, too, can't really see anything positive coming out of the 'Fail' war as, judging by the response, it could well become. I posted on this in frustration last week.
Redleg - er, afraid I didn't get your entry ...
Donna and Pimlicokid - I know what you mean and it's all pretty ugly, but I've tried to show what can be learnt from it. It's quite an eye-opener, I think. And if after it both sides have seen the worst that the other side can produce, perhaps at that point one can move forward. Actually, apart form the posts that I've highlighted myself, I haven't followed much of it, mainly because it felt like voyeurism and unappealing, but I did feel there was something to be taught and learnt. You could argue that nothing is gained by vitriol, but if the vitriol is there, I think it's useful to know that, even if to be aware and avoid it. Well, that's my view. I wish the world was full of rational decent people like yourselves, but it's not and we don't gain from going round thinking that it is. I'm rambling ... It's been a tiring weekend. Anyway, fear not, I've finished with agentfail and queryfail. I hope.
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