/lit/ - Literature

How much of the submissions are actually good?

>>6288775
If I want to come on your anus do you charge extra?

How much money do you make? How did you get the job? Have you ever read anything that was just absolutely brilliant?

>>6288777
Good?

<~3% at a guess

But it varies. One month I handed off forty odd queries to my boss and she requested full manuscripts on 6 of those, while I've also had months where I've given her nothing except a disappointed shrug.

>>6288775
Has there ever been anything worthwhile in what you're given to read? The writethreads here are always filled with the most excruciating garbage, and I expect most of what publishers receive is the same kind of thing.

>>6288784
3% Thats it??

What sort of stuff makes up the bad? Is it all fan fiction tier shit?

>>6288784
><~3% at a guess
Have any of those actually gone on to be published?

What's the proportion of different genres that's received?

>>6288790

you actually think more than 3% of all published books are good?

>>6288783
>money
Works out to be about what I would earn working in retail or an unskilled job.

>how get job
It was one of those friend-of-a-friend situations. My friend knew I was into books, needed work, and had an interest in the industry, got me an interview and then I got the job off the back of that. From what I've seen here so far none of these jobs get advertised. If you don't know someone then put your resume in but don't wait to see the listing come up on a job site.

>brilliant
No. Boss says it'll happen if I do the job long enough. So far been working here for four months.

>>6288785
>worthwhile
Yes. No one has been newly published out of my to-read pile just yet but my boss is in the process of signing deals with at least two authors whose queries I passed up to her. Apparently if their books work out well I get to claim bragging rights on them in the future!

But I've seen some of the stuff around here and the answer to the unasked question is YES some (not much) of it is good enough in terms of pure writing skill but there is so much more at play than writing skill. I'm supposed to look at marketability, draw comparisons to existing works, and do some research on the author if there's anything about them at all to be found on the internet.

Actually that leads me to a good tip - have an internet presence of some kind. Have a blog or something with your pen name attached to it. Post whatever the fuck you like, it's less about the content and more about how good you are at marketing yourself that I look at when passing queries up to my boss.

>>6288790
To be honest if I showed you a bad query/sample you'd look at it and go "Oh, I get it." And yeah I've had some fanfiction cross my desk.

You know all the bad writing you've seen on the internet? Well people actually submit that crap. Then there's the ones who might have some measure of talent/skill but are a few years too early. At the top of the pyramid are the good writers. Maybe 5/10 of them are presenting stupid, shitty, boring, or otherwise completely unmarketable stories. Then about 4/10 of them got something wrong. They submitted a story we're not interested in representing or it's too long or not ambitious enough.

It's about 1/10 of the good queries that I pass up.

>>6288796
>gone on to publishing
Not yet. Been working here for just a few months and the whole process takes more like ~12 months from my desk to shelf depending on how responsive the author is/busy their editor is.

>genres
Well we accept pretty much anything because we have publishing divisions that'll take all genres except nonfiction.

It's probably 30% fantasy (incl urban fantasy), 30% YA (by which I mean both Hunger Games and John Green style YA), and the rest is a mix of drama (holy fucking shit so many stories about cancer that are all the same), scifi (way less popular than you'd think), and litfic (which is 99% masturbatory horseshit about a bohemian version of the author getting the girl, smoking cigarettes, and quoting entry-level literary works).

>>6288813
Which genre gets published the most?

>>6288813
>99% masturbatory horseshit about a bohemian version of the author getting the girl, smoking cigarettes, and quoting entry-level literary works

Bukowski has a lot to answer for.

>>6288801
>I'm supposed to look at marketability,

And this is how stuff like 50 Shades of Grey ends up published.

>>6288821
>book sells millions of copies
>HUR THIS IS UNMARKETABLE

>>6288817
Not entirely sure actually. I don't have much to do with things at the other end of the business.

Judging simply by what my boss wants to see most it goes something like

YA > drama > romance > fantasy/scifi > children's > litfic

>>6288821
Yeah but can you blame us for publishing things that make money? Boss says that 90% of our authors don't make money or only just break even. The other 10% pay for every gamble we take, so we're always looking for more books to add to that 10%.

The popular books like 50 Shades are the ones paying the bill when I give your query about elves in NotMiddleEarth to my boss and she wants to sign a contract with you.

>>6288834
The problem is that so much of what publishers publish is aimed at being part of that top-selling 10%. Some of those books do becomes hits, but the rest of them are just ephemera, clogging bookstores and remainder tables for months/years afterwards.

I don't write, so I'm speaking solely from the perspective of being a reader and noticing just how much crap even 'respectable' publishers crank out in a bid to keep afloat.

How does an author having an agent change his position in the process?

>>6288849
Publishers have to go where the readers are. For the most part that means publishing YA and cookbooks. It's this vicious cycle where readers set the trend, we perpetuate it, then neither group knows how to end it.

At the moment we're catering to a reading generation that grew up on YA who now want their YA books but starring 20 year olds. A whole new genre called New Adult was classified just for this purpose. They're basically YA books where sex and drugs are less edgy and the characters have to move out of home and go to college as opposed to fighting with their parents and navigating high school.

Do you also do e-books? Do e-books mean a lower threshold to accepting risky stuff because there is less cost to publish?

>>6288850
Hugely, at least at the publishing house end. Agented manuscripts don't even cross my desk, they go straight to an editor, and that editor is usually someone the agent knows 100% will want to buy the book.

The trade off is that getting picked up by an agent is about the same or maybe even harder than meeting the approval of a slusher and being passed up to an editor.

For that exchange though an agented MS will probably get a bigger advance even for a first time author.

What's your actual job title, OP? I'm interested in doing what you do.

>>6288868
Our stuff goes out as ebooks on all the usual channels but we don't deal solely in ebook contracts. I can't for the life of me figure out why, though, because that was a publishing model I arrived at independently a long time ago. Seems like a sound idea to me.

>>6288872
Editor's Assistant.

Mostly just look for jobs at a publishing company with 'assistant' in the title.

>>6288862
Jesus, I never knew this was a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New-adult_fiction

>>6288877
Thanks man.

>>6288878
Yep. I thought it wasn't a bad idea to classify a genre like that at first until I realised that it was literally done to help steer the girls who were reading The Maze Runner a few years ago to a new crop of aged-up books that would have otherwise fallen under other classifications.

The whole industry is basically being (re)shaped to suit the generation of Hunger Games fans before they move on and forget that they liked reading when they were teenagers.

>>6288801
wow.
did you eat some cake when literature died?

>>6288834
you can't add to the 10%

>>6288862
wow
stories about faggots.

>>6288862
....I've been accidentally writing that without knowing there was a marketing category for it.

Well, now I can actually dream of being published without wondering if they'd force me to age the whole cast down by 5 years.

>implying I'd ever get that far.
Yeah I know. Still, in 5 years there will be somebody making loads of money and bathing in hate for their popularity, so why not attempt to be that asshole myself?

It's also a thing I actually wish to write and not merely an attempt to chase a market trend.

>>6288898
>>6288892
>>6288891

Thanks to my job I can spot a butthurt twat who writes masturbatory litfic about way cooler, "incidentally" more handsome version of himself from a mile away.

Don't worry, anon, if your query was good I would at least read the excerpt.

>>6288801
>I'm supposed to look at marketability, draw comparisons to existing works, and do some research on the author if there's anything about them at all to be found on the internet.
>if there's anything about them at all to be found on the internet.

Fuck. That. Shit.

>>6288890
That sounds like a good thing to me. I wasn't reading many thrillers or whatever else previously counted as mainstream hits anyway.

There'll always be genre-specific nerds sustaining lit-fic or some iteration of fantasy and sci-fi, at the worst case.

>>6288907
>It's also a thing I actually wish to write and not merely an attempt to chase a market trend.

That's a good start and it usually shows in the excerpt. It's always nice to read a few pages of a story where the author obviously got excited about the concept after trawling through people who are actively trying to hit a post-Hunger Games or post-GoT note.

Be like the cool kids in high school and don't try so hard. That's a good way to get my attention.

>>6288913
It really is always an encouraging thing to read comments like yours and hear "No, really, most people fail so hard that baseline competency is enough to make you stand out enough to get a slight chance."

Ever have any astonishingly terrible hilarious submissions? Technicolor manuscripts and shit like that?

>>6288908
>being this much of an asshole

I can tell your British, and British contemporary literature sucks major ass. Adam Thirwell, Ben Brooks, Luke Brown, Lee Rourke, Jon McGregor, Richard Milward, Ned Beauman, Matt Haig, all fucking suck dick. British culture a shit.

>>6288909
I think you misunderstand. Whether or not someone has an internet presence doesn't play a factor in determining whether or not they get picked up.

If I can't find anything about you on the internet then that's what my brief says and it doesn't matter, it doesn't work against you, it's just something else that the editor is going to have to school you in if you make it that far.

But if I can find a blog where you have followers and an author page on facebook that you use properly and a twitter account where you know how to tweet properly then that can only work in your favour. Authors are expected to carry out as much marketing about themselves as possible. Ergo, the ones who are better at marketing get higher advances because their books are more likely to find an audience.

>>6288890
Okay if it keeps the publishers going I guess, as long as it doesn't become all that they publish.

I do wonder whether those YA readers would follow the genre into 'new adult' stuff though, or whether their tastes would change as they get older.

>>6288919
>being this much of an asshole

>>6288917
>"No, really, most people fail so hard that baseline competency is enough to make you stand out enough to get a slight chance."

It's kind of sad how true this is. Being even a little bit above the average might be enough to get your MS in front of an editor if the story sounds good.

No astonishingly terrible manuscripts so far. A few of the ones that come by snail mail have been posted with things like Amazon gift cards or straight up cash attached to them. My co-worker also tells the story of a soccer-mom type who came into the office in person to deliver her query (which our website specifically asks people not to do) and tried to hand it in with a box full of brownies as a "sweetener" who apparently had to be escorted out by force when the receptionist kept refusing to take the package.

>>6288919
...

Did you even see the comments I was replying to?

>>6288923
>school you in

What about those of us who understand online self-promotion (I realize having theoretical knowledge of =/= having the ability to apply that knowledge successfully) but who choose not to do that? I look at people like Mira Gonzalez and it's so tryhard and insincere that it discourages me from promoting myself that way. I mean she basically just sold out with her tweet book, cashing off a fanbase who thought (think?) she is a real-life hikikomori qt.

Is there any hope for people wanting to remain anonymous, or wanting to represent themselves only by the words they write? I know Elena Ferrante has earned a lot of praise for doing that recently.

I see the point though, and I suppose showing the ability to find your audience yourself shows you have some "initiative" or realize how the market works, but still I've always liked literature partly because those who succeed are often those who don't do all that well in terms of representing themselves IRL and so on. That may seem like I'm romanticizing authors or something but I realize most authors are pretty "normal" folk, but still it has a long tradition of allowing a certain type of person to succeed.

>>6288936
Sure did bud

>>6288934
>It's kind of sad how true this is. Being even a little bit above the average might be enough to get your MS in front of an editor if the story sounds good.

This is good to hear

Hey OP could you tell me what you think of this idea please?

>>6285166

Also which county are you from? Are there any contemporary young authors you can recommend from that country?

>>6288944
Like I said, it's not a deal breaker.

But you should just admit that. If you don't have actual experience in marketing yourself then don't bring up the theoretical knowledge. It's harder than you'd think to get it right.

Ideally your self-promotion shouldn't look pathetic. The 'proper' use of a facebook/twitter page doesn't really involve telling people about where to buy your books, it's mostly about engaging with people. Posting funny pictures of cats and making jokes and commenting on current news items are all genuinely good uses of a social media presence.

>Is there any hope for people wanting to remain anonymous, or wanting to represent themselves only by the words they write?

I suppose the answer is 'yes', but that's something to work out with your editor/their PR people. More a comment about social science than the realities of book publishing, but being a publicly likeable person moves books. Engaging with the audience is just such an important thing to a lot of people in the modern world.

>>6288960
>Posting funny pictures of cats and making jokes and commenting on current news items are all genuinely good uses of a social media presence.

This kind of stuff would make me stop reading an author if I already read them.

>>6288956
You need to learn to put your ideas into words because that was incredibly hard to follow.

I would immediately dismiss it if that's how it showed up on my desk.

Otherwise it falls into the unmarketable category. The characters are all unemployed or murderers, there's no apparent room for character-development, and I don't know if I could discern a central conflict if I read your paragraph half a dozen times.

>>6288963
Welcome to the modern world, I apologise ahead of time.

Just wanted to drop by and say thank you OP for providing a very interesting thread and for taking the time and answer our questions.

>>6288969
It's a take on the picaresque novel, albeit with two brothers instead of a single "rogue" figure.

Most of those characters have jobs.

"Central conflict" is the conflicting ideologies of the two brothers and their existence in an area with high unemployment.

>>6288974
Seconded.

>>6288974
>>6288983
Thirded

>>6288979
I didn't get any of that from reading your synopsis, so the result is the same on my end.

Either way I work for a major publisher. Things like having a plot are important to our core markets. A small publisher OR main characters who are the definition of compelling are your best bet.

>>6288974
Yes, it's been an interesting insight.

I almost wish I didn't know about the existence of the 'new adult' genre though. Give it another few years and I expect there'll be some new fad to replace it, though. Every decade has had some then-popular subgenres that publishers concentrated on, but are now mostly forgotten.

>>6288775
3 days a week makes 12 days a month.
1 work day is 8 hours.
That makes it 96 hours.

That makes the average time you can spend on every submission 4 min 45 s.

How do you do it?

>>6288996
>Every decade has had some then-popular subgenres that publishers concentrated on, but are now mostly forgotten.
Such as? Because there has always been books for teens.

>>6288775
Do you read in your own time, or does the job make you want to do something else?

>>6288979
IV

>>6288996
I feel like the marketing labels for some perennial genres just shift over time. I'm sure that whatever kinds of adventure stories or character dramas crammed into NA will have close analogues in other time periods.

>>6289001
Stuff like nurse novels, biblical fiction, suburban soaps (e.g. Valley of the Dolls, Peyton Place), Westerns, James Bond rip-offs.

>>6289003
What does this mean?

>>6288998
Work days are more like 12 hours. I leave when my boss does on the days that I'm there. And I don't handle all 1000 subs myself. There are two others doing the same job. We divide the mail approximately evenly and the stuff that gets emailed in is automatically divided between our inboxes.

Doesn't really matter, the answer is I read fast and I'm good at knowing what I'm looking for now. This is why your query is important. You only get a few minutes of a slusher's attention so you have to make it count. Whether or not your excerpt is up to scratch is less important because a book can always be edited.

>>6289002
I don't have much spare time these days. At the moment all that spare time goes into a motorbike resto I'm doing.

>>6289007
This is true.

NA is just a marketing device, and it's not even for the benefit of the publishers, it's only for the benefit of the readers in the book stores who need an easy way to identify something they would want to read.

Otherwise the stories that fit into NA are varied and colourful. Adventure, action, romance, fantasy, scifi, anything. The common element are the age of the characters and the themes - which are pretty much the themes you'd find anywhere but dumbed down slightly. Basically what I'm saying is there's no subtlety in the genre.

>>6289010
Four.

>>6289013
>A book can always be edited

But where's the cutoff? What makes an agent, editor, or slush reader say, "There is something of value here and it is worth working through the flaws to reach it?" Are some flaws more forgivable than others? If we make it past the query then we've probably convinced the person that our core concept fits within their business area and has the potential to be interesting, so that's a good start, but having an interesting concept surely can't get a reader past a few pages.

I assume personal taste is also a massive part of it. Do you take steps to circumvent personal taste when reading slush? Since it sounds like your position reads for every imprint in the comapny, you probably don't actually like the content of every single imprint that you receive submissions for.

>>6289010
Infinite Vest

>>6288775
post proof pls, too many of these threads lately

>>6289030
really? i'm here all the fucking time and can't remember seeing one
this isn't /b/

>>6289030
There was one like a month ago.

Hardly too many

>>6288948
Dude you are a faggot. Guaranteed you wrote one of those original comments

>>6289039
top kek

>>6289013
Could I send you a pitch/manuscript? It can just be a text dump if you don't want contact info.

Do you have a college education? Is it a small publishing company? I've been thinking about eventually getting trying to get hired at a publishing company and am in interested in knowing whether it's worth it.

Among the good stuff you've read, what are some of the "ideas" behind them? Aside from good writing and marketability what makes something attractive?

Thank you for the read by the way!

>>6289022
>what's the cut off

There's no easy answer to this really. I guess what I look for is an author who can obviously handle themselves. If their MS needs work but the excerpt reads well enough that I think they could handle the changes personally, as opposed to getting their MS back from their editor and then not being able to improve on what's there, then it's a yes from me.

>>6289056
Post your pitch in the thread.

>>6289062
Currently in college studying marketing. Big publishing company. No matter what job you're doing it's a lot of hours for not enough pay. Everyone at work seriously loves the job.

>>6289073
Biggest thing I look at is the main conflict(s). It's gotta be something that goes well with the genre, if it's not outright original, and it has to be a conflict that sounds worth solving. You have no idea how many fantasy queries I read with some arbitrary war and how many drama books are out there about people who get cancer or high school students who meet the new perfect boy.

Pitch...

It's an origins story about a boy from Oklahoma who wants to be a (nascar meets f-zero) hovercraft racer in The mid 22nd century. It looks as though he'll never make it until his only parent, his father, vanishes in a freak accident and is presumed dead. The insurance money from both the company and his own fathers huge life policy give the main character enough money to buy a local failing team with no pilot. But once he's libing his dream he'll learn the life he always wanted isn't as glamorous as he thought and the affections of a hologram girl, created by the top racing team's sponsor company, may not be as innocent as he believes.

END

This is book 1 and unlike smart people I made the mistake of writing the other ten volumes of the YA sci fantasy space opera without waiting to see if anyone would want the first one (took me eight years) I think a good edition could help me make it tighter, but the story is solid. It's final fantasy with some Star Wars and Harry potter magic-y elements mixed in. I've got a visual compendium of artwork and a theme song 8/10 written ( needs to be recorded)

Curious?

I'm still sending queries so nothing has been published

>>6289155
The rest of the books take place 15 years later with a full crew of diverse misfits and duck ups with their own baggage and strengths. I threw some curveballs like genderbending the archetypes of companion characters and other things to keep it fresh. There's time play, plot twists and the lyrics from the song in the first book cryptically spell out the main points of the adventure but are disguised as bubblegum pop-rock

>>6289123
How about this:
A young man leaves home after high-school to search for his estranged mother using her old cryptic diary and a couple relics from her past. He meets a girl along the way and slowly loses sight of his real purpose, but eventually he does find her and finds that he is becoming as deranged as her.
Recurring themes: Roses, addiction, duty.

I'll probably finish it no matter what, but I'm curious how it might pan out in the eyes of a slusher.

>>6289158
BUT WAIT THERES MORE.. (Then I'll shut up and let others talk) there's tons of strong female protagonists and the 5th book is a "tag out" because the main character has gone missing and the love interest has to go back to her home planet to lead a resistance against invading armies in a Joan of Arc/mother Theresa/ G.I. Jane role while lying to her closest friends about her past. Fans of Hunger Games Katniss should dig her. I wrote them for my 11 year old neice who is now in the target demographic of who I wanted to read it on the first place.

Ok I'm done and will shut up now

>>6289155
>>6289155
Sorry but I hope those aren't the exact words you've been querying with.

You take far too long to get to the point (that he buys the racing team) and don't include the actual plot details. It DOES vary, but by and large your query is better off if you actually talk about the conflict and how it's resolved.

So, for instance:

After the mysterious death of his father a local boy uses the life insurance money to fulfill his lifelong of buying a hoverracing team. He's living the dream but is quickly sucked into the sinister racing world where [something happens] and the affections of a holographic girl from another team turn out to be his downfall. In too deep to escape, the character has to fuck shit up to solve his problem.

You get the idea.

Check out a blog called Query Shark if you want a good resource for how to write a query.

Remember that an editor is not a reader. They don't have the luxury of making a decision on whether or not to buy a book based on the hook, they need to know what the conflict is and how it's resolved to make a decision.

>>6289123
Okay how about this?
Waif:
A miserable 30 year old man sets out on a journey to not take responsibility for his actions.
This character lives and sleeps within his disheveled car and the plot is set in motion when said car is impounded.
Set in a drought stricken Californian suburb with residents who don’t take kindly to this ambiguous figure.
The main focus with this novel I want to take is this character desperately trying to reconcile his nature with a society that doesn't want or need him.

>>6289162
If you don't have much of a plot to speak of then your query should make a feature of significant character developments. That would be a good strategy for you just based on this.

>>6289181
Thanks m8.
How much of a book should be finished before I can query my ass off?

Police drama with arbitrary murder, detective and villain both fail, crime is unsolved, villain is a mad semi-homeless college student, mild christian themes, no graphic violence.

Author doesn't have a blog.

>>6289175
I appreciate the advice. Thank you for your time.
AC

just be patient

>>6289155
Last year you kept saying it was just a first attempt at writing gone out of hand and that you knew you could write a more succinct work, why do you keep pushing that masturbation gone out of hand?

>>6289177
A bit obscure for my boss but it might have it's appeal with an editor who likes litfic. You do, however, need to make it sound more interesting than that when querying.

>>6289187
Finish the whole book. So much can change in the writing that you can't guarantee an editor will still want it when it's done but different.

If an editor requests a full for a book you haven't finished you are basically guaranteed to get your name on a black list that means they'll never touch you again. Unfinished MS are for authors who are guaranteed to sell volumes just with their name.

>>6289197
>it was just a first attempt


Guys. Don't submit the first book you write. Just don't. A good writer might be ready for publishing with their second completed work, no one is ever ready their first time.

>>6289189
Tells me very little about the story, wouldn't get past me.

>>6289197
Because it can smoke your shit and not even break a sweat. AND I've edited the hell out of it. AND while you're sleeping, I'm getting better. That's why

>>6289214
They weren't written in order. The first book is the ninth written.

>>6289218
Didn't you send me the first half of the first book?
If you keep working on something that's impossible to publish for practical reasons you're just wasting time.
Still, sure, practice as much as you want, that's great.

>>6289214
It got past the Russian Messenger.

Hey OP, seeing as you are doing marketability-analysis on anon pieces, check this out:
>Main character drives private cars for a living.
>One client is strange.
>He is a rich yuppie who has asked the agency to switch drivers every-time until he settles on the MC.
>He reads a paper in the car every morning.
>One day MC looks in there and sees insider trading info.
>Shit hits the fan.

I'm pretty much finished with the concept. I'm on the last chapter. Themes look at wealth inequality, psychopathy and greed. Plis respond.

>>6289214
I've got one.
A guy thinks he's written the perfect story, the best story ever, but he can't ever finish it. As the book numbers reach into the 10's, 20's... he becomes even more convinced of his own greatness and the inferiority of those around him who can't see the genius in his beautiful work.
He ends up having the greatest epiphany ever inthe toilet, it's really a stroke, but since he's so isolated in his madness he dies alone with his work unfinished and unloved.

OP, since you're apparently taking pitches, I'd appreciate it if you could critique mine. If you have the time, that is.

A young folk singer sets out from home after a crisis of faith. He misadventures his way across America, trying to build a career with only his guitar and the clothes on his back. But he has plenty of material to work with, including a nymphomaniac bassist, a cultist commune dedicated to Woody Guthrie, and a serial killer on the prowl for Republicans, among others. Through these encounters, his music evolves until he finally understands what it means to make art from the common folk--whatever the common folk are.

>>6289226
There isn't anything "impractical" about it. I'll improve my query letters and that'll be the end of it.

>>6289123
Stephen King meets Twilight Zone meets an old school comic book advertisement.

Barry Barreaux returns to his hometown of Springwood, Ohio after almost a decade of exile to help his younger sister. When he gets there, he finds his sister has been murdered. He meets up with old friends, his sister's mysterious fiance, old flames, and a city that wants to spit him back out as fast as possible. Can he find the murderer and avenge his sister's death?

There's a gimmick to the story that would have to be spoiled. The killer is the fiance, but he's actually a man under constant disguises. His main one is that stupid Groucho Marx beaglepuss, with the big nose and fake eyebrows and mustache. Nobody sees through it. Barry ends up meeting a man hunting the killer as well, but he inherits X-Ray glasses that allow him to see things no one else can see- and that leads him to discovering the killer's identity.

Sounds really stupid-I grant you. The story was written around the gimmicks. It's pretty much done. It's completely drafted, around 50,000 words, but I'd edit it one more time if anyone wanted to look at it.

The other pitch I have is in the process of being written. It's actually in this thread:
>>6284688

>>6289244
>>>>>
>>6289232

>>6289253
It's not perfect but it's solid. 0/10 troll is 0/10. Do you even Internet fight, bro?

>>6289244
Sometimes you have to learn to let go. I'm sure it's some film's tagline so it's a proven truth.

>>6289231
You will never be Bret Easton Ellis, anon, give up.

>>6289227
So someone got those exact words in a letter on their desk? Don't think so. Unfortunate though it may be, my job is to make quick decisions based on the words in front of me.

>>6289240
Sounds decent. I'd probably read your whole excerpt. Once again I recommend visiting a site called Query Shark. She's got years of tips on there about how to improve your pitch and your query so that it hits just the right chord.

>>6289231
Doesn't say anything about the plot, can't judge marketability without plot. All you've listed here is the premise.

>>6289252
Super quirky. I have no idea how I'd judge that. Which usually means that I dismiss it and move on. And I know how arbitrary that sounds but you guys have to know that it's ALWAYS obvious when my boss will love something that I show her. The stuff I pass up to her has an immediately obvious x factor that is unmistakable.

>>6289268
I'm the groucho marx/porn guy.

No offense taken. I understand your position. What I would ask then is if I have hope at all for these weird books and what my best course of action should be.

>>6289260
*yawn*

TL:DR

>>6289273
Small publishers. There's less money and support involved so the risk they take on you is relatively small.

This is where personal marketing skills come in. A small publisher usually won't do much for you so it's up to you to move copies. If you're good at it you can still make actual money off you book.

>>6289273
not OP but interjecting anyway:

I would imagine that the only way to get a quirky story published is to submit it to tons of places, big presses and small alike, until you find editorial staff with whom the quirkiness resonates effectively. You need somebody who loves it enough to take a chance on it despite a lack of any well-defined market nice.

>>6289278
Thanks man. I'll take that advice. Hopefully it works out.

>>6289155
Sup gas-kun

OP, I'm sorry that your thread has turned into a bunch of people asking you to rate their pitches. I have one of my own. Feel free to ignore it if you want. Also, thanks for doing this. Really insightful.

Pitch:

Sean Tremblay has not seen Burton, his hometown, for ten years. When he returns there to celebrate his debut novel, a weekend trip turns into an extended stay after he is kidnapped, released, and struck by lightning during a freak winter storm. Joined by Claire, an old flame resigned to a small-town life, and Vernon, a childhood friend turned drug addict, he attempts to uncover the names of his kidnappers. However, that freak lightning strike has attracted the attention of powerful, dangerous forces: a star quarterback, a local sheriff, a backwoods animal smuggler, government agents, and a cabal of well-dressed men forcing Burton towards an apocalyptic fate with Sean himself as the key to their plans.

Are you a part of the big four trade publishers?

How does your publisher feel about works that involve more than one language?

>>6289268
Folk singer guy here. Many thanks, OP. Will check it out.

>>6289297
Pitch needs to include the conflict and the ending. Editors aren't a movie audience reading a synopsis, they're a professional assessing the whole of a story.

Also too wordy with unimportant information. I could probably cut that in half.

>>6289296
Peddling my wares, talking shop. Slusher-kun says redo my query pitch and check out query shark so I'm doing that.

>>6289268
>So someone got those exact words in a letter on their desk? Don't think so. Unfortunate though it may be, my job is to make quick decisions based on the words in front of me.
The words were in Russian at the time.

>but we love our jobs
Your jobs are worse than a variety of other shit shovelling jobs.

>>6289311
How many queries is it polite to send in like a year?
As in for different MS or maybe an edited query for an older query.

>>6289328
Okay. I don't make any claims to being a visionary at this though. My personal assessment of that isn't favourable and that's all there is to it.

And yeah the jobs are shit but that doesn't preclude someone loving it. I know a guy who works for a landscaping company. He's dumber than your average house brick but loves to dig holes so that's what his boss gets him to do. He digs holes and he loves it.

>>6289334
One at a time is the only guideline. Wait to hear back about a query before submitting the next.

>>6289345
Does having a ms without white people set in foreign places change the chances at all? Are there biases, spoken or unspoken, for or against diversity?

>>6289317
Post a photo dude

>>6289356
None that I'm aware of but I'm sure biases exist just like anywhere else.

Later homies I gotta run.

>>6289367
Thanks, OP.

>>6289359
K

>>6289376
You're a cool guy.
Maybe write different stories though?

>>6289376
Why don't you save some money and go do an MFA like Donald Wilson Pollock did?

You seem to have experienced a lot in your life and I'd be interested to see what happens if you wrote something "realistic" (i.e. not fantasy)

>>6289379
Already working on new novels of different genres and reading difficulty. Working on my first short story now. Others are WW1 novel, hacker novel, Tom Clancy-ish novel, and my new sci fi epic. Always new irons in the fire but I'm tired of watching these gathering dust. Need to get them out. Drafting query letter as we speak. Have a friend with MBA in literature helping out. What you working on?

>>6289391
>What you working on?

A massive pastrami sandwich with mustard and sauerkrut and some french fries.

>>6289384
If I wrote an autobiography, no one would believe it. The army years alone would be enough for a book

>>6289399
>If I wrote an autobiography, no one would believe it.

iktfb. I can't even tell people half the stuff I've done because I see their eyes glae over and their bullshit detector start beeping and I can't blame them half the time.

>>6289398
Another one would be about a guy that gets kicked out of the marines and takes a job at a porn store near the interstate in BFE Kentucky. Don't know what I'd try to accomplish but it would have a dirty old queen who sells stripper gear to dancers and it would give me an excuse to be perverse as well as the chance to write the words "double ended marital aid"

>>6288878
>>Jesus, I never knew this was a thing.
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New-adult_fiction
these trends are far more noticeable in films and Tv shows. Typically, the disaster that is Girls.

>>6289399
Write it man. Edgy shit sells, just tell it with a human heart and avoid cliche. A story about a war vet who struggles to find work at home? That shit is Bukowski-tier interesting, and I mean that in a nice way because Bukowski lived an interesting life. There was a book of short stories about life as a soldier in Iraq recently released in the States and it sold huge, I can't remember the name though

>>6289411
Girls makes Greys Anatomy look like Uysses. Tried watching it. It had some cute parts but if women are really this fucking vapid and self absorbed then maybe it's time to swap teams. I give her props for giving it her all but I keep hoping Lena Dunham will become a rape murder so the show ends.

>>6289421
It's basically Beavis and Butthead on Xanax after reading some basic feminist theory

>>6289419
I was in Bosnia. Different time, different feel. I felt like we showed up to clean the gym after the prom happened. Sarajevo was a city built within a cemetery. Headstones as far as the eye could see. Kids walking around with arms and legs missing from mines. Fucking random snipers and having to sleep in an underground 1984 Olympic rifle range. It was so cold they used it for a morgue during the war.

>>6289426
Agreed. Maybe I'm just old but people that fucking self absorbed need to get over themselves and stop acting like children. Going to Bosnia sobered my suburbanite ass real quick. When you see kids without legs and women turning tricks for food, all the other little shit in life doesn't matter because that situation become the new berometer.
I came home to teenage girls calling their mom's "fucking bitches" to their face at McDonald's because they wouldn't be getting a NEW mustang for their 16th birthday. Now I know why grandpa kept seeing the same pair of pants and resolving the same pair of shoes

>>6289444
Check my trips... That's sewing and resole shoes

Damn, op is gone.

I was going to post my query letter and see what he thinks of it.

>>6289470
Keep checking back. slush kun/chan returns periodically

>>6289010
Vi for arabic terminals.

>>6289444
I'm glad your terrible experiences stripped you of all empathy to fail to see that others' problems aren't real to them.

>>6289470

post it

What are things that catch your eye in terms of potential marketability?

>>6289763
Meme potential

>>6288878

Its not as bad as YA is. Or at least, it has a far greater potential as a genre than YA does. At least the characters in NA are fucking adults so I dont have to constantly have a nagging in the back of my head about why every adult in the story is incompetent and its up to a group of 13 year olds to save the world from "muh anicnet ebil lorrd"

>>6289175
>After the mysterious death of his father a local boy uses the life insurance money to fulfill his lifelong of buying a hoverracing team. He's living the dream but is quickly sucked into the sinister racing world where [something happens] and the affections of a holographic girl from another team turn out to be his downfall. In too deep to escape, the character has to fuck shit up to solve his problem.
you would use the comma

>>6289798

oh God is this the autismo story with the character that has some flower tattoo or smtgg

>>6289806
No. No one has a flower or dragon tattoo

>>6289798
Ultimately he decides to forego his transition to the professional league and become a fighter pilot in the space navy because the fighters are faster. He got into racing for the speed

>>6289826
You should make him an intergalactic Pop singer too.

>>6289845
Nyet

What about my story for a young war veteran exploring the themes of madness by depicting their agonizing descent into psychosis as they are rehabilitated into society? They rape a small girl until she's pregnant and Gabriel talks to him and shit.

>>6289857
Too edgy for a first-time author. You literally have to do the most formulaic and simple shit if you want to get published. Then deviate once you have a fanbase.

>>6289857
Sounds good. Psychotic little girl rape is a huge market these days.

>>6289869
Eww, not like that, silly!

>>6289857
Go onnnnn...

My most recent piece was just a dream I had that I kept adding stuff that felt fitting to. Previously I tried very hard to come up with interesting plots, but this utterly aimless thing has had the best responses of anything. I'm trying that hands-off approach again but I'm a bit worried as the story that's coming out of it now involves violence towards children's genitals and I don't think I can show it to anyone.

>>6289815

some anise picture of a androgynous character with some kind of flower mark on the collarbone?

maybe it was some other autist

>>6289845
That's already in the book, silly.

>>6288775
Hey OP, what is your pay based on? Hourly? Salary? Per submissions reviewed?
And is it normal for to only work 3 days a week or is that your choice?

>>6289894
HEY you remembered! Same guy different book! That's The City. That one comes out after the fan base is built. It's got pedophiles, streets full of child prostitutes and that blonde androdgenous kid under the thumb of the 600pound cannibal that rides around on a rolling chair pulled by a reindeer team of inappropriately dressed 7 and 8 years olds. The kid is forced into being a scantly clad Internet idol after he unknowingly lets the previous one out of her cage and she throws herself out of a 200th story window.

>>6289890
I was going to try to explore the Hegelian wound as a reflection of the soldier's failure to reintegrate into society as he relies on the structures of military command to function within his most intimate relationships. The rape isn't really the centre piece and both the young virgin and the child die in the birthing. Also, he's a devout 16th century Christian - a reflection of the church before the Existentialist interpretations.

>>6289899
OP is gone dude

>>6289912
Do it!

>op spends all day reading pitches/queries and making scraps
>visits 4chin and does the exact same thing for free

living the literary life

>>6288826
Marketable =/= Good/worth shit

>>6288908
That's practically all of /lit/. Arrogant undergrads who are too afraid to write what they actually want to write because some dickbreath told them "hurr durr the only thing worth writing is muh heavy pretentious literature".

Thank fuck I limit myself to an hour of this shit hole a week. Place is absolutely toxic to writers.

>>6288862
>>6288878
>dfw my novella is NA

>>6288908
i wrote about a way un-cooler, "incidentally" uglier version of himself, would you be able to spot it from a mile away?

>>6290728
Dude, if you let /lit/ actually influence anything in your life you have serious problems. This whole site is one giant joke, ya know?

You haven't noticed that /lit/ only recommends terrible novels? Only gives out bad advice?

That's the joke.

>>6288834
>query about elves in NotMiddleEarth
topkek

>>6289155
Fluff and polymer underpad

I'm a Mexican living in Mexico. How would it affect my chances of being published by gringoss if I were to get published here first?

>>6290773
I don't but a lot of people do. Though getting into better reading material made me REALLY fucking pretentious for a bit until I realized my biggest problem keeping me from doing anything was that I was trying too hard.

>>6288871

I have an agent. I win.

>>6290873
No difference.

>>6290873
None. You're still a filthy Mexican. No one wants Taco Bell YA fan fiction

>>6288908

Hehe. I like you man.

>>6290773
>This whole site is one giant joke, ya know?
That's /mu/, though. /lit/ sometimes means what it says.

>>6291002
>sincerity/insincerity dichotomy

>>6290773
I don't but I don't feel like this place offers anything for anyone actually wanting to make something out of themselves. The constant elitism and negativity ironic or not is embarrassing to watch because of how fucking irrelevant things like personal interests (liking anime and video games, reading genre fiction, whatever) are in the end.

Not to mention 4chan in general is a waste of time better spent elsewhere in general. I come here once or twice every four days to see what's up but then that's it. I felt like this place was negatively impacting my writing somehow so I cut it off like a rotten limb. This place isn't useless but holy fuck some people need to chill the hell out.

Granted I'm still an unmotivated ass that barely does anything but it's a step in the right direction.

>>6291048
>ot to mention 4chan in general is a waste of time better spent elsewhere in general.
This is temping to agree with but when you get to thinking about what others things can be done in life it turns out 4chan is pretty okay.

>>6291078
That's why I only limit my time here instead of just leaving entirely. It's not all bad but still.

>>6289763
Characters and accessibility are the most important and easiest to classify. If it's a YA book about a 15 year old girl saving the world then it's definitely marketing. If it's a dramedy about a serial killer who ironically shitposts on an anonymous image board and eats pancakes at his local diner every single morning without fail then it's not so marketable.

>>6289944
That's not entirely true. I also manage my editor's facebook and twitter accounts, spend a lot of time responding to emails, sort through mailed in queries, return people's attempts at bribery, do coffee/lunch/food runs, write briefs on queries that I approve of, spend some time every day shredding paper so that my rubbish pile doesn't get too large, and lots of other stuff. It really is an assistant job that just happens to involve slushing. If I can get through 40 odd queries per day that I'm there then that's enough to keep up with the influx.

>>6290873
Not sure, never come across the situation. Having had something published professionally can never hurt your chances. I just don't know if they would consider a Mexican audience a useful thing when publishing an English language book.

>>6291097
The worst is when you realise /lit/ is probably the best place on the internet, however flawed it is.

What are some of the better things you do with your life than browsing the four canals?

>>6291179
I'm kind of stuck at the moment so nothing other than school and work/whatever I feel like, but I felt I'd have more time to do things I want to do if I wasn't here so much.

Also the shit posting started to get out of control here for a while and I just went back to /m/ for a while before losing interest and just doing other shit.

>>6291210
>but I felt I'd have more time to do things I want to do if I wasn't here so much.
Like what though?

>>6291239
I live in bum-fuck no where so other than some video games or anime or reading/writing or fucking around with the few friends I have left that aren't busy with kids I've got nothing else to do than go to work or school.

So still wasting my time but, it's picking what I like more over what I like less. I'm not remarkable at all no.

>>6291270
Arguing with cunts on /lit/ is probably better for you than vidya or anime though in the sense of developing some sort of skill (opportunistic sophism). Vidya and anime are fun though, and time enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.

>>6291178
>return people's attempts at bribery

what do people send...?

>>6291332
Money mostly. It gets sent back with a stern letter that they'll be black listed if they do it again. If there's no return address then the money goes into the pizza fund with which we buy pizza for the office when there's enough money in there.

>>6291178
>a YA book about a 15 year old girl saving the world

is this a popular thing

is my book where this happens going to make me a gorillionaire

>>6291500
You are about to miss the boat. YA itself has been changing a lot and seems to be headed in a less superficial cookie cutter direction. These days readers actually want their YA books to do something different and roll their eyes at Hunger Games Clone #3432 instead of posting about how much they loved it on tumblr.

For anyone interested in YA: your best bet right at this very moment is to have both an original(ish) setting - something that a reader picks up and goes "ohhh that's cool" - and a main character that isn't obsessed with a boy (assuming they're a girl). Young female readers are now hyper-aware that books with love triangles are stupid.

>>6289297

If it helps, I'd read your book!

I'm sorry but what's a query? isn't that a line questioning?
I'm new to all this so my knowledge doesn't extend that far.
fascinating thread, a bit intimidating haha

>>6291517

How about; a girl who falls inside a simulation and the only way to get out is to fuck a specially chipped dick, only in a population of 8 billion, it proves to be akin to finding a needle in a haystack!

>>6291625
A query performs a similar function to a cover letter that goes out with your resume.

When you've written a book and want to find an agent or a publisher you write a query letter. The query letter includes details about the book and story and a few relevant bits of information about the author. Typically a publisher or agent will also ask for an excerpt of the book (varies depending on which company you're sending it to) to be supplied with the query.

Your query lands in front of a slusher who reads it and if they like it they give it to an editor to review, and if they don't you get a 'thanks but no thanks' letter in your inbox.

here's my basic pitch:

Johnson, a navy veteran, becomes bored with his retirement and decides to get a job. He finds himself working at a shoddy department store run by a bunch of young, irresponsible, and selfish degenerates. Used to efficiency, accountability, and strong leadership; he's shocked by the how dysfunctional his fellow workers are and how terribly run the store is. The story follows Johnson, Tim the non-functioning alcoholic district manager and his naive assistant Brad, Sandy the psychedelic addicted beauty counter girl, and Tara the exceptionally beautiful (though mentally unstable, violent, and kleptomaniacal) counterpart to Sandy. Johnson struggles as he abandons his ethics, turns a blind eye to incompetence and outright criminal offenses, and worries that this job might very well consume more than just his morals as he tries to figure out how to turn the fucking lights on in his department.

>>6291749
Wow, had no idea.
Thanks!

>>6291763
Sounds more like a TV show.

>>6291778

sounds like brookly 99 set in a hardware store

>>6291048
i think you're just sensitive. 4chan is funny for the shitposting. i don't think i've ever come here in search of anything of substance.

is it possible to get published if you do the end-note/foot-note dfw thing or is that seen exclusively as apery?

>>6292087
My first thought would be that you read too much DFW. It wouldn't exclude your query from being good though. Remember though that I work for a big publisher who wants mainstream books so stylistically unique books aren't something that we peddle very often.

>>6289123

Here's my pitch, although I'm likely going to publish it in web novel format anyway, but it's worth a shot.

After people throughout the world develop supernatural powers, a communist becomes an armoured warrior of justice and teams up with other communist armoured warriors to siege the capital and initiate the revolution. Things are about to cool down, but a super fascist organization poses a universal threat and send legions of their warriors to slaughter the communists and reclaim their political power. This escalates to the point that it threatens all of reality, bringing many universes together to work as one against the fascists.

If I had to pitch it as a X meets Y meets Z kind of thing it would be: Communism meets Tokusatsu meets Gainax with slice of life and western comic tropes added to the mix.

>>6292667

i don't know if a book is the correct format

tfw you just want to write a few hours a day and travel the world without having to have an actual job.

Why live...

>>6292679
Well, it would not be the first time a novel contains fight scenes.

>>6292714
Make it a comic or something. It seems so over the top. I wanna read about a man having questionable sexual relations, not old power struggles between the US and USSR.

Id there a market for experimental literature?

>>6292720
I suck at drawing.

>>6290932
Rich Daddy?

>>6292725
Yes, but the price point is negative.

>>6292720

>I wanna read about a man having questionable sexual relations

Is this actually true? I could...do this..

>>6292803
With Khrushchev. And the man is Nixon. And they use a leprechaun as a double adaptor.

>>6291536
Thank you anon-san.

And thank you slusher-san, for your pitchadvice.

>>6292831

It's because it reminds me of a Douglas Coupland novel - anon-san

p.s. listen to modest mouse new album or I will slaughter your mother

what exactly is a slusher? what does this guy do?

>>6292855
A slusher is a junior editorial "assistant" who takes it in the ass and also ice injections. They achieve a slushy consistency greatly desired in the trade. The rich send their children there to be raped as young adults.

>>6292855
Sucks dicks for $$$

>>6292863

>The rich send their children there to be raped as young adults.

Let them open up their lotus flower!

>>6292667
That's a comic book, not a novel.

>>6292855
When you sperglords write your masterpieces about pretentious characters doing nothing and then send a query to a publisher even though we didn't ask for it, I'm the one who looks at your shit and decides if it don't stink too much to give to an editor.

>>6293115
> Implying novels are devoid of action scenes
> Implying there are no superhero novels
> Implying there are no novels with giant robots
> Implying anyone would want to read a comic in which at certain plot points there will be massive amounts of political monologues.
> Implying I can draw anything decent.

>>6293134
>implying you have to draw a comic book
>implying you can't just write the story and the text and hire an artist to do the drawing

>>6293157
> a novel-size story in a comic format
> just hire an artist to do the drawing
Wouldn't mind to do that, but that would force me to either win the lottery or rob a bank. Said artist must probably draw shitloads of pages and each page might be 20$ each going by how they tend to go with commission costs.

>>6293162
>novel size
Well you would have to adapt your shit of course. Can't have it all you entitled piece of fucking sorry for being mean.

>>6293177
I suppose, but would it really be a bad thing to write such a story in a novel format? I mean, it's not the first action-packed novel, and definitely not the last one.

>>6293134
>medabots
My negro

>>6293273
Boom. Medabots

>>6292667
so you're re writing X-men

>>6294230
X-men has commies fighting against nazis with Power Rangers and giant robots involved?

>>6288775
Yo, here's my pitch: a generic fantasy novel with elves and ancient demons and artifact crystal quests, except written completely in classic verse. Iambic pentameter, I think. (Yes, with proper rhymes.)

Would it help if it came with a melodic heavy metal soundtrack?

>>6294264

.... yes


Charles Xavier and his communist Utopian school vs Magneto's Nazism

all the mutants are power rangers

the Sentinels are giant robots

>BTFO

>>6288828

>>6291178
>If it's a dramedy about a serial killer who ironically shitposts on an anonymous image board and eats pancakes at his local diner every single morning without fail then it's not so marketable.
10/10 would chuckle again.

>>6292863
Oh god laughed too hard thinking about you being an actual shlushy.
Are your parents affluent?

>>6288898
starring you

>>6288974
>>6288983
>>6288991

>>6295016
well done

>>6295016
hayooooooooooo

>>6288801
Will I have a chance to get published if my works are misanthropic?

>>6289197
>Hibari-kun on /lit/
Great taste, nigga, I'll let you suck my dick.

>>6289189
sounds awesome to me.

>>6289189
True Detective: Season 2

>>6295770
Crime and Punishment.

>>6295770
top pleb

>>6288775
Would it be better to write a short choppy manuscript or a long detailed manuscript? Which is more marketable? Also would you pass this shit up if i wrote it

>>>6295746

>>6295827
I guess OP is gone. It's helpful to know how important a good query letter is. I've been working on this YA/Hard Sci-fi crossover for the past 15 months and I don't even have a query letter ready to do yet!

I truly pity you, your job must be almost like hell. Yet, something tells me, that finding a gem in the mud must be one of the most rewarding experiences of your job.

>>6295955
Not OP, but it depends. The more formulaic and mainstream your work is, the more important the query is.

If it's a YA novel about a wizard kid, then you're going to need a hell of a query letter to even sell the premise as being something new and marketable.

In a lot of cases, if your query is decent, then they'll at least look at your writing sample, and that's what's really important.

>>6295965
I was wondering if it's better to go the slusher route or to find an agent.
I suspect getting a foot in the door is just as difficult for both, so what are the major tradeoffs between each route?

>>6296018
If you have to ask, i'd say get an agent.

Like you said, it's just as difficult either way. With an agent you can get some more support, more guidance.

Right to a publisher, you can have more control over things but....you'd have to know what you're doing to take full advantage.

>>6290773
>You haven't noticed that /lit/ only recommends terrible novels? Only gives out bad advice?

>what is this thread

Fuck though man. I'm glued to 4chan forever. I've accepted that one can never really leave after several attempts over the years.

Seriously though. Why the fuck are you even here in /lit/ and on this thread if you believe that bs.

>>6296175
because it's entertainment.

>>6296193
It's not just that, it's not single-faceted.

But whatever you say bro.

I'm sure plenty of people feel the same that they've learned more from 4chan than irl.

>>6296196
Then they're pretty fucked up and unlearned people.

>>6293115
le zimmerman

>>6296215
>fucked up and unlearned people argument
You gotta be kidding me. 4chan just exposes you to a lot of shit you wouldn't have otherwise come across to. You get to be in this virtual court listening and participating in discussions from a fuckton of people all over the world. I doubt you faggots would've talked this much number of people if the Internet never happened.

Granted you can all do this stuff on the net w/o 4chan, still it facilitates shit and delivers it with humor on top.

>>6293134
You can write it however you like. It's still a comic book as far as I'm concerned. Some things just don't work in some formats, but hey, feel free to surprise me.

>>6294868
Be happy that litfic is on the bottom of that list. If it were on top then it would become as formulaic and accessible as YA. Can you imagine /lit/'s reaction if people started to come here in droves because they read some neo-literature?

>>6295129
Yes. Anything can get published. It's a matter of finding someone who will take you. The bigger barrier to getting published is being a shit writer.

>>6295827
If the book as a whole is understandable then choppy is fine. People still do that thing where scenes are organised out of chronological order and you can't get much more choppy than that. I wouldn't accept your submission. Not what my boss is looking for.

>>6295955
Query Shark.

>>6295960
Job's not really like hell. It's easy, people literally send us pizza money, I enjoy the industry, and it's not like I have to make a career out of it. I'm not even studying anything related to the industry. I suppose I could become an editor if I stuck with this long enough, and that's something that I've considered, but I can walk away with 2 weeks notice.

>>6295965
>Not OP, but it depends. The more formulaic and mainstream your work is, the more important the query is.

This is true. If your novel is formulaic you have to have one hell of a query to make me read your excerpt without sighing first.

>>6296018
It's all about the same. If you're agented then you have a better chance of selling the book. Finding an agent is just as hard as making an unsolicited query though. The real bonus is that any agent who takes you on will be someone who REALLY likes your book because they're effectively going to be working entirely for free until it makes money. An agent who takes you on has a vested interest in selling your book and won't give up.

Most people who go the agent route do it because a lot of publishers don't accept unsolicited queries these days. You may find that you have to search for an agent just to be able to get your query to a publisher.

Also, it's a bad decision to query your book around, get rejected, THEN find an agent. If an editor has rejected you and then it lands in front of them again courtesy of an agent, you're going to get a second rejection out of hand. Either decide to go straight to publishers, or decide to start by trying to find an agent.

>>6296484
>Yes. Anything can get published. It's a matter of finding someone who will take you. The bigger barrier to getting published is being a shit writer.

Do the publishers ever try to artificially build a best seller? Like getting a good, competent writer and crafting a YA novel series using formulaic elements that are popular at the moment. Or it isn't worth it, it doesn't work?

>>6296484
Just a question, but isn't having an agent mainly an American thing? I live in the Netherlands, and I've never heard of agents being a thing in Western Europe.

>>6296484
>You can write it however you like. It's still a comic book as far as I'm concerned. Some things just don't work in some formats, but hey, feel free to surprise me.

Well, I mean, isn't the novel format practically boundless since it's not really limited to any hardware, animation or time constraints. Superhero novels such as "Soon I Will Be Invincible" do exist, but I can understand why a superhero story would be more fitting in comic book format, but it's far from impossible to make it work in a novel format.

>>6296963
I just discovered that it's a thing in Italy too. Don't know how many authors have one though.

>>6288923
you think if Dostoevsky were alvie today he'd tweet about how much debt he was in?

1) would you bang your boss in her office overladen with manuscripts?
2) would you publish my book if I wrote about it?

>>6288775
I've read that publishers give the cold shoulder to anyone who has tried to self publish before


Is this true? Do publishers really care if someone self published before in a negative way? Or do they only care if you actually sold some books before and see it as a positive?

>>6288775
>>6297652

What are publishers' stance on web novels? I mean Worm, a web serial novel, is fairly popular and the author is considering publishing it so I wonder if starting my novel as a web serial would form a huge obstacle in the long-run.
'
My friends convince me no publisher would take my novel because it's too obscure, over-the-top, corny and just not something people would want to read, even if you were to target a specific sub-group, they'd still not bite it. However, I would still love to get my story recognized and hopefully to the point that people might publish it if I have build up a better rep. So yeah, I don't know if I should just keep going after publishers, or just "give up" and go down the web novel route.

>>6296803
I've heard of it happening but not with a big name author. It's closer to ghost writing where a board of editors come up with something they want to see and then contract out the writing to a usually mid-level author.

>>6296963
Agents are more popular in America than most other places. I know that in Australia there are only a handful of agents in total.

>>6296989
Yes it's boundless but some ideas need that visual help that you get in film/cartoon/comic format. It's much easier to draw a superhero fighting a giant robot and have people understand it than to write about it.

>>6297220
No
No

>>6297652
This is a misunderstanding. Self publishing can help you if you have a following. What publishers don't want is a book that's already been self-published. If you're self-published then and then turn to trade publishing you need to be trying to sell a new book and not one that's already available.

>>6297722
As above, publishers don't want books that are already out there. There's the odd exception like 50 Shades where it's just so popular that they're willing to buy it despite it having been freely available. If you want to publish your book then serialising it on the internet is NOT the way to go if it doesn't become hugely popular.

How did you get the job ?

>>6296250
This. 4chan is quite amazing, really.

Do you live in New York. Wanna hang?

>>6299699
By knowing someone who knows my editor and by being likable.

>>6299756
So, what recommendations would you give to me if I wanted to land this kind of job ?

>>6299789
Know someone. Don't be a literary snob - most publishing houses deal with more regular books so spaghettying all over the place about your favourite philosopher isn't going to win you any friends. Be casual but professional. Prepare to work long hours. Expect to never get this job.

>>6299874
Welp, that doesn't change much from my current situation

time to do some networking

>>6299675
> This is a misunderstanding. Self publishing can help you if you have a following. What publishers don't want is a book that's already been self-published. If you're self-published then and then turn to trade publishing you need to be trying to sell a new book and not one that's already available.
>As above, publishers don't want books that are already out there. There's the odd exception like 50 Shades where it's just so popular that they're willing to buy it despite it having been freely available. If you want to publish your book then serialising it on the internet is NOT the way to go if it doesn't become hugely popular.

Then I'll just have to keep searching for publishers till one accepts me, I suppose.

>>6299675
I was the self publish guy, thabks for answering, it was really bugging me for months since I read an article saying that

How is your publisher responding to Amazon?

>>6300611
If it was an article specifically saying that publishers snub self-pubbed authors then it was probably written by someone who went down that route and later found that they were received no better by a publisher. There's this funny mentality among authors doing the self-publishing thing that it's them vs the big guys and that the big guys owe them some kind of respect, but don't want to give any in return. If there's any prejudice it's probably all personal, editors who have seen too many queries written by previously self-published authors who suck balls (a common trait) but think the sun shines out their ass.

>>6300630
They're using it. All new releases show up in the all the expected online book stores. If you mean how is my publisher responding to people self-publishing on Amazon then the answer is that they sit around at board meetings, lean back and laugh. Self-publishing is an opportunity for people to get their work out there but it's not a threat to the traditional publishing model. Maybe if there were some kind of barriers to entry on self-publishing that meant people who were shit at writing were unable to publish their drivel then the whole thing might prove a problem. While authors are able to publish their word-vomit at a million miles a minute they're no issue.

>>6300611
Also, worst case scenario, just don't mention it. It'll turn up when an editor googles you but if they have a personal problem with self-publishing then I imagine they'll give you points for not pretending like it matters that you sold 6 whole copies of your book on Amazon once before.

>>6288775
One: What's the number one thing that causes you to turn down a manuscript

Two: Would you be interested in my work?

What's the fantasy genre like these days? Are all the big houses basically just looking for the next ASOIAF?

>>6300779
Shit writing. Easily. And you can spot when the excerpt is going to be shit just by how the query is written. Doesn't even matter if the story is good if you aren't a capable author.

What work?

>>6300790
Fantasy has always been a powerhouse in terms of steady sales. It's not cool to read fantasy and /lit/ snobs like to hate on it, but fantasy has seriously steady sales. It won't go anywhere.

The answer to your question is yes and no. ASOIAF has been such a huge success that the search isn't for the 'next' one, they're searching for something that will blow it out of the water. There's no shortage of political gritty fantasy already out there and they know that. It needs to be something that can spark a bonfire off even an ember of ASOIAF's success but stand completely on its own when the accusations of it being a rip off start coming in from people whose only exposure to fantasy is the GoT show.

>>6300823
>the GoT show.

Coming up next on HBO: it's The Game of Thrones Show!

>>6300823

do you read /lit/ critique threads?

are they "shit writing"?

>>6300823
>What work?
I've sent in a few queries about this, but still no positive response: A YA Fantasy (I know I know) about a group of knights researching a string of murders in a kingdom consisting purely of magical creatures (elves, treants, dwarves, gnomes, the list goes on.)

Think you'd be interested to look at my query?

>>6300823
>Shit writing. Easily.

Not the anon you were responding too, but I wanted to ask his/her question and was hoping for a more specific response.

For example, I can understand that a godly query letter or excerpt could probably make any premise/plot/story work, so given that, what are generally some things that are just meh or generally some things that are nice.

So for litfic specfically:
Having a 20 something character in a suburban setting with nothing surreal/fantastic happening, having horror elements like ghosts, having a story take place largely in a few places, etc. I'm just throwing things out there.

tldr; be real with us litfic fags. What are some things which are just done too frequently that we wouldn't know about, besides shitty writing and a main character which is a super-awesome-bohemian version of the author

>>6300823
New to this whole process

If I send in a query to a publisher or an agent, does it matter at all if I have been published in magazines for my short stories?

>>6300827
>being a pedant is fun!

>>6300831
Sometimes. I've seen a few good writers around. That doesn't speak at all to whether or not their books would be good enough. There's a difference between being a good writer and a good storyteller, and someone who is both might still write a bad book.

>>6300834
>interested
Probably not.

You're up against two problems. YA fantasy is high on the list of popular genres. You have to be offering something unique to get in. A unique premise, setting, and magic system are all basic necessities these days.

The other thing you're up against is a lack of human characters. That's children's book territory. YA is usually classified as the age bracket from 12-16. That's about the age where they (kids) aren't interested in talking animals and they want people with swords to hit each other.

>>6300865
>>being a pedant is fun!

lol it was a joke

>>6300865 →

can you give some thoughts on the writings in the critique thread here >>6294192 →?

I'd be very interested to see how a slusher judges writing compares to my own thoughts

>>6300865
>Probably not.

I get what you're coming from, but I suppose I should have mentioned the knights are humans- there's lots of action, political intrigue, and even a little betrayal thrown into the mix- sweating and death attached, I'm sure YA is the audience for this because I've had young adults read it, and they say they like it.

So, if it /were/ humans going to this fairy kingdom, the magic system holds its own, and the premise and setting are all different- what then?

>>6300850
>What are some things which are just done too frequently that we wouldn't know about, besides shitty writing and a main character which is a super-awesome-bohemian version of the author

Drugs for shock effect (no one gives a shit about drugs unless the audience is young enough to land the book in a PTA discussion), drugs at all (no one gives a fuck, your LSD tripping character is not profound), trying too hard to imitate what has come before, trying too hard not to imitate what has come before, manic pixie dream girl OUT OF NOWEHERE, characters that do literally nothing and that's the story (no, go fuck yourself, being litfic doesn't exclude a book from the 'needs a plot' category), and BOOKS THAT ARE LESS PROFOUND THAN THEY THINK. I suppose that last one is kind of vague but it's hard to be specific. Often you get a litfic query where the character's big development is something mind-bogglingly obvious like that they have to learn to let go of the past, or that it's time they grew up, or some other such nonsense. All of those revelations can work as the end of a character arc they just don't need to be presented as though no one has ever come to that realisation before. You aren't a genius author, don't present yourself like one.

But honestly the one where the main character is the author's best-self is the worst offender. And it's painful to read because you just know that the author probably didn't realise what they were doing as they were writing. They talked themselves out of the thought that the character was too much like them, then gave him a harem of cute girls, a WW2 motorbike, perfect hair, an impossible charming manner, and made him a tough guy that could beat up anyone who looks at his girl sideways.

Also, characters that quote famous works. I get it. You're widely read. No I don't give a shit.

>>6300859
Definitely include those credits if you have them. It's always a good indicator that someone is good enough that they've been published before.

>>6300884
How old is your main character? That plays a large role in determining if something is YA or not.

If you check all the other boxes for being unique then it's a matter of story and what's popular (AKA marketability).

>>6300878
I don't want to go through the whole thread because I have trouble telling whether or not people are just that shit or are doing it on purpose to troll.

Just tell me which post you want me to look at.

>>6300913

Okay you got me there: she's a 2,500 year old arch mage that enchants herself to look young, about early 20's. The universe supports almost-indefinite age characters via magic. Does age have such a large role to play in YA stuff? I thought that so long as the characters "seem" young it would be passable.

You're a slusher, what do you think?

>>6300899
Ok thanks, that's the specificity I was hoping for.

So those are the bad, what about the good in the litfic applications you've seen?

Also, there seems to be a pattern of authors trying to be profound and failing. I can understand that, and I did notice you saying it's hard to be specific about this particular one, but still I want you to be specific. I can vaguely dream up a story that fits this description landing on your desk, but I have no idea how it relates to something I would write since this bad-profound-work is so vague.

Could you give just one example of a query/excerpt you've read? Plus the good patterns you have seen in litfic, please.

>>6300924
>You're a slusher, what do you think?
Wearing your thick skin?

Probably not marketable in a number of ways.

YA isn't a genre, it's a marketing tool designed to bridge the gap between middlegrade and adult fiction. For that reason your characters really need to be the same age as the readers. It's an issue of relatability. At 20 your main character is over the line of being too old for a 15 year old audience.

The lack of human characters presents an issue all of its own. There are plenty of works out there where characters travel to fairy worlds where they encounter entirely fictional creatures. They just aren't very popular among the over-12 crowd.

My recommendation would be to stop querying it as a YA book. Query it as is and let someone at a publishing house decide where it falls. If that doesn't work then you have your answer: move on. Not all books are good enough for publishing, and some of the ones that are will never be published for a laundry list of reasons. If you managed to complete one book then you can definitely do it again. Query this book while you write your next. It's not unheard of for editors to send personal feedback that goes "No thanks on this one but next book you write send it to me first," because they think you're capable but the book's a bad fit.

In the meantime you can look hard at your query letter and hard at the book itself. Is it as good as you think? Has anyone outside your family taken a look at it? Join a writing community/forum online and make some friends there, have one of them take a look at it. Not all writers are good but their opinions are usually far more informed than a reader's.

>>6300948
Thanks for the advice, I've had to develop some sort of resistance to hard truth having been writing so long.

That's a really fine point. Do you think I should just straight up query it without the YA label? I'm pretty confident with the quality of my query (pushed it between a creative writing professor at my college and a grammarian back and forth to develop it) but if I'm just straight-up giving the reader a reason to be surprised/disappointed maybe it's who I say the audience would be is the problem. What would you recommend, on top of what you already said?

>>6300926
>Could you give just one example of a query/excerpt you've read?
Signed on the dotted line to say I wouldn't.

I don't know how specific one can be about this stuff because it can often be hard to say exactly why a book or an idea was bad. When I say 'books that are less profound than they think' that sounds pretty self-explanatory to me. As the author I'm sure it's hard to judge that, so get someone else who won't sugar coat the response to do it for you.

>good litfic
Uh, pretty sparse on the ground. They always do something original though. No road trips, cancer, cute girls for no apparent reason, and usually with a main character who is something other than pathetic. It's amazing how litfickers write their bohemian selves and still manage to make them pathetic people for the purpose of teaching them something throughout the story.

>hyper cool motorbike-riding-kun whom no one has ever disliked is a dick to everyone around him (never mind the oxymoron) and discovers that he should be nicer!

>>6300948
Oh hold the phone, sorry, I'm embarrassed to say but I actually forgot the "relatable" characters.

It's more of a duo story, the other character's an 18 year old swordsman that idolizes the arch-mage. The arch mage and her also hold companionship with two others of similar ages, both boys. That's pretty YA, right?

OP what do you think of this? This isn't a query just a rough summary. A novel about various 'young adults' as they go through 'transitions'. Various ages from 17-23. Not really written as young adult. Some are suburban, some are in college, some in the city (Chicago). The characters are connected in various ways, but not all. Some are white, some are Hispanic, some are gay, some straight, some have kids. It seems sprawling, but it isn't. I've kept it short and intimate. Thoughts?

>>6300959

1. Don't query it as a YA book. You worry about putting your best foot forward and let an editor worry about who would buy it.

2. Check your query against the advice given on Query Shark to see if it's as good as your advisors say.

3. Do exactly what the publisher says in their query guidelines. They want an excerpt with 5767.4 words? Then that's exactly how many words you give them. Don't leave any excuse for them to dismiss you out of hand simply for not following their guidelines. It definitely happens.

4. Join a writing forum. Make some friends. Ask one of them to read your book. Get unadulterated advice. No writer wants to believe they're bad but my experience tells me that 90% of them are. Writingforums.com is the best forum I know about.

5. It's just a book. I've written a few so I'm not dismissing the fact that they're hard work. But you can do it again. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you MUST publish this book and never getting past that.

>>6300989
I'll sign up tonight- thanks for everything. No need to worry about me fretting about this book too much, though, I'm always writing something new.

Glad to hear an insider's view on things.

>>6300967
Getting warmer. 18 is the top end of YA characters so you just slide in on that. If you firmly believe that the story, characters, and writing is strong then keeping up your queries is all you can do. Put your rejection letters in frames on the walls. Traditional publishing is stabilising after a few hard years but the sad truth is that the quota for new books is miniscule. Think ~60/year. Less for small companies, a bit more for us big ones. It's hard to make that kind of cut.

>>6300970
That's not a summary, that's a premise. To my ears it sounds more like something that should have been written as a sort of epic drama rather than being kept short. Depends on how it all works I guess.

>>6301004
no one wants to read some epic about young people trying to get their shit together, you have to be middle aged and norwegian for that.

>>6301004
>Getting warmer
Thanks anyway, I'll put your advice to good use.

I have a book where the main characters are all 15-16. I've considered calling it young adult, but other than the character ages, there's really nothing YA about it. It's also fantasy, so their ages don't mean a great deal.

what should I do slush sempai

>>6301095
As I said above, sell your book as is and let the editor worry about whether not to call it YA.

>>6301004
>>6301112
How is horror doing? Ghost stories in general that aren't just for kids?

>>6301114
Caught me. I don't know anything about horror.

>>6301139
Well, that says a lot about the success of the genre, I guess.

OP how do you feel about this tagline:

"In a world where Rhyce the vampire's girlfriend was brutally murdered by his own vampire brother Flashbird, evil has nowhere to hide as it finds itself outgunned by the katana blade of justice."

I'll be here waiting for when you inevitably want to read an excerpt from my manuscript.

>>6301796
Forgot to quote: >>6288775

>>6288775
>I'm a slusher
what's that?

>>6301978
dexter

>>6301984
That's not a helpful answer.

Here's a question i have. I've sent out about 6 queries now, 2 of them were rejected. The two rejects came back like an hour after i sent them. The other 4 i haven't heard anything about for about two weeks now. Should i make anything out of that?

Also, some people try making a lot out of rejection slips. How they're worded and all that. All my rejections were "nice", i guess, but they're still rejections. I'm of the opinion that it shouldn't matter how they say it, it's still a rejection. There's even a website that tries to detail what specifically worded rejections actually mean, which i think is all bullshit. What's your thoughts?

>>6300777
> Worst case scenario
So are you saying we SHOULD mention we self-published before or are you saying we SHOULD NOT mention we self-published the book before?

>>6302118
Not OP but I've been rejected a lot. Getting rejected in an hour likely means either you hit the agent/agency when their inbox was empty, or they have a lot of assistants. That's it.

Unless your rejection mentions specific elements from your manuscript then its just a copy pasted form rejection they send everyone. It means one thing: they're not buying what you're selling. It might also mean you need to revise your query / sample pages.