Nathan Bransford's Blog
Know Thyself
(Actually it's kind of awesome. I have a laptop and it's 65 degrees outside. You do the math.)
Anyway, this post is going to be brief because of the aforementioned busy day, but I'm getting a bazillion queries lately and I've noticed something kind of interesting about the way different people characterize their accomplishments in query letters.
Put on your agent hat for a moment. Which of these two authors would you be more interested in signing:
Author A has published six books, published numerous articles, and is a an award winning author.... only after some digging you find out the six books were published by a very small press with a sketchy website, the articles were published on the author's blogs, and the award was Citizen of the Year from Nowheresville, Indiana.
Author B has published several works from small presses, has a killer idea for a new novel, and is ready to make the leap to a major publisher. After some digging, this is all turns out to be true.
So who would you choose? Author B, right? Trick question: THEY'RE THE SAME AUTHOR. Also I made them both up. This blog gets trickier and trickier.
Anyway, the moral of this bizarro example is that it is much better to be completely honest about your accomplishments but pitch yourself as being on the rise than it is to try and blow up your accomplishments into something they're not. Agents do not like it when authors try and fool them, and we can smell a turkey sale a mile away.
On the flipside, though, don't undersell yourself either. Don't apologize for a lack of writing credits -- don't fake them, but just make sure you have a great story and you're confident about it. If you do, an agent will come calling. Assuming their telephone pole isn't on fire.
My first thought was, "Shouldn't Author B have more than just an idea for a novel?" And, if someone's sending you a query doesn't that automatically mean they assume their ready for the leap to a major publisher?
P.S. I've never even been nominated for citizen of the year.
I'm from Nowheresville, Indiana...we don't even give out citizen of the year awards anymore. We got tired of passing them around between the 3 of us.
Why didn't you take a picture? My dad took a picture when the circus had a herd of elphants crossing the street in a long row. Apparently that's how they cross the street. Both events don't happend often and both events are picture worthy!
How do we make sure we don't under sell our selves? Over selling seems obvious to me, but this is something I have been accused doing WITHOUT sending a querie letter so now I am extra nervous.
Thank you so much for this :)
Given that this turns out to be the same author, would you take them on at all? I would presume the answer would be "no." I don't know why so many people attempt to fake their credits and credentials, since to be caught will blow any credibility they have, unless some actually get away with it. If they can get away with it, that doesn't reflect well on the industry.
Hope it warms up for you.
R