Monday, April 20, 2009

Self-promotion!

My query was featured in Nathan Bransford's Agent For a Day contest. You should check it out if you haven't already.

I was surprised at the number of people who were misinformed about the foundations of YA books; people picked at my word count, my subject matter, etc. I think there's definitely a disconnect between how the publishing industry works and how authors think it works.

I think we're so used to following guidelines for how to write query letters, how to format our manuscripts, how to use dialogue tags and adverbs, that we forget how much of it isn't a rule. We forget how much of our success is dependent on being original and being honest.

2 comments:

Glen Akin said...

Too true, Hannnah. Unfortunately, I didn't play the game but I did follow it. I remember spotting your query, and I read it and I was thinking, "I've seen this before. This is going to be published soon." The query said the title was IF IT AINT BROKE or something like that. I did my research and found it was actually BREAK!

I couldn't tell the people playing and rejecting that, "Listen, mate, it's already going to be published and you're rejecting it for some very weird reasons," it was against the rules, but it was also so much fun seeing people put it down when it's already been picked by an agent AND an editor.

Congrats again :)

Keren David said...

Read your query letter on Nathan Bransford's blog and though I'd really love to read this book...hope it's going to be available in England. Off to check amazon.uk. Well done on all your achievements - so impressive!