Monday, April 13, 2009

Be An Agent for a Day

Curtis Brown agent Nathan Bransford is holding a contest. He calls it the “Be An Agent for a Day” contest. If you’re a writer who struggles with writing the query letter, you’ll want to zip over to his blog and track this contest. Today at 8 a.m. he starts posting the entries. You don’t have to be one of the contestants to win since you get to read the entries and see what the Agents for a Day say about them.

For those participating as “agents,” here’s what they have to do:
You will read and respond to as many queries as you can. You will have one week to respond to all 50 queries. You can draft your own rejection letter and manuscript request letter (personalized or non-personalized, your choice), which you will paste in the comments section of each query. You might even provide some specific feedback to try and help the author if you're feeling extra conscientious.
You may request no more than five manuscripts, because hey, you're not going to have time for your clients if you request more than five manuscripts for every 50 queries.
They have one week to respond to 50 queries (chosen from hundreds and hundred and hundreds submitted). Those people who have submitted queries that Nathan chose to use will get to see what is said and what their requested/rejected stats are.

And Nathan has thrown in a bit of a twist. Some of the queries are for books which actually sold. We’ll get to see how the “apprentice” agents responded to those.

So zip over and see the queries rolling in over the day. And then bookmark Nathan’s site so you can track this contest.

14 comments:

  1. That seems like a worthy challenge and something that would provide valuable education. I may not participate (too much on the plate right now) but have the site bookmarked and will track it - probably can learn quite a bit vicariously.

    Good post, good info - thanks!

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  2. It was supposed to have already started, but when I checked earlier, it hadn't. When it does, you're right, it could be a valuable learning experience just to follow it.

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  3. I think the results will be a hoot! I wonder how many genuine books they will reject?

    L. Diane Wolfe
    www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
    www.spunkonastick.net
    www.thecircleoffriends.net

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  4. I think it'll be an eye-opener for those participating as well as those of us just following along and learning, Diane.

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  5. I also thinks it sounds interesting, but how could anyone find the time to do it? It's like a full time job on top of everything else you have to do. I'll spectate when I have time.

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  6. The queries have already been chosen, so now it's up to the "agents" to reject or ask for more. The queries will be appearing on Nathan's blog over the course of the day. I've read some of the comments, but mostly am reading the queries to see if how I would have responded.

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  7. I saw that on Nathan's blog. Quite an interesting concept.

    Lynnette Labelle
    http://lynnettelabelle.blogspot.com

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  8. Sounds like a fun project if I had time to do it.

    Morgan Mandel
    http://morganmandel.blogspot.com

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  9. I'm with you, Morgan. No time to participate. I am following along, though. Mostly to read the queries.

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  10. I attended a mini-workshop where a publisher divided us into two groups and handed each group a days worth of mail to open. The goal was for each group to select and agree on one query that sounded like a winner. No agreement was ever reached but we laughed hard, learned a lot and realized what a tough job a publisher has! I'll be interested in how Nathan's contest turns out.

    Jane Kennedy Sutton
    http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/

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  11. It will be. So far I've only had time to read about 10 of the entries. If I'd been the agent, I probably would have passed on all of those.

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  12. Ooh, that sounds like fun...and an interesting challenge! I wonder whether they'll request the manuscripts that already sold. Would be cool to enter if I didn't have stacks of my own MS's to read!!

    --Lisa
    http://authorlisalogan.blogspot.com

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  13. This was such an AWESOME exercise! I learned so much and truly gained perspective.

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