Friday, April 3, 2009

#Underfail: Rise of the Agents

For those of you who have been wasting your time with silly things like writing or, you know, spending time with your families and engaging in human interaction, you may not be aware that there is yet another controversy in the Writing/Publishing blogosphere. First, there was the great #Queryfail debate of March '09, now there is the even better and angstier #Agentfail debate of April '09. I don't know what we're doing for May, but I hope it involves Nerf weapons.

For those of you who have been out of the loop, here's a quick run down of what's been going on.

For over a thousand years, a great war has raged between two rival races:



The Agents, and...



The Writers.

Though the origins of this conflict are lost to the sands of time, for the past several decades, Agents and Writers had maintained an uneasy peace, until the great scourge that is known in the Dark Tongue as Twitter sowed discord throughout the land.



"OMG, here's another writer who didn't follow
the submission guidelines, didn't use spellcheck,
and swears their 250,000 word WWII historical
about a Ninja Assassin with a Heart of Gold will
sell more than Harry Potter!"



"We have been humiliated! Unprofessional!
Stop spending so much time on Twitter and
read our queries! And reply! None of this
'no response means no' crap! It's hard enough
being a writer as it is!"



"You guys are so harsh. Agents have feelings too!
You have no idea how busy we are representing
existing clients, drinking blood, fighting werewolves
while wearing tight leather outfits, and watching reality
TV shows."

Will this war between Writers and Agents ever end? Can they find a way to work together towards the same goal? Will Nathan Bransford ever get those Sacramento Kings tickets ? Will Colleen Lindsay ever get over her fear of Nanerpuss? Can this writer stop procrastinating and get back to work on her latest manuscript? Stay tuned.

29 comments:

  1. This was great! Loved it! Can't wait for the next installment..

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  2. SO.FUNNY.

    ahahaha... just perfection.

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  3. Dear god I hope I get those tickets.

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  4. I'm telling you, Nanerpuss is evil. EEEEEEvil!

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  5. Thanks for the laughter. *hugs*

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  6. I had so much fun reading this!
    NEXT POST?
    Then there is our ‘fodder’: the seething mass of unsuspecting people who are ripe for infecting with the ‘must-read-your-book virus’.
    Even now it is seeping from the screen to excite the olfactory system to such an extent that they will rise from their beds and lay siege to the shops before the arrival of our books?

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  7. Ok, this was hilarious and I had to tweet it. =)

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  8. As one who's been trying to figure out how to find a good agent, I must admit this really made me laugh!

    Great stuff!

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  9. That was awesome!

    Thanks for the laughs :D

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  10. Sure, agents have feelings too, but think about us writers. Do you have any idea how hard it is to type with paws? ;)

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  11. Not to mention getting the fur out of the keyboard!

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  12. Hilarious!!!
    Now to the serious stuff.
    Dr. Rus Jeffery a few comments above wondered how to get a good agent.
    Step one is to get elected to public office.
    And here's a bit of information kept hidden since Fat Man and Little Boy were the new guys on the block.
    In Los Alamos there's a secret lab hidden in a bunker 3 miles underground.
    It's there that the government has been working on creating the ultimate literary agent.
    Why you ask, would the government be involved in such a thing?
    Easy to answer. Everyone, from every office in government wants a book deal.
    Not just a book deal.
    But one with bank bailout size numbers.

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  13. Just wait till I start my #novelfail tweets. Then you'll see controversy!

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  14. What did you say your name was? I want to purchase your book and also pick up the 'children's classic' with the thoughtful photographic illustrations. I feel my fangs growing as I scribble...come 'mere sweet laptop, let me attcha :-)

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  15. That was great...lol

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  16. *grins* Nice!

    One of my fav movies, too. *chuckle*

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  17. Brilliant! Best comment I've seen on the whole #fail drama. Oh, what brillant things we do to avoid actually writing...

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  18. This was absolutely the best post to come out of the #fail wars.

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  19. Brilliant. Just 100% perfect. :D

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  20. This has to be one of the funnier posts I've read in weeks!

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  21. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I don't want to sound like a complete sap, but I sympathize with both writers and agents. Agents have to be pimps and lawyers at the same time in that they have to sell us, negotiate our rights, and set up our contracts, all on top of sifting through tons of submissions and agonize over deciding who they can take on! And I bet it kills them when they let a good one get away.
    As for writers...the agents are scary faceless specters who are very fate depends upon and we don't know half the time what we did wrong to get rejected, but we do know that we're up against thousands of writers. And, I don't know about my other fellow writers, but I am jealous of agents, they get to read and hang out with authors and publishers, go to conventions, and travel. Sounds fun!

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  22. Well, you have a new blog follower in me. I've not laughed so hard in ages. Well written. Well said. Now, off to go finish my agent-less, small press, genre romance.

    Thanks for posting! I'll be back!

    ~Ashley

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  23. Very funny! Nice way to ease the tensions. Thanks for the laughs. :-)

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