Marketing Monday

I have joined the tweeting masses, yes I have. I've been tweeting for about a month or so, but would always forget to post an update. However, Thursday's infamous QueryFail day got me involved and I must say, I'm now an official Twitter addict. I'm following 40 other tweeters and it's a blast watching their updated 140 character tweets, some regularly, some never. I think Colleen Lindsay is the champion tweeter.

Speaking of QueryFail, I thought it was an awesome event. Entertaining and educational for the clueless looking for an agent or publisher. But a lot of writerly folks were upset with the agents and editors posting bits and pieces of queries they'd turned down and their reasons for passing. The complainers accused them of mocking writers. Personally, I don't see it. Most were generic as hell, and no names or titles were ever mentioned. The point is, the queries that got knocked down deserved it, IMO. They were silly and mindless and showed no respect for the agent being queried. You don't tell an agent "I have a great idea. You write the book and we split the profits." Ignorance is not bliss. It's shameful. It's lazy. There are too many resources on the web that will teach a new writer how to be professional in their queries, so there's no excuse for being stupid. Clueless queries take time away from the agent who'd rather be selling their clients' work to publishers. Anyway, I won't go on and on about it because too many people already have, on both sides of the fence. If you're curious about the queries tweeted about, you'll find a lot of them here.

If you want to see some over-the-top responses to how awful QueryFail was, visit Nathathan Bransford's blog.

Bookends didn't participate in Query Fail, but Jessica Faust's blog today is a funny look at how rejections can be misinterpretted by writers. She was very gracious in her responses to both the examples given, but my word, if you don't know what Middle Grade is, why are you writing it? LOL!

As far as my own news, I have none. But I'm happily revising the first draft of Mystic Taxi and I couldn't be more excited about this book. I may not be posting teasers on my blog anymore, but I experimented on Twitter with a paragraph, so I may do that instead.

Follow me on Twitter! Just click on the "Follow Me" link under my latest tweet, and it will take you to my profile page there. The more Twitter pals, the better.