Queryfail?

Ten days ago Colleen Lindsay (who blogs over at The Swivet, and is a literary agent with the USA-based Fine Print Literary Management) organised Queryfail Day: a day-long Twitterfest. Colleen was careful to advise those taking part not to post anything which might indentify any of the writers whose queries were being discussed; and she warned that the exercise was not being done to make fun of anyone, but was an attempt to show, in real time, how overwhelmed agents and editors are with submissions and why so many of them fail.

I thought that the concept was potentially useful, very interesting and funny (although I haven't read it all and I didn't participate—I'm not one of the Twittering classes). However, plenty of people take the opposite view and many seem to feel that those who took part ridiculed the writers concerned.

In a few days I'll post my own response to Queryfail: Publishingfail. Expect it to move slowly, as most things in publishing do. And to keep you going until then, here’s some further Queryfail reading.

Editor Unleashed discusses The Queryfail Trainwreck; Justine Larbalestier leads her own excellent discussion; Book Publishing Today discusses Queryfail too; and even The Guardian gets in on the act.