Damn Your Eyes: America's Funniest Home-Spun Queries

Okay folks, clean out your ears, wipe off your glasses, and turn your hearing aid way, way up. I still harbor some hope that everyone who queries an agent will be reading, if not my blog, than that of one of the roughly ninety jillion agents, publishers or authors, established, new or aspiring many of whom also offer vital advice, much as I do. And you’d be amazed how much of it is the same advice. Maybe that’s because it works. So here’s a few of the most infuriating things you can do when you query that I’ve been seeing A LOT lately.

1. “Dear Submissions,” Yes. It’s true. My mother is a dominatrix and consequently my given name is Submissions. No, I don’t mind at all if you’d rather use that than the “nick name” posted on the agency’s website. Idiot.
2. REALLY CRAZY HUGE GINORMOUS TEXT. What the hell? This gets attention but in the wrong way. Although I pride myself on finding reasons either creative or fundamentally substantial on which to hate your stinking guts, I know a lot of people aren’t as nice as I am and when they see that only two words fit length wise across the screen, you go straight in the reject box.
3. “I am a sixty three year old grandfather of five, which is why I’ve written a fun five book series of early readers called ‘Fun with Grandpa’ designed to teach important moral lessons.” Okay, stop right there. First of all, unless you’re a celebrity or a known expert on a subject, I’d counsel against putting your bio first, and let’s be honest “I’m a boring old man.” Is not a particularly enthralling opening line for your query. Secondly, Easy Readers are for little kids to read to themselves. You think they want to read a book about grandpa lecturing them about how kids in his day were respectful enough to not only cut a switch but beat themselves with it? Let’s be totally clear. No big children’s author made their mark by harping on morals like some Victorian school handbook. Quite the reverse, big successes for virtually every age child, like every book produced by Stratomeyer (a la Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys) or the works of Judy Blume and others are if anything completely the reverse. They cover issues kids find fun, look to substantial “real issues” like bullying, racism and puberty, rarely address morality itself, and when they do, don’t beat you over the head with absolutes. Hate to crush your dreams old timer, but no one wants what you’re selling except other old men who wish their grandkids thought hanging around them was fun.
4. Every now and then, there comes an author that tries out a razzle dazzle vocabulary style. Got one recently from an author who loves Poe and Shelley (Percy or Mary?) talking about his Catch-22 like bildungsroman and describing it with phrases such as Promethean irreverence (not sure what’s irreverent about being chained to a mountain and pecked apart by Eagles for being nice to people) and Joycean Nightmares. If I met him on the street, that author and I would probably be two peas in the haughty asshole pod. But we’re not on the street. This is a query. So here’s one more phrase that comes to mind when I think of that author- obfuscatory verbiage.