Maybe I should just build a website and charge folks a quarter to read each chapter...

[uberreiniger]

Writing a query letter to send to literary agents is hard work. Specifically, encapsulating my novel into a one-paragraph synopsis is hard work. I'm not one who is good at "selling myself." I've always been more comfortable letting my talents speak for themselves, but in this situation there's no avoiding and in the words of The Bard I, like a whore, must unpack my heart with words. I just need to find a way of describing it that sets my work apart from every other tale of a daydreaming barmaid who finds love with a cyborg with the soul of a poet under the shadow of a resurrected Third Reich out there, you know?

What I really need is a whole day to spend at the library or Barnes & Noble with a copy of Literary Marketplace reading up on agents I might have a shot with. Knowing who I'm targetting might give me a firmer idea on what approach to take. But until then, grr, all this being new at this just sucks!

Comments

so you're one of *those* people huh?

[stitchedsutures.livejournal.com]

*ahem* y'know.. you could just *buy* the Literary Marketplace and take it home with you.. Barnes & Noble isnt a library for goodness sakes. That's a few blocks over and they might not let you drink your coffee with the books or dribble your gooey carmel pastry all over the pages, thus sticking the book together so no one else who wants to buy it can even turn the pages.

sorry. i had to get that out of my system. it's been a while since i worked at B & N and was allowed to unearth that. Now that i'm free of that store, i can go around, reading all their magazines for free, putting them back wherever i damn well feel like and asking them if they sell sunglasses of any kind in their bookstore.

Re: so you're one of *those* people huh?

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I know, but LM is fatly expensive to buy.

My friend Adam works at the Independence B&N and once told me a story about finding gay porn magazines "stuck together" in the men's restroom. And I don't think it was carmel pastry.

I miss retail. Makes me nostalgic for the days of swabbing up random child-puke at the arcade. Where have the good times gone?

Re: so you're one of *those* people huh?

[stitchedsutures.livejournal.com]

did you ever see the Seinfeld where George took an expensive book into the restroom, and they "flagged" it as a bathroom book and wouldnt take it back anywhere... not even let him donate it at good will.

Man, when i worked at the bookstore in the middle of downtown denver, we not only found the porn people stole from behind the counter (since we had to give it to them) but the letters to penthouse books and pretty much anything else imaginable from the sexuality section. Once, there was a guy so drunk that he just whipped it out in the middle of the store, although i think it was mainly to piss before we had him dragged out of the store dangling and all. He didnt miss the book though.

Re: so you're one of *those* people huh?

[kali-81.livejournal.com]

Hey, when I worked at Barnes and Noble, I read the books I wanted to and left them wherever the hell I was when I got finished reading them. If I was in a particularly good mood, I'd take them up to CS and zone them, but I wouldn't put them back unless "back" was on my way out the door. My not doing it wouldn't stop everyone else from doing it, so why should I put forth the extra effort? Can't think of a good reason. And when I was on duty, I just sucked it up and shelved them for everyone else. It's my job. I have to get paid for something else other than standing around and browsing the shelves.

Re: so you're one of *those* people huh?

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Way to provide job security! ;)

Re: so you're one of *those* people huh?

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I HAVE seen that episode! That one was actually pretty good.

Your story sounds like my friend Matt from high school. (Not the part about whipping it out in the aisle, the part about the stealing.) The local small bookstore owner in our town thought he was just this perfect angel and he'd be walking out of there with what must have been hundreds of dollars in stolen porn every month. Me and Mike would act as lookouts while he smuggled the goods into the bathroom and hid them above a ceiling pannel to be carried out later when she wasn't look. She NEVER caught on. Oh man, I was floored at the time but looking back, it's hilarious. That's about as close as I ever came to a life of juvenile crime.