Today I ran across two situations which are the flip-sides of the same coin — a depressed author who writes marvelous middle grade YA stories (Yes, I’ve read her work) and a despairing literary agent who represents YA books. The author is seeking a literary agent and the literary agent is seeking clients — good clients.

Can the two of them get together?

No.

Why?

Because, though the author has:

1. good, solid publishing credits with a small publisher,
2. already proven she has the capacity to write wholesome, engaging novels one after another,
3. children and their parents who buy and read her books,

she couldn’t grab his attention with her query — a good query, too. Instant dismissal, with not even a blink.

The agent, meanwhile, decries the fact that he’s inundated with queries — bad queries, good queries, and mediocre queries — but can’t find clients he wants to represent. Very sad.

And the answer?

Well, my advice to the author is to keep writing and keep querying. My advice to the agent is to not so easily dismiss the received queries. Reject the obvious ones — bad spelling, bad grammar, obviously dull plot line — but don’t just dismiss out of hand those which might actually be gold when the first few pages of manuscript surface.

Recently:

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