u/teenypanini

I wrote a book. Edited it. Beta readers loved it. Queried it to a hundred agents. Got no positive responses. I know querying is extremely hard right now, with the rates of responses going down and agents getting dozens of queries a day. But it was still so disheartening that it made me never want to try again. I have lots of book ideas, but the one I wrote was very close to my heart. Is anyone else going through it right now? (Please don't suggest self publishing... I don't have the time, resources, or social media following for it)

I'm still in the early stages of writing but I wanted to start thinking about the query. The housekeeping and 1st paragraph are the same as the 1st version. I fleshed out the second part, hashing out who Steven actually is, what goes wrong, and why they have to work out thier differences, though I still wonder if it makes sense. And I hope the premise sounds more horror-comedy than icky like it did last time.

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LILY is an adult paranormal horror, 80,000 words, about the first woman, Lilith, reckoning with her role as the Mother of Demons. My novel blends the monster's point of view of Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell with the wildly entertaining feminine rage of How To Kill Men And Get Away With It by Katy Brent.

Before God made Eve out of Adam's rib, there was defiant Lilith, who still stalks the earth after being thrown out of Eden. Cursed to become the Mother of Demons, this century she goes by Lily Graceling. Her manic pixie dream girl persona attracts just the right kind of pathetic asshole she likes to suck the life out of to create her demon children. Just because she's cursed to an eternity of being a succubus doesn't mean she can't enjoy seeing the descendants of Adam suffer.

However, something goes wrong when she tries to telepathically control her next victim, Steven. Instead of having full control, she finds herself able to feel all of his physical sensations, emotions, and memories, unable to disconnect, and he can feel hers, too. Steven is the archetypal “nice guy”: bland, misogynistic, and too self-absorbed to understand why he's miserable. To Lilith, it's worse than being psychically handcuffed to a bag of shit.

Steven tries to escape, Lilith tries to torture him, and they both try to kill each other, to no avail; it's really hard to slit someone's throat when you can feel your knife against your own neck, and she can't move on to the next victim while they're still attached. Exhausted by their hate, they start to unwittingly open up to each other while figuring out a solution. Seeing bits and pieces of this miserable man's life holding up a mirror to her rage-filled one forces Lilith to see that she may still be more human than monster. Despite centuries of causing terror, it may not be too late to choose between the two… if she doesn't choose to rip off Steven's face first.

[Bio here] Thank you for your consideration.

I've been having a blast writing this, but because my last novel is dying a slow death in the query trenches without a single full request I'm now paranoid about the hookiness of this new manuscript. It's not done yet but I'm shooting for around 80k. I had a much easier time finding comps for this one at least.

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LILY is an adult paranormal horror, 80,000 words, about the first woman, Lilith, confronting the curse that marked her as the Mother of Demons. My novel blends the monster's point of view of Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell with the wickedly entertaining feminine rage of How To Kill Men And Get Away With It by Katy Brent.

Before God made Eve out of Adam's rib, there was defiant Lilith, who still stalks the earth after being thrown out of Eden. Cursed to become the Mother of Demons, this century she goes by Lily Graceling. Her manic pixie dream girl persona attracts just the right kind of pathetic asshole she likes to telepathically control and then suck the life out of to create her demon children. Just because she's cursed to an eternity of being a succubus doesn't mean she can't enjoy seeing the descendants of Adam suffer.

However, something goes wrong when she tries to telepathically control her next victim, Steven. Instead of having full control, she finds herself attached to his emotions and memories, and he to hers, unable to disconnect. She's suppressed any empathy she's ever had for millennia, making Steven's psychic shackling unbearable torture. Yet whenever she tries to give him a quick, painless death to end it, she hesitates. Seeing bits and pieces of this miserable man's life holding up a mirror to her rage-filled one, knowing he can feel her pain, accepting that she can feel his, forces her to ask why she became a monster in the first place. Because if Lilith doesn't have to be a monster, then what is she?

I live in the (city) area with my pet bunny and my boyfriend. I studied Theater at (University), which gave me invaluable insights into the art of storytelling. I've been published in (magazine names). Thanks for your consideration.

She will ask you what you've been doing on your computer if you're not on the company software. And I mean every time. She will somehow teleport right behind you asking you why you're reading a news article at the end of the shift when there's nothing to do at all. Can't have your phone out even though our clocking app is on our phone. If you take longer than 15 minute breaks she will literally follow you outside to see where you're going. She will get on your case if you talk to a coworker for too long (more than 10 minutes). She's made it clear that her only purpose is to squeeze as much as she can out of everyone even though our department already had the highest efficiency rating in our company. People who have worked here decades are about to quit. She scares new people away and they quit in less than a year. When does micro managing to the nano second become harassment?

Everything I've been doing for the past few months has been geared towards publishing and it's making me go insane. Every book I read is to judge if it might be a better fit for a comp. Every time I sit down to write I can't because I wonder if my next novel has any market appeal, and then I start researching that. I haven't gotten very far in my querying journey for this current novel yet (sent out 15 queries in the past 2 weeks with 2 rejections, I know thats almost nothing) but I'm almost certain now that it has a very narrow appeal. How do you pitch a contemporary apocalyptic fantasy that’s also an obvious religious allegory without making it sound like it's a ripoff of The Stand from 30 years ago? IDK but I tried. I already posted the query here for review and it seemed as solid as it could be, but I have a feeling its still not enough. The comps aren't new enough, not popular enough, its got a romance subplot but its not a romance novel and that's not something people want apparently??? I don’t know anything anymore. Anyway I feel like all the fun has been sucked out of reading and writing and all I can do is obsessively search for more agents to query. I know the right answer is to just give it a rest, but I can't, it's like this specific form of masochism thats taken over my dopamine receptors. How do you not go completely insane?

They push it in a lot of schools even though it garbles words and images, spouts out false information, and is basically a plagiarism and cheating machine. Using AI isn't like teaching kids how to use computers, it won't help them in the job market, it can only make them dumber.

I went to a pitch event a few weeks ago and I heard one of the agents I pitched to say that they took on 6 books last year, sold three books and couldn't sell the three others. Is this a normal sale rate or should I be concerned?

I know this is a weird question because most people want a promotion. I'm pretty sure I'm being groomed to be the next manager of my workplace. You need a certification to move into the job, which I do, but I got it because I love my work and not because manager's job. (The certificate isn't specifically for management.) They force managers to take on 3 times as much work here and I want no part of it. If they ask me and I say no, can they legally find sneaky ways to punish me, like denying raises for not "being a team player" or trying to give me the work without the pay?

Spoilers obviously. His deadpan delivery throughout this movie is just stellar

I am going to a pitch event/writing conference next month where I can pitch my manuscript to two agents. I wonder if I should keep querying beforehand, because in my experience once summer takes off many agents are off for months and I don't want to wait. But if I get a full request before the pitch then it will feel like I spent a lot of money for... well not nothing, obviously, but the pitches are the main draw of this thing for me.