Shooting Myself In the Foot?

There's a lot of info here...

Can you bump the 30K YA up to 50? Fifty is sort of a minimum for a lot of agents (or so I've been told while shopping around a YA that's just short of 50). It's possible you could try and market it as MG; then you wouldn't have to get all the way to 50.

I'm not sure of the genre for your 120k, but perhaps shaving 10-20k off would make it more palatable.

A trilogy is a hard sale for a new author, and at any rate, each book should be able to stand on its own. Perhaps you could work up one of your 90k sequels to be a stand-alone? Then if it sold, you could offer a prequel.

You *are* shooting yourself in the foot if you are ignoring the usually accepted lengths for the type of book you are writing. Sure, some get by with being overly long or overly short, but many more do not. Why not maximize your chances?

I'm not sure that I see a problem with writing from the POV of the opposite gender. If you had a kick-butt query, I don't think the agent would be interested and all ready to ask for a full, then read the name at the bottom and change their mind. If you really worry about such a scenario, then just put your initial and last name... sign it B. Bernston or whatever. Then they won't know you're a guy until they've read your full, fell in love, and decided that they want your novel.

Best of luck!

I read the first part of your Angel excerpt (even though it's not my genre, even though I hate reading white on black), and I was impressed. The prose is smooth, the tense so well handled that I barely noticed it.

(This doesn't answer any of your questions, I know.)

Shorter YAs are more acceptable when it's not fantasy, which tends to be longer than other YAs. Even in realistic YA, 30,000 is still pretty short, and I would try to get it to at least 40,000 words if not more.

I originally started querying my YA novel at 37,000 some words. An agent suggested that I get it into the 45k to 55k range by adding a subplot, which I did. I ended up with a manuscript which was 45,600 words, obviously under 50,000 words, which was able to get me an agent. However, this is a YA chick-lit/romantic comedy type of novel.

And how to convey that you can write in the opposite sex's POV? Just do it well in your novel, and that should be enough. There's no need for making a big deal out of it in your query letter.

Stephen King's first published novel was Carrie, a story about a teenaged girl. Stephen King was never a teenaged girl. Seriously, don't worry about gender at all. It's not an issue. Agents and editor's aren't going to turn down your work because you're the wrong gender. I'm a twenty something woman and the novel I'm currently writing is from the point of view of a thirty something man.

When it comes to word length, are your stories rough drafts? Have you tried editing the long ones, cutting excess stuff that isn't directly relevant and interesting, trying to combine oher stuff, and thus condensing them down to a more acceptable word length?

For the short ones, try to find places where you skimped on details, places where things could be expanded more, where you can add new complications. With some good editing I'm guessing that most of your stories could be changed to an acceptable length.

Um gee...I enjoy writing from the first person POV of a man and it was never an issue with my agent or editor. I know SEVERAL authors who write chick lit (that tend to be first person POV) and who are not women so I can't see your concern would be a huge issue -
I agree with monkey - your stuff seems varied. You need to look at your strongest pieces and work with those. Agents may be shying away from a writer who is not completely sure what kind of writer they are. If a premise and the writing are stellar then the length would not be a deal breaker.
There was an interesting article in PW recently that some publishers are taking massively long books by first time authors and breaking them up into three and publishing them 6 - 9 months apart...
If I were you I'd use some beta readers to help choose the most compelling premise and best writing ...JMHO