So what if an agent finds your blog...

[Hapax Legomenon]

...and finds fanfiction, or, horror of horrors, bad writing?

A lot of people in another thread are talking about agents looking at blogs.

I've posted a significant amount of fanfiction of questionable quality to my blog. It's not linked to me by name but it's linked to me from here. Will this pose a problem if an agent finds me and finds that my posted writing sucks?

A lot of the fanfiction is done in serial format and isn't carefully proofread because, to be honest, the audience doesn't care much. The quality of this is hopefully not going to be anywhere near the quality of something I send for submission. It's just something I do for fun when I can't think of any original fiction to write. Also, small segments of what I'm working on now are posted as Teaser Tuesday, but these are generally very rough and unedited and there aren't a lot of them. If an agent finds these labeled under the same title I've queried them for, especially if they're not very good, will that be a huge red flag?

 

[Karen Junker]

You should be safe if you are using a handle here and not revealing it to the agent. However, if you should use the actual title of your work here, that will come up on a google search and an agent could backtrack and find your blog.

Good luck!

 

[Hapax Legomenon]

I might change the title, I'm not sure.

I'm talking about if it happens, though. How much do agents judge the contents of one's blog?

 

[Karen Junker]

Okay, I don't know about all agents, but for me, I try to keep embarrassing stuff off the internet. That includes bad writing.

 

[blacbird]

I've posted a significant amount of fanfiction of questionable quality to my blog. . . . The quality of this is hopefully not going to be anywhere near the quality of something I send for submission.

If this possibility is bothering you, I think I've located the source of your problem, as quoted above.

 

[Hapax Legomenon]

The reason why I say "hopefully" is because I've never gotten completely through edits to submit anything yet.

Something I agonize over for months and months has got to be better than something I slammed out in a couple days and gave a once-over to, but, as a mathematician, I need to acknowledge that it's not impossible for the latter to be better. Life is cruel like that sometimes.

 

[blacbird]

Something I agonize over for months and months has got to be better than something I slammed out in a couple days and gave a once-over to,

So why do you post the latter on your blog?

 

[Hapax Legomenon]

So why do you post the latter on your blog?

Because I have readers.

 

[blacbird]

If I had readers, I'd work harder at making the writing good, so the question you posed in the OP would never occur to me. Maybe that's just me.

If I had readers.

 

[cosmia]

I would hope an agent wouldn't reject a good manuscript simply because the author has some less-than-great fanfic out there. You're not asking them to rep your fanfiction; that's not part of the deal, so I don't see why it should be a problem. Then again, I'm an idealist and I'm not an agent, so...

 

[mscelina]

When an agent looks at your blog, they're not looking for material. They're looking to see if you're a whacko, if your blog posts pay attention to details like spelling and grammar, if you are spending your blog time whining about the submissions process or wishing death on people who reject you.

 

[James D. Macdonald]

A good manuscript trumps just about anything.

The manuscript has to be Very Good Indeed to trump Certifiable Looney. So just don't be a looney and you're fine.

 

[Libbie]

good rule of thumb: don't post any kind of writing sample on the internet if you wouldn't be happy to have an agent read it and potentially judge you by it.

If I were an agent, yes, I would google people before I offered them representation, and if I found a lot of amateurish, bad writing on a blog under the author's name I would think twice about representing that author. If the book they queried was really great, I would probably still offer representation, but I'd think twice, for sure.

 

[Hapax Legomenon]

When an agent looks at your blog, they're not looking for material. They're looking to see if you're a whacko, if your blog posts pay attention to details like spelling and grammar, if you are spending your blog time whining about the submissions process or wishing death on people who reject you.

Now, define "whacko".

 

[mscelina]

whacko=someone an agent wouldn't want to represent. ie--a blog full of bizarre manifestos, flame wars if someone criticizes your work or something you say, poisonous unprofessionalism, or, more simply, someone who is obviously certifiable.



Glad to be of help.

 

[gothicangel]

I wouldn't think an agent would bother checking out a website, until they were thinking about signing you.

We have other things do do - like having our own life - you know!

 

[scarletpeaches]

First of all, I'm Scarlett Parrish. I don't do bad writing.

Secondly, I cram as much totty onto my blog as a distraction technique. "What's this? Forms of the verb 'to be'? My God, she's-- wait, Richard Armitage!"

Sorted.

 

[gothicangel]

Sorted.

Scarlet's inner Ned emerges.

 

[MissMacchiato]

Thanks for posting this, the responses were interesting.

hmm. I think I'm sorted as not being a loony via my blog, but it's just rambling. It's not interesting.

It's mostly for fashion, and for my own memory, not for any kind of serious audience.

I guess they'd know who I was if they googled miss macchiato, but since I don't use my actual name here, or there, come to think of it... they won't know if they google my submission name

 

[scarletpeaches]

My blog hasn't done my publishability (that's a real word) any harm, and when I sub to agents it'll be under my real name. Maybe I'll tell them my pseudonym, maybe not. Even if they think I'm a whacko, I have a built-in audience, so maybe they'll let the whacko-ness slide.

 

[seun]

If I had readers, I'd work harder at making the writing good, so the question you posed in the OP would never occur to me. Maybe that's just me.

If I had readers.

Yep. Why post anything a potential reader can see if it's not as good as you can make it?

 

[RobJ]

I've posted a significant amount of fanfiction of questionable quality to my blog. It's not linked to me by name but it's linked to me from here. Will this pose a problem if an agent finds me and finds that my posted writing sucks?

A lot of the fanfiction is done in serial format and isn't carefully proofread because, to be honest, the audience doesn't care much.

You may well be right, of course. The audience you're targetting may not care much about quality. But it's hard to know for sure whether you'd have picked up more fans if you'd taken more care over the quality. It is possible that you only attracted those who didn't care, that potential readers who cared may have been turned off by the quality they found.

 

[gothicangel]

If the audience don't care about proofreading, then I would be surprised if they cared that much about reading.

Not an audience I care to target.

 

[seun]

If the audience don't care about proofreading, then I would be surprised if they cared that much about reading.

Not an audience I care to target.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[Chewbacca]

oh no what have i done....