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*snickers*Then you look very carefully at the agent's guidelines to see what their version of a package consists of
*snickers*Then you look very carefully at the agent's guidelines to see what their version of a package consists of
If it's a product, I want to see it.
If it's a book, I don't.
Sure, people vary, but agents are people who have decided to spend their lives involved in the written word.
I hate video online instead of text, almost never watch youtubes people link to, unless it's just a clip of cute animals or something, never when it's a story or report that could be text, that drives me batty.
Whew. Thought I was losing my touch there for a minute.
Oh god, me too. I hate it when I click on a link to a news story, and it's a video with no text to read. Videos have to be watched from beginning to end, and it's hard to skim them quickly until you get to the part you're most interested in. If I know something is a video in advance, that's different. Sometimes a video is the best media, but a lot of the time it's faster and easier to read (or skim) an article.
I also hate sites where the video starts playing immediately (and with sound) without my clicking on it to fire it up. If a site has loud music or a video that turns on by itself, it's pretty much guaranteed I'll close it immediately. I don't open attachments to my e-mail ever unless they're from a person I trust and the attachment is requested or something that I know in advance needs to be in that format.
As others have said here, literary agents have the instructions they do for a reason. I can't speak for how they all feel, but in my own job one of the daily irritants would be people who don't follow directions when they submit assignments or whatever. It makes my job a little bit harder, and since there's a finite amount of time for me to do it, well...
The thing is (unlike a teacher), the agents one submits material to have no relationship with you yet. If a submission doesn't fit their required format they have many reasons to delete it unread and very little reason to grit their teeth and read through the materials anyway (the way I have to with my students). Any attempt to bypass their instructions in order to "get a foot in the door" will likely be counterproductive.
We are not talking in general. We are talking about one particular case - getting an agent. And for that particular case, your examples don't work, the situations are different.I think that, in general, people are attracted to pictures. Social media is an example. Posts with pictures result in more interactions..... But it gets the foot in the door.
Before I researched all the ins and outs of getting an agent, (and this was back in the days of snail mail, never e-mail), I was going to send the agent a little teddy bear with my query, since my ms is about stuffed animals. I found out a lead balloon would go over better.I guess it varies from people to people. I'm very visual, and I was introduced to reading with books with illustrations. I grew up with Graphic Novels, and I still enjoy books with illustrations when introducing new chapters or parts to this day (e.g. The Graveyard Book). Mixed media, etc.
I think that, in general, people are attracted to pictures. Social media is an example. Posts with pictures result in more interactions, even if it's just a picture with words. In terms of sale (think Amazon, YouTube): it doesn't guarantee a sale, since what matters is the product itself, or, in our case, the manuscript. But it gets the foot in the door.
Oh, I meant that. It's a bad idea!
I was just trying to explain why I was wondering about it. It started when I was preparing the media pitch for this week. When Cornflake said that few people would care about pictures, I described why some people are more visual and media in other formats (not in query letters) tends to become more visual as time goes by (Twitter is an example).
But you're right, the thread is confusing and it's my fault. I went off on a tangent.
Ah, okay. Gotcha.