Christian authors writing and querying the non-Christian market?

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KErickson

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I'm new here, so I pray this isn't an inappropriate question. I'm just dipping my toes in the query madness and I'm becoming increasingly terrified and I need a little bit of reassurance. Or, if there is none to be had, perhaps I should look at only querying or pursuing boutique agencies that welcome Christians. ?

I have a mystery that I was thinking about querying, and since it is not "Christian fiction", I was researching agents on Publishers Marketplace.
Several times, I clicked on the agents twitter page to see if they have those #mswl tags etc, and I was met with really hate-filled, vitriolic rantings. I'm not saying they have opinions - we all have them. I'm saying the level of rage and hate scares me.
I'm seeing this on many of their twitter pages (and I'm not on twitter for this very reason), and I understand everyone's emotions seem to be running very high right now with all the strife currently happening, but I'm terrified that I would have to walk on eggshells in order to query agents like that. lol
Is it worth it?
Is this kind of twitter behavior considered standard professional behavior in publishing? I don't want to query an agent who publicly hopes half the American population will die, when that's basically like cutting off half your potential audience for your work? Is this the norm? And maybe my bigger question is this: is traditional publishing reflected in this behavior as well?
(It's been a long time since I had an agent for a nonfic project...back in 2006-2007... and that was back before twitter was a thing, and I never faced this before. Yes, I'm a hermit.)
Please someone tell me: is this the new normal? Should I just run back to my safe place and hide? ;) Is this a reason that some people choose self publishing? Sorry this is so long.
 
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mccardey

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I'm new here, so I pray this isn't an inappropriate question. I'm just dipping my toes in the query madness and I'm becoming increasingly terrified and I need a little bit of reassurance. Or, if there is none to be had, perhaps I should look at only querying or pursuing boutique agencies that welcome Christians. ?

I have a mystery that I was thinking about querying, and since it is not "Christian fiction", I was researching agents on Publishers Marketplace.
Several times, I clicked on the agents twitter page to see if they have those #mswl tags etc, and I was met with really hate-filled, vitriolic rantings. I'm not saying they have opinions - we all have them. I'm saying the level of rage and hate scares me.
I'm seeing this on many of their twitter pages (and I'm not on twitter for this very reason), and I understand everyone's emotions seem to be running very high right now with all the strife currently happening, but I'm terrified that I would have to walk on eggshells in order to query agents like that. lol
Is it worth it?
Is this kind of twitter behavior considered standard professional behavior in publishing? I don't want to query an agent who publicly hopes half the American population will die, when that's basically like cutting off half your potential audience for your work? Is this the norm? And maybe my bigger question is this: is traditional publishing reflected in this behavior as well?
(It's been a long time since I had an agent for a nonfic project...back in 2006-2007... and that was back before twitter was a thing, and I never faced this before. Yes, I'm a hermit.)
Please someone tell me: is this the new normal? Should I just run back to my safe place and hide? ;) Is this a reason that some people choose self publishing? Sorry this is so long.

I'm not quite understanding you. Obviously, if an agent is calling for death for half the population (assuming you're not over-stating or over-simplifying) then - I would cross that agent off my list.

But even if you haven't been querying for a while, you must surely have noticed that the world has become louder, more fearful and more divided since, oh I dunno, 2015 or so. (If you haven't noticed, have a quick look at last nights US election debate, and then compare it with literally any other US election debate ever ...)

My take: Agents are people - choose the ones you feel comfortable with.
 
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Roxxsmom

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This isn't something I've seen posted by agents I follow on Twitter, though I go long periods without checking twitter at all. Scanning through my agents twitter list, the only conversation I've seen that touches on religion is one discussing the BLM and policing from a Christian perspective. No one calling for any deaths though. But being on publisher's marketplace doesn't mean someone is legitimate, or a nice person. Which agents are you talking about? There's a forum here on AW where people post about experiences they've had with agents and publishers. That's always worth checking out, as people discuss experiences they've had, both positive and negative.
 

KErickson

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But even if you haven't been querying for a while, you must surely have noticed that the world has become louder, more fearful and more divided since, oh I dunno, 2015 or so.
I'm not exaggerating but I'm not going to post links. You can just click on the agents on Publishers marketplace, go to their twitter pages. I've never seen anything like it in a professional corporate environment, either. If some of them said those things in an office environment they'd be fired for creating a threatening work atmosphere. (the 2000's were not as shrill, but the world didn't suddenly fall apart in 2015. )
:( I was hoping somebody here could tell me if there are agencies who are behaving in a more professional way. I was just completely shocked after being away from the query trenches for so long.
Thanks anyway, sorry if you were bothered by my question.
 
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mccardey

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I'm not exaggerating but I'm not going to post links. You can just click on the agents on Publishers marketplace, go to their twitter pages. I've never seen anything like it in a professional corporate environment, either. If some of them said those things in an office environment they'd be fired for creating a threatening work atmosphere. (the 2000's were not as shrill, but the world didn't suddenly fall apart in 2015. )
:( I was hoping somebody here could tell me if there are agencies who are behaving in a more professional way. I was just completely shocked after being away from the query trenches for so long.
Thanks anyway, sorry if you were bothered by my question.

I'm not bothered by your question, but in the absence of any evidence to the contrary I'd have to say these are surprisingly non-professional agencies anyway - and why would even consider subbing to them?

It's not how the industry works, obviously. Publishing at large is not hoping half the world dies, nor have I seen any calls for that. But maybe send the links to the editors of Publishers Marketplace just to alert them in case they missed it?

I'd love you to PM me the links, just because I'm so surprised to hear that they're out there. But no, to answer your question - you don't need to give them any more thought. The publishing/agenting sphere is not like that.
 

PyriteFool

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I think part of the issue here is that Twitter is not a "professional corporate environment." It has different norms. Agents are not working as agents 27/7. They have personal opinions, grievances, passions and assuming you are checking personal Twitter accounts, that's one arena people express those passions. Perfect, bland neutrality is not and has never been a virtue, imho.

It is true that personal/professional online presences get mixed up (sometimes in damaging ways) in publishing. That's a danger in all creative fields. Ultimately, I agree with mccardey. If you don't like how an agent conducts themself on Twitter, don't query them. I've used this rule myself. I'd rather find out about deal breakers on Twitter before I query than after I sign a contract.
 

KErickson

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Ok, thank you, that is helpful, I'm trying to find the forum you mentioned about people posting their experiences. I don't want to say anything about anyone I haven't interacted with directly (and I wasn't talking about BLM, maybe I just found the one insane person on PM today). It would be helpful to know other people's experiences with agencies.
 

mccardey

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Ok, thank you, that is helpful, I'm trying to find the forum you mentioned about people posting their experiences. I don't want to say anything about anyone I haven't interacted with directly (and I wasn't talking about BLM, maybe I just found the one insane person on PM today). It would be helpful to know other people's experiences with agencies.

Is this the thread you're looking for?
 

Helix

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I'm not exaggerating but I'm not going to post links. You can just click on the agents on Publishers marketplace, go to their twitter pages. I've never seen anything like it in a professional corporate environment, either. If some of them said those things in an office environment they'd be fired for creating a threatening work atmosphere. (the 2000's were not as shrill, but the world didn't suddenly fall apart in 2015. )
:( I was hoping somebody here could tell me if there are agencies who are behaving in a more professional way. I was just completely shocked after being away from the query trenches for so long.
Thanks anyway, sorry if you were bothered by my question.


I don't think anyone's bothered by your question. But the thing is that without seeing what's going on, it's difficult to make a judgement about which 'agencies...are behaving in a more professional way'. We don't know what you saw or in whose account you saw it.

I typed 'literary agent' into the search bar on Twitter and checked the feeds of the first twenty agents/agencies that popped up, plus the ones I follow, and found nothing outlandish or threatening. A few U.S. accounts were reminding people to vote, which seems entirely reasonable, but mostly agents were enthusing about books and calling for submissions.
 
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Roxxsmom

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I clicked on the twitters for the agents who are on the sidebar on Publishers Marketplace (I'm not a member, so I can't do an extensive search), and none of them seem to have anything violent or scary. A lot of tweets with novel excerpts and blurbs, but nothing especially disturbing there either and nothing not related to their work as agents. Twitter changes fast, though, so maybe there was a "bad" conversation going on.
 

KErickson

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I need to go back and hunt to find some of the ones I looked at today, and since this site is currently taking 10 minutes to load each page, I don't care enough. But I specifically looked at an agency with several agents, who were making deals within the last few months, and one man who (it appeared that he reps sci fi, and since my mystery has a sci fi element I clicked on his twitter) had a rant where he used the F word and told anyone looking at his page that if they disagreed with his politics they should basically ---- and die), and it was his professional page where he was posting authors' stuff for his agency.. Now it wasn't the tweet at the top of his page because I scrolled down a little. I can't remember his name now, But he has a beard if that helps. lol I wasn't prepared to be spoken to like that when I was just trying to see his mswl, and I thought I was looking at a professional's page, you know what I mean? I don't care what his political opinions are. But I won't be spoken to like that by a man, ever. ;)
thanks for the link to the other forum. It looks huge and at the rate it's loading will take me ten year to read, haha. have a good night!
 

mccardey

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II specifically looked at an agency with several agents, who were making deals within the last few months, and one man who (it appeared that he reps sci fi, and since my mystery has a sci fi element I clicked on his twitter) had a rant where he used the F word and told anyone looking at his page that if they disagreed with his politics they should basically ---- and die), and it was his professional page where he was posting authors' stuff for his agency.

Well, you know - free speech and all that. If it's his agency and his twitter feed and he wants to pre-emptively weed out writers he knows he won't get along with, he gets to do that. But you don't have to query him, so no problem there.

And if it's just one guy and you don't remember who, I'd be cautious about over-stating the problem or generalising it across agencies. (There are lots of agents who freely give time to help writers on these boards, and respecting them is also part of the one rule - RYFW.)
 

Helix

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Since it's narrowed down from:

... Several times, I clicked on the agents twitter page to see if they have those #mswl tags etc, and I was met with really hate-filled, vitriolic rantings. I'm not saying they have opinions - we all have them. I'm saying the level of rage and hate scares me.
I'm seeing this on many of their twitter pages (and I'm not on twitter for this very reason), and I understand everyone's emotions seem to be running very high right now with all the strife currently happening, but I'm terrified that I would have to walk on eggshells in order to query agents like that. lol ...

...I don't want to query an agent who publicly hopes half the American population will die, when that's basically like cutting off half your potential audience for your work? Is this the norm? And maybe my bigger question is this: is traditional publishing reflected in this behavior as well?...

to

...one man who (it appeared that he reps sci fi, and since my mystery has a sci fi element I clicked on his twitter) had a rant where he used the F word and told anyone looking at his page that if they disagreed with his politics they should basically ---- and die), and it was his professional page where he was posting authors' stuff for his agency.. Now it wasn't the tweet at the top of his page because I scrolled down a little. I can't remember his name now, But he has a beard if that helps. lol I wasn't prepared to be spoken to like that when I was just trying to see his mswl, and I thought I was looking at a professional's page, you know what I mean? I don't care what his political opinions are. But I won't be spoken to like that by a man, ever. ;)

and it wasn't so terrible that his name is engraved on your memory.

The short answer is to submit to agents with whom you feel you can work. If Ranty McRanter is not the agent for you, don't send him anything. That still leaves a heap of agents.
 

KErickson

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Well, you know - free speech and all that. If it's his agency and his twitter feed and he wants to pre-emptively weed out writers he knows he won't get along with, he gets to do that. But you don't have to query him, so no problem there.

And if it's just one guy and you don't remember who, I'd be cautious about over-stating the problem or generalising it across agencies. (There are lots of agents who freely give time to help writers on these boards, and respecting them is also part of the one rule - RYFW.)


Ok, let me rephrase my inital post, I understand that I have offended you by making it sound too generalized, however that was the impression I was getting from my digging. I get to choose what I find offensive, and please do notice, that I didn't post on any other boards to whine about profanity or anything else? I was trying to express how it made me feel (afraid). And why would his name be engraved in my memory? I was looking through tons of pages and he wasn't the only one. and i certainly didn't bookmark him. :p
What I *should have* said, instead, was :
Can any of the writers on this board, labeled Christians, let me know if you've sold anything in the mainstream markets, using a mainstream (lack of a better word?) agent, and did you feel like it was a good experience? Full stop. So i will remember that next time.
Thank you! So sorry I upset you and thanks for pointing out that I might be offensive to agents by generalizing too much, that is a good point. Have a good day.
 

Calla Lily

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KErickson, welcome to AW. Please read the Newbie stickies, which are quite short. They are there to let everyone know how AW works.

Your initial post did indeed ask something quite different from your revised post #15, and we answered that post with our knowledge and experience.

PyriteFool, Helix, mccardey, and Roxxsmom gave thoughtful and informative answers to your OP. They were quite right: The world is a dumpster fire, social media adds lighter fluid to the raging flames, and people have opinions. The recent Red Sofa catastrophe illustrates that.

The C-fic world is its own little bubble and has been for years. If you're looking to go mainstream, be prepared for an entirely different world. And if you disagree with an agent's tweets, don't sub to them. The query-go-round is not a quick ride. Research and a lot of patience are required. Good luck.

Calla Lily
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