A big thank you to Chris Wollam for taking care of things while I was busy with ebook touring. Thank you, Chris!
Well, even though it was nice to take a break it's also great to be back. But did I learn anything while I was away doing my ebook tour? Sure, I think I did. But before I dive into all that, let me first answer a question that a few of you have sent in regarding Inkubate. As some of you know Inkubate is a site where writers can post their work in the hopes that agents or publishers will look at it. When Inkubate first started it was said that agents and publishers would pay the author for the privilege of reading their work, but that term seems to have been dropped from the site. (I really didn't think that agents would pay to read yet more queries!)
I've been a member of Inkubate since December 2011, and at one time, a few months ago, I decided to delete my file. I wanted to delete my file because there was a term that I wasn't quite comfortable with. That being: writers were not to send their work out to agents while it was posted on Inkubate's site. A writer's work was to sit exclusively with Inkubate.
You can imagine what this term would mean for writers. For instance, I had my work posted for a good few months without any bites from agents, and being a writer who likes to make sure my work is being seen by agents it was impossible to just sit and wait for those agents to hopefully drop by Inkubate and hopefully look up my work. So I decided to delete my file in order to submit my work to agents myself. However, when I went to the site to do this, I noticed that the leaders of Inkubate had changed this term. Now writers may submit their work to agents themselves while their work is posted on Inkubate. You need to remove your work only IF it is being considered by an agent or publisher. See here for FAQs
This is a great change because most writers are highly pro-active. We don't like to sit around waiting for agents to find us (even though that kind of scenario would be fantastic!) With that being said, I kept my file posted on Inkubate. Inkubate, however, is still in the development stages, so don't expect your work to get picked up by a publisher or agent anytime soon. I looked for a list of participating agents and publishers on the site but found none...so, at this point, it's hard to tell who (if anyone) uses the site to find talent.
If at some point down the road Inkubate is able to offer agents and publishers a large up-to-date data base filled with professional writers with great works for sale (and so far there doesn't seem to be any measures in place to ensure that quality work is posted--you may post anything you like in any format you like) then maybe, just maybe, the idea will work. I say maybe because agents already have all the queries they need. Why go to Inkubate for more? But of course I could be wrong. Agents and publishers may like to turn over every rock they can as they scan the world for appropriate or new material.
Well, even though it was nice to take a break it's also great to be back. But did I learn anything while I was away doing my ebook tour? Sure, I think I did. But before I dive into all that, let me first answer a question that a few of you have sent in regarding Inkubate. As some of you know Inkubate is a site where writers can post their work in the hopes that agents or publishers will look at it. When Inkubate first started it was said that agents and publishers would pay the author for the privilege of reading their work, but that term seems to have been dropped from the site. (I really didn't think that agents would pay to read yet more queries!)
I've been a member of Inkubate since December 2011, and at one time, a few months ago, I decided to delete my file. I wanted to delete my file because there was a term that I wasn't quite comfortable with. That being: writers were not to send their work out to agents while it was posted on Inkubate's site. A writer's work was to sit exclusively with Inkubate.
You can imagine what this term would mean for writers. For instance, I had my work posted for a good few months without any bites from agents, and being a writer who likes to make sure my work is being seen by agents it was impossible to just sit and wait for those agents to hopefully drop by Inkubate and hopefully look up my work. So I decided to delete my file in order to submit my work to agents myself. However, when I went to the site to do this, I noticed that the leaders of Inkubate had changed this term. Now writers may submit their work to agents themselves while their work is posted on Inkubate. You need to remove your work only IF it is being considered by an agent or publisher. See here for FAQs
This is a great change because most writers are highly pro-active. We don't like to sit around waiting for agents to find us (even though that kind of scenario would be fantastic!) With that being said, I kept my file posted on Inkubate. Inkubate, however, is still in the development stages, so don't expect your work to get picked up by a publisher or agent anytime soon. I looked for a list of participating agents and publishers on the site but found none...so, at this point, it's hard to tell who (if anyone) uses the site to find talent.
If at some point down the road Inkubate is able to offer agents and publishers a large up-to-date data base filled with professional writers with great works for sale (and so far there doesn't seem to be any measures in place to ensure that quality work is posted--you may post anything you like in any format you like) then maybe, just maybe, the idea will work. I say maybe because agents already have all the queries they need. Why go to Inkubate for more? But of course I could be wrong. Agents and publishers may like to turn over every rock they can as they scan the world for appropriate or new material.
No comments:
Post a Comment