Literary Agent Turns Down Best Seller & Loses a Fortune in Royalties

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Literary Agent Turns Down Best Seller & Loses a Fortune in Royalties It has come to my attention that many literary agents are actually bad decision makers. A literary agent will often inform you in a canned email response that your story did not connect with “them� therefore they are passing on your query or submission! This is understandable since this decision is often a subjective response. However, I wanted to see if literary agents understood data. What if I presented them with information that showed a children’s picture book I had written was well-liked by children ages 4 to 8. Even better, what if the children themselves indicated that they loved the book more than an international best seller such as Elf on the Shelf: Would literary agents still turn it down? After all it is data that drives sales not subjectivity. THE EXPERIMENT: Over 100 children were independently surveyed by their teachers. The data showed that my 970-word picture book was liked by children much more then Elf on the Shelf. Below is what I wrote to 10 literary agents that had previously sent me a canned response: I now have surveys that compare my picture book to Elf on the Shelf from over 100 children and their teachers. The easy to understand data speaks for itself and is meant to get the attention of top publishers: The most important pie chart is the second one: 45% of children liked my story better than Elf on the Shelf. 47% liked both stories the same, and ONLY 8% liked Elf on the Shelf better!


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