I found a guy who was posting on a FB page of a literary agency claiming he had written a book that deserved the Nobel price and that he wanted a good agent to get him the best possible contract. He went on, saying he was the new Cervantes, that his work was a hybrid between phylosophical essay and vanguardist novel with no narrative at all and so and so on... What do you guys think about this "approach"...? Do you think he may get the attention he seeks or this attitude would result perjuditial in the long run? Note: He had no previous published materials.
Just reading this post makes me think the guy sounds like a jackass. Seems like agents and editors might have the same initial impression.
It's a high expectation to beat, but if I wrote something as good, I really don't know how I'd market it to publishers, but taking shots at Cervantes and laying claim to the Nobel is beyond bad taste. In short, as much as I hate quoting it, Dunning-Kruger.
That's an interesting approach. What if the man is right? In a parallel universe or something, it is possible, however unlikely, that someone, at some point, make a better book than the best book ever... in such situation, and assuming this person is virtually unknown, what would be the course of action? Maybe saying something like: "I hope you like it" and hope for the editors/agents to discover its literary value by themselves?
I feel like your book's quality is ultimately something you are not able to decide yourself - you're too close to the situation. You have spent a billion hours on this thing, put your blood sweat and tears into it - once you get past the phase where you hate everything about it you're hopefully going to feel like it's awesome. As an unknown in any field it's rarely (if ever) a good tactic to go in thinking you know better than everyone else. Even if you are a genius, I don't think anyone ever truly accomplishes anything completely by themselves, which means people still have to want to work with you...Based on the very little I know about this dude, I would never want to work with him, and I feel like I would not be alone there haha. I'm pretty new to the writing/publishing/everything scene, but I feel like confident humility is usually the best tactic when you are an unknown entity in any field.
This guy is now completely boned. You do not start off a creative career bragging that you're the new Cervantes/Leonardo da Vinci/Stephen Kubrick and that your work deserves the highest honor of the world. Now he'll be lucky if he even sees his book lining the main shelves of his town's public library. Even if he were a literary genius, I doubt many would want to spend five minutes with him.
I agree, but I found it interesting nevertheless. In fact, I think this may be a good concept for a story.
I have to quibble about the title--he's not a Nobel author. He just says that he should get a Nobel prize. I'm assuming that he's either an egomaniac or a troll.
I'm using "nobel" in the thread title as "new author with no published books", not as a "Nobel Prize Winner" author. By the way, I added the man to my contacts and he seems pretty serious (I just had a conversation with him). He says he has a literary study of his book, which is actually kind of splitted in two very different novels. I can tell you the man is pretty arrogant but seems a little bit desperate as well. He told me that those two books took 5 years of his life and that they're filled with new literary strategies and... in short, that he is the author of the best book ever written and that nobody (by nobody he means the editorials) listen to him. I have the first half of one of his manuscripts on my hard drive right now. He wants me to translate it to English and I told him that I would help him if I think his work is actually good. What I'm thinking, aside of the claims of this author, is that a story about a misunderstood genious or a crazy person that claims to be a genious is kind of an interesting idea. It may be a little bit like a new Don Quixote, so he may have given me the inspiration for my next project. As for helping him with the translation, I don't know if I'm capable of such thing, but at least I'm reading his book...!
All the query-writing advice I've read says not to make any claims about how good your work is or what a reader would think of it ("this will make you laugh and cry!" "the next big fantasy trilogy!") The only thing that seems to be acceptable is saying "My novel may be enjoyed by readers of Other Author and Other Author" and even then, I think that's a dangerous statement to make. Maybe some publishers or agents would give this guy some brownie points for sheer brazenness, but it's not something I would try.
Right now I don't know what to think. It is a new narrative strategy, or so I think... there is no narrative at all, only dialogues. There is no setting and no names for the characters who participate in the conversation. It's exclusively dialogues, so it's kind of weird. The main characters don't have names either, and the book is divided in two parts. The novel and a short compilation of concepts one must read while progressing in the story in order to understand the main exchanges. It seems to be a philosophical essay on thought and emotions. That's kind of the main subject: human nature. The book is not a regular novel for sure, and looking at the theory, it seems kind of complex, so I think this may not be a book for the regular reader. I'm fucking dizzy right now.
My point still stands: acting like that to publishing agents when you've nothing to back up your words will not help your career. He basically just shot himself in the foot before the race even started.
Well, let's spice things a little... I'm the author and I do have a literary study to back up my claims. While I do agree that I may have shooted in my own foot by presenting my work like this (I've faced a lot of rejection based on a rush evaluation of my persona, rather than my work) I don't see much options, taking into consideration the huge number of novel authors trying to get their works published and forcing editorials to do rushed evaluations. For example, I lost on a very important literary contest (the winner was a novel titled Summer of Fear, and the synopsis was talking about a vampire and a bunch of kids, including a fat emo girl, fighting it with a blog). So you tell me what I am supposed to do being a completely unknown author to stand out and get the chance to publish AND to avoid being relegated to a dark corner after spending about FIVE YEARS of my life creating two innovative novels. I believe I have the right to say what I think. Yes, Jesus was crucified for making extraordinary claims, but a few people followed him, so (if I'm not crucified) I hope I can embrace an estrategy aimed at promoting my work based in its literary value, since there is nothing I can do to pursue the popularity of works like Fifty Shades. Some people will be pissed at my "lack of humility" but some people will be interested in buying my books. I preffer that to being a silent lamb. With that being said, I want to stress that I am actually not an arrogant person. I am a hard worker with dreams of success, like all of you. Now bring the cross and the nails.
Wait, wait, wait, hold the phone, you were that author!? Now you've put me in a quite awkward position... Well, um, good luck with your books! <goes to a corner>
Lol There's no need for you to keep your opinions to yourself. I intentionally pretended it was someone else to get some honest opinions, and since I got plenty of that I decided to come out in order to go deeper into the subject. This can be a very interesting discussion and it can be approached from different angles. For example, I noticed that NOBODY showed the slightest interest in the novel itself. This shows, at least to me, that while we can be civil and even cooperative, we all suffer the pressure of being surrounded by too many authors and having to compete with too many manuscripts. In reality, this is a competition. We all want to win this stuff and none of us is thinking about how awesome it would be if 50 or 500 forum members we know could publish, specially if we haven't publish yet. So that's one reason to explain why people felt I was a jackass or a troll, while nobody showed any interest in the manuscript. I will include myself in it. I'm not really interested in other people being better than me, or becomming best seller authors while I'm struggling. In that sense, I recognize I was rude by presenting my work as the best shit ever. I apologize for that. I did it because I wanted to see the reactions of people. Still, I was the one who was called a jackass and so on... so I hope we are good.
It does show how one's view of the author depends on whether or not the manuscript is considered. Very interesting demonstration we had here.
It does, at least as forum writers goes. It may be an entirely different story as a promotional campaign, where it can be less personal and richer in content. Do you have any experience (or a plan) regarding promoting your work?
