Well an Agent knows the business. They know what currently works and what won’t work. Plus they get thousands and thousands and thousands of enquiries every day. It would be totally impossible and mind boggling to read 3 chapters from each and every person.
I kind of now know why they do that. Recently I’ve been going back on my e-reader to books I purchased back in 2010. After I finished one book I looked to the next book on my list. I remembered that this was the authors first Super Romance book. I like finding new authors so I was really looking forward to reading the book and discovering another wonderful author.
Sadly I was a little disappointed. Usually I give a book a chance but after about 12 pages I had to put it down. I don’t know what it was about it. It didn’t grab me, there was something about the voice that didn’t quite work for me. I’ve admitted numerous of times that I flick to the end, even the last couple of pages didn’t grab me enough to go back and read the whole story. In fact I don’t believe the hero actually tells the heroine he loves her. From his last bit of dialogue to her, she figures that’s “man speak” for “I love you”. As a reader I have to have my hero declare his love.
I went back to my menu of books and clicked on the next book on the list. Another new author, and this one I can quite happily say had me interested from the get go and only because it was getting late that I reluctantly put the book down for the night. Sadly other things have kept me from opening it more often today and devouring it. I’m trying to live up to my previous post and concentrate on other things that need to be done, like housework, other work and decluttering the house to keep it clean!
Now I understand why an Agent only asks for the first 3 pages. They pretty much know what rings all the bells for them and what doesn’t. Doesn’t mean the stories they reject another agent won’t love and won’t sell to a great publishing house. It’s all a matter of taste.
Will I go back to the other book I started yesterday and read it all? I have to be honest and say I don’t know. Will I try another book by this author? Again I don’t know. All I do know is that even though I didn’t connect, there are plenty of other people out there that loved it.
NF
