Q & A 189

Why are magazine articles, which require lively writing and demonstrate an ability to structure a story in an engaging way, irrelevant as credits when querying a novel?

This question was inspired by my comment "If you have credits that are relevant (published fiction), stick with those," after the author of the query featured in Face-Lift 1150 listed nine publication credits. My intention was not to disrespect nonfiction, but to suggest that the author, in paring his list down to two or three, go with those that were published fiction. Being unfamiliar with any of the nine magazines/websites/broadcasters the author listed, I wasn't sure whether some of the credits might be fiction; if they were, those would show not only the author's skill with "lively writing," but also with telling a story.

Now that I've been asked this question, I've looked into a few of the credits. The two print publications were Sharp, a Canadian men's magazine for which the author has written many articles, mostly in the tech field, and The Bulletin, which happens to be the title of a lot of publications, though I'm guessing this is an alternative newspaper in Toronto.

The online pubs include:

Problogger, a website devoted to how to make money as a blogger (the author was published there three times, each as a guest blogger on Problogger's blog). [In looking through the Problogger blog for ways to make money off my blog, I came across this post, which suggests how Problogger makes money off their blog.]

Tech and Techvibes, where you might find articles like "iPhone versus Android: What You Need to Know Now, Before You Screw Yourself" and "Why Canadian Videogames rule."

Consumerist, in which the author's piece on his two-day stint as a door-to-door salesman was presumably nonfiction, but thanks to a story arc and a lot of dialogue, could easily be taken as fiction, and is thus more indicative of his storytelling ability than an article on the best camera bag to take on a hot-air balloon excursion.

Then there are the broadcasting credits, which could be anything from ad copy to hour-long top-rated television dramas, though I imagine if they were the latter that would have been trumpeted in the query.


I would limit the credits to Sharp, because the author has been published there many times, and Consumerist because of the story. But here's another factor to consider when listing online pubs or print magazines with online versions: The person to whom you are sending your query can search for the publication and (if it exists) then search for your articles there. Which is okay if they're just confirming that you didn't fabricate your credits, but what if they actually read your pieces?! And what if you or whoever edited your article filled it with typos and what you, now that you've matured as a writer, consider embarrassingly bad writing?

This Q and A from ages ago makes a few points about credits. (You'll find most of the Q and A's from 8+ years of this blog conveniently collected in Why You Don't Get Published, vols. 1 and 2, available in the EE Shop. While they last.)

So, that doesn't answer the question, but it does cover the reasons credits aren't nearly as important as information about the book, namely, credits could be for stuff that sucks, they could be for stuff that doesn't exist, they could even be for someone else's writing. (If you claim to be Evil Editor in your query, you'd better hope the recipient doesn't email me to confirm, because I'll see to it you're never published on this planet.)

As for the nonfiction vs. fiction question, expecting a nonfiction writer to produce a good novel is like expecting a watchmaker to build a diesel engine. Maybe not, but I thought you might be ready for a good bad analogy. In truth, I'd be more impressed by your nonfiction article in The New Yorker than your short story on awesomefiction.com, [Took me 3 tries to come up with a non-existent example, as greatfiction.com and incrediblefiction.com actually exist.] [Eventually everything will exist, and then all new urls will have to start wwww (WorldWideWebWithal).] so the question is based on a faulty assumption.

I realize this makes it sound like it's not the type of writing or the quantity of credits that impresses me, but how much you got paid and by whom. And that's true. But only if you can hold my interest all the way to your credits. Most writers waste so much time worrying about credits and put so little effort into describing the story, I never get within four inches of their credits.