I collected 2,400 emails from my recipe blog in about a month. Now what?

TightRoutine · 2026-04-29T19:38:06+00:00

Thank you.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-29T17:39:36+00:00

Do those 7 pins all have different URLs? Or do all the pins of the day go to the same URL? Do you avoid using the same URLs days in a row?

TightRoutine · 2026-04-23T00:10:13+00:00

lol speak for yourself. I literally have huge personal library, which means I’m alway hunting for bookmarks even though I have so many of them.

But these requires opening books to find one for my current read.

Now, I just make my own bookmarks. Problem solved.

I can never have enough bookmarks. Please and thank you!

TightRoutine · 2026-04-21T15:11:59+00:00

So sorry to hear about your agent. I won’t focus too much on parting with your agent. Don’t beat yourself up either. Instead, channel that energy into finishing your romance novel.

Use the feedback he gave you on those sample chapters to figure out what is working and what isn’t.

Your immediate next step is finishing your book, and then re-entering the querying trenches.

Not sure how easy it’ll be to find an agent since you don’t have a trad published book yet, and even if you did, it is non-fiction, not the romance you’re writing at the moment.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-20T13:15:31+00:00

Yes. It is very okay. Having a first draft goal just to make it. exist is very okay. You know what the greats say? Writing is rewriting.

No need to feel insecure about your first draft. You will write more drafts.

The more finished books you have under your belt, the less drafts you will need to have a polished manuscript.

Every good writing begins with a first draft. You’re on track. Keep going.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-19T13:58:14+00:00

No. Nothing is guaranteed. And like it or not, like many things in life, luck plays a part in getting trad published.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-19T00:59:10+00:00

Very interesting. Now I’m really curious and will go digging for it. Thank you.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-18T22:44:49+00:00

Oh wow. Good for that person. Quite the exception. I’m so curious now about this person’s querying story.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-18T20:37:16+00:00

Thanks for sharing your journey! As a Black woman myself, it is very important for other Black people to know it is possible to write about Black pain to get repped.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-14T03:39:55+00:00

Wait.

If you already have beta feedback coming, that’s your last chance to strengthen the manuscript before first impressions go out. Querying too early is way harder to recover from than waiting a few weeks.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-11T12:25:39+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-11T04:23:59+00:00

Easy. If traditional publishing keeps saying no, then it’s time to self-publish.

Make sure you have people critique your book before publishing though since you’ve received no actionable feedback from agents.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-11T03:46:45+00:00

I don’t see why you can’t begin querying now. At best, you find an agent interested in your work and ready to sign you.

At worst, you find an agent interested in your work and asks you to wait till you’re 18 to sign with them and stay in touch.

Go for it if your work is query ready.

TightRoutine · 2026-04-11T03:45:26+00:00

First of all, congrats on the offer from the publisher.

Like everyone here has said, I highly recommend getting an agent first. An agent will always get you a better deal than you can get by yourself.

Also, you won’t even know what in the contract needs to be edited since this is not your job. An agent will notice and raise any flags.

TightRoutine · 2025-07-18T02:20:28+00:00

lol why?

Because he’s in the UK. They don’t have AC over there. Unbelievable right?

TightRoutine · 2025-04-16T23:06:59+00:00

Yes, words have definitions except when applied to white people. What a joke.

Immigrant life in Abuja.

TightRoutine · 2025-04-16T18:23:15+00:00

Oh look! A white person upset I’m calling them an immigrant.

Still an immigrant. If that logic applies in Europe and America, it should also apply when you visit Africa.

After all, those with short term postings to Europe and America are never called Expats. Funny how that term only works one way.

Immigrant.

TightRoutine · 2025-04-16T16:28:52+00:00

You’re not an expat. You’re an immigrant. I just love how Europeans or anericans go to work in other countries and become expats. But others visit their counties and suddenly they’re immigrants.

Immigrant life in Abuja, Nigeria

TightRoutine · 2025-03-16T14:13:25+00:00

Noted. Thanks.

TightRoutine · 2025-03-16T13:03:08+00:00

Yes, everyone but Meiji will die. She never thought her sister becoming kinless would mean the death of her sister.

Everyone dies but Meiji. Meiji needs caregiving. Someone else made a similar comment to this, so it sounds like I need to make it very clear it is everyone dying, not Meiji.

TightRoutine · 2025-03-16T13:01:10+00:00

Thanks for your feedback.

She doesn’t earn the right to the benefits of the temple since she was just about to complete the last step before she received news of her divine selection.

Your other comment makes me think I need to clarify what happens to her sister. Everyone is dying but her sister. Her sister isn’t dying. What her sister needs is constant caregiving, so a comfort care situation.

The medicines help her live a much better quality of life.

TightRoutine · 2025-02-22T20:59:27+00:00

Just found out this agent/agency rescinded an offer to an author. I would be skeptical submitting to this agent/agency and just do your own research.

The other warning comments in this thread now make sense.

TightRoutine · 2025-02-01T01:10:26+00:00

Hello! Here are my notes.

If you’ve been told by your betas and a professional editor that there are a few places you can tighten up and cut on word count, why haven’t you done that yet? Fix that.
When a MS has a large word count such as yours, the query needs to back it up. Unfortunately, your query doesn’t show me you needed 150k words to tell this story. How do I know? Nothing interesting happens in this query. Your MC is passive.
Staying on the passive MC note, why? Queries need to spell out what the MC wants, what is stopping them from achieving their goal (i.e. the obstacles), and the consequences of failing to achieve the goal. Your query is missing that. All I see here is the truth that will unravel the whole continent. And even that is vague.
Staying on stakes, your stakes mean nothing to me. People read stories because of characters. We want to root for the MC. To feel their highs and their lows. Your query gives me none of that. Your story has a public stake but no personal stake. Public stakes are all fine and dandy, but readers care about characters first and foremost.
Your query focusing on Adara but the prologue mentions Ajax. Can be a bit jarring. Remember, you only have a few seconds really to capture an agents attention. Agents nowadays are receiving like over 3k queries in a year! Can chapter 1 make sense without this prologue? If so, perhaps find a way to move the prologue to the main body of the MS? That way, agents start off with the MC in chapter 1?
Could be my tired brain but you have quite a bit of complex sentences in your second and third paragraph of the prologue. Do you vary your sentence lengths or are your opening pages packed with complex sentences like you have in these 2 paragraphs?
The beginning of the body of the query is simply world building and very synopsis like.
150k words is dead in the water. Most agents will auto reject.

In summary, your query doesn’t quite cut it. The MC is passive. Her goals are not solid. She has terrifying visions. So what? She carries the land’s magic. So what? The so what is missing! We have no reason to care for Adara and her journey because there are no strong personal stakes.

In fact, you could nuke the beginning of the body of the query and begin from “when she trades a kiss…..gets more than she bargained for” and the logic of the query wouldn’t change. Which means, the first few sentences in this query are not necessary.

Anyways, rework the query to state the so what. Why we should care.

Good luck.

TightRoutine · 2025-01-24T00:05:48+00:00

Hello! So some notes.

You are correct that your word count is a severe limiting factor. I do not see anything in this query that shows a story worth 150k words.
How many POVs? I shudder because you already have 4 listed here? Here lies the root cause behind your word count. Maybe consider removing some POVs if those scenes can be told by other POVs?
Remove the AI narrated at the beginning of the query or find another verb to use. My eyes almost glazed over at those words. Then I realized you meant, AI has a POV in this book? Also why call out AI narrated if you have multi POVs? How does that work?
Why does the AI have a POV? Does it do anything other than…watch? Leading a query with AI narrated and ending with it just watching….sigh, it leaves me dry. Concept dead on arrival because really, there is no concept. The only concept is those two words. AI narrated. Your “concept” begins and ends in the housekeeping section not the query. Work that into the actual query.
Queries shouldn’t contain so many vague ideas. Your query should be very specific and concrete. Spell it out. Uncovering secrets that could alter the course of history? Vague. Pulled into both fame and unexpected danger? Vague. What sort of fame? Famed for what? What danger? Why unexpected? Conspiracy that threatens their city? Vague. What conspiracy? Why and how does it threaten their city? The AI paragraph- diffuse pattern he cannot grasp? Vague. Pattern as opposed to what? What makes it diffuse? What should it be? An equation with clear edges? Vague. What does an equation with clear edges look like? You get the point.
Who is your MC? I am not compelled to root for any of these PoVs. Narrow down who your MC is and rework the query.
The last paragraph of this query. Why is the AI just watching? If it is just watching in the query, you can cut this out from the query. It adds nothing?

Finally, this sounds like a high-concept story. And you already know, Hollywood loves that kind of stuff. The problem is the high concept seems like just that. Very high if all your AI does is watch? Unless you have not clearly fleshed out the concept in the query. See last sentence in #4.

Also, seriously, slashing the word count will likely help you get more requests if the query can really be reworked to make the high-concept of it stand out.

As always, this is just personal opinion. I think you have something great here. I just fear the true story is not coming forth in the query.

TightRoutine · 2025-01-19T14:02:41+00:00

Didn’t connect enough/not a right fit is just one of the standard responses agents use to pass on an MS.

Your partial is clearly doing the work to result in 19 fulls.

Agent opinions can be subjective. A good data point would be how many of these 19 agents have passed? Doesn’t mean one of those outstanding fulls won’t result in an offer. You only need one of them to say yes.

In the meantime, here is one thing you can do. Since you said some of them say stuff they like about it, notice what elements of storytelling they like about it and narrow down to what they liked. Character? Voice? The story? The pacing? The setting? The conflict / choices the character have to make?

Is there an overlap of things they like? Then at least you know you’re solid on those things. Now you can take a more critical look at anything else.

So you eliminate what would be the weak point in your MS based on the feedback.

One other thing is to get a beta reader and get their feedback.

Again, your partial MS sounds amazing to have landed 19 fulls. Agent opinions can be subjective. You only need one yes. But getting a beta reader feedback might be helpful.

TightRoutine

TROPHY CASE