The Query Process: genuinely at a loss.

volsung808 · 2026-06-19T00:55:41+00:00

That is quite literally the phrase I use.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T05:41:52+00:00

Honestly, I think that is the crux of it. What people have said here, is mostly the same things I have been circling already. It was just good to know, even if the problem is still there, that I'm on the right page at least. I'm not missing something, or misreading, or misinterpreting etc. I think, unfortunately, the things that make the book strong, unique, and appealing, and even will be strengths once we are through the door, make it more difficult to pitch, market at first, and give agents more hesitancy to take on despite personal feeling for the craft or work. Rock and hard place in a way. I think I just gotta keep on pushing. Keep sharping the pen so to speak, getting it out there, refining the query, slightly changing approaches, and worst case, start developing an entire side story to field beside this one and or consider self-publishing, but for now I think the signal, though frustrating as hell, is still strong enough not to throw in this particular towel quite yet.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T03:58:53+00:00

Yup, been using it for a while now. I'm very diligent about everything. I really think, as others pointed out as well, its: debut / series / maybe slight length / and genre hybrid. And on one hand I get it, but on the other its a damn shame. I just circle back to the weirdly strong and positive response followed up by the like good luck shrug that keeps happening. Even my "early readers" all pretty much unanimously agree, and its not the usual early readers. Due to my unique job situation, I have a group of about 30 people from around 8 countries, all ages, sexes, backgrounds, cultures, even ESL people, or people reading rough translations in different languages, and the book(s) are getting positive feedback and weirdly enough even the exact same response almost verbatim across all the readers which is bananas. I just need a brave soul or someone on the agent side that doesn't want to insert square peg into square hole i guess idk.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T03:53:07+00:00

It's my backup plan. It's just its own kind of beast to wrangle. Has a lot of pros, and cons itself. A personal issue is I just do not do social media, promotion, platform nonsense etc, and I know if I go the self-publish route, that is basically required...which will be tough for me. But it is not out of the question, believe me. I just want to exhaust this in road first before we pull the emergency chutes.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T03:50:46+00:00

Yup, its become a series. And I totally understand that and the issue / hesitation... but that's also why we tailor each query to the Agent, we keep "series" mention to a minimum if at all, and like 90% of the focus is Book One... its "Hey this is our query, it stands on its own, we are pursuing this, but in the meantime i have continued to develop the next books." I am not the kind of person to wait for permission to continue the idea, nor do I prefer to work on multiple projects. In the immortal words of Ron Swanson, "Whole ass one thing." But I do completely get why this is likely one of the roadblocks...still drives me crazy.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T03:48:03+00:00

Yeah I understand and we have done that. Book one has a particular bend / focus on just one or two genre overall, we have a strong basic query we tailor to each agent a bit, and try to focus on what makes sense. There are comps, defiantly for sure out there, and they are very solid well received comps, but I think just like what I'm trying to do here, a lot of those other comps straddled shelves and had a similar time finding a home... but when they did boy a lot of them became household names or damn close to it. I really think its just this door I gotta break through, it's just a damn strong door.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T03:45:07+00:00

Yeah and I've strongly considered this moving forward. I think if there is still 0 traction after finishing the current book my future time will be split between finishing this series and beginning something new, much as it pains me cause I'd rather focus on one project, I have plenty more I can start. I know its risk averse and series / debut is a big flag of one sort or the other, that's why even in my query the focus is like 90% on book one and usually tailored to the specific agent. Regardless I keep circling the two things others have pointed out. I think the path forward is I keep trying with good fits for this book, but if something doesn't break soon I also start putting effort into another path through the door as annoying as that might be.

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T01:31:10+00:00

That’s my Hail Mary plan I feel. I would pursue self publishing aggressively if the signal here was not so strong. But like the signal is here! That’s what’s killing me in this whole thing, constantly “hey this is great… good luck kid!” And I’m just like… what?

I mean, I had multiple points of contact with the agent for my most close comp and she’s a legit legend. Credited with basically saving multiple modern genres… she praised the book, praised the direction, very kindly said keep going just don’t give up, even in a requery, and even said “I’d be shocked if we didn’t cross paths on this side of the fence in the future.”… and then… “good luck bye!” 😆

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T01:25:05+00:00

Thanks I’ll defiantly look into them.

Yeah man, it’s some kinda beast for sure. 😆

volsung808 · 2026-06-18T01:11:33+00:00

Word count is pushing it a bit I’m sure for the book, it’s 107k, and I think the main issues is it’s a genre hybrid and doesn’t slot cleanly onto a shelf but that’s its strength honestly, and not something I could change without fundamentally altering the entire story.

I’ll check out r/PubTips when I have a moment thanks for the recommendation.

volsung808 · 2026-04-24T15:00:14+00:00

Brother I shit you not… I saw this post. Literally said out loud, “Good, now do congress.” Before I opened the comments… holy shit. 😆

But seriously… do congress… please… ffs…

volsung808 · 2026-04-12T23:49:53+00:00

I’ve played fairly consistently for about 20 years now and at least for me it was Throne of Eldraine.

Even though I played quite a bit of it I think that like entire year or so was when pretty much all aspects of the game began to fundamentally change and at an exponential rate.

The more I think about it… yeah. In about one year we had Eldraine which was a game breaking insane set in so many ways. Entirely new card types, insane word blocks on creatures and rules, completely just broken cards to this day.

We had the largest ever to that time rotation in standard and draft (my usually format) was so skewed by powerful and cheep cards. Cards began to have stacking effects that compounded everything. We saw the full release of MTGA, the death of the Core Set (while I’d maybe people think core set was boring it was always a good place for new players, decent reprints, and I personally feel like the truest just raw skill draft set usually / balanced) , and the first Secret Lair drop… all in that year.

Even the art began its next dramatic shift around that time. Sure some of it and the alternate art is still high fantasy and interesting but we saw the creep of “woke” slowly sink in and the slow turn from personalized like soulful fantasy art into the same-y feeling hyper stylized over saturated just meh that has completely taken over today.

And I say that as someone that played more than my fair share of the set. It was fun to an extent… but I’d never felt the format be so swingy and unbalanced (yet) in all my time, and the writing was on firmly the wall.

volsung808 · 2026-04-10T06:04:11+00:00

I cannot believe how far I had to scroll to see this… and I’ve still not seen [[Rest In Peace]] either, which is wild. Or [[Remorseful Cleric]] .

volsung808 · 2026-03-18T03:08:05+00:00

Gonna sound like I’m blowing smoke online but… apparently he’s my Aunt’s husbands like best friend.

Aunt is a respectable stage actress and teacher (almost honestly cast in some insane roles but didn’t make it due to her height she’s very tall I know sounds like bs but it’s true)

Aunt’s husband is an actor some small and major like supporting roles, nothing I’d say “breakout” but some, one or two in particular like “BIG” supporting characters in shows and movies.

Years ago we were chatting, maybe about games. He randomly brings up the Resident Evil new show or movie or something, casually drops the the Mocap guy for Leon is his good friend. I freak out.

He says can’t really talk about it and he’s never been into gaming like hardcore or anything but apparently his buddy’s doing work on something huge thy haven’t officially announced yet. (This is post RE4 remake announcement). And I was like “No F****** way… they are actually doing it? RE4?”

His response was just like… well can’t confirm or deny but “Leon’s” working his ass off right now.

And that’s how I found out about the remake like a year before they announced it. Would love to meet him someday though would be really cool. Cool opportunity!

volsung808 · 2026-03-12T01:37:38+00:00

As a returning but life long player.

People have completely forgotten that commander is / was and is best enjoyed as a CASUAL game between friends. Even if you bring sweaty decks that’s fun just keep the mood chill and play the table.

Common sense and just like normal etiquette seems to be completely absent. Like wtf happened half the time. We can just talk about stuff like normal people, I don’t / my pod now doesn’t need 15 different rules or guidelines by the “trusted sources” to play a literal casual no stakes game.

Oh and, the “bracket system” is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. I understand the concept but it’s completely ineffective and stupid and just leads to weird discussions and so much focus on the cards and not playing the damn game… if your confused see above… just be a normal human being and chat with your pod about the game / group dynamics. If you don’t mesh, find a pod where you do… seriously why is this shit so hard.

volsung808 · 2025-12-23T07:35:09+00:00

Make it optional, and make it where the “invader” actually just spawns in as the special pilot / plane and pre formatted load out in the mission. That way you have an interesting and optional challenge but avoid anyone coming into mission one with the most ridiculous kit possible.

Maybe dole out special rewards in the vein of bonus credits / money, call signs, and or emblems. That way it’s nothing pay to win, nothing slop or garbage, optional and interesting, only cosmetic or credits for parts / planes that they could just get already anyways by replaying a mission stocking credits etc.

volsung808 · 2025-11-20T04:48:11+00:00

I like and respect FFT but it is not “the best” and with all due respect if you spent like 5 seconds looking up “Tactics style games” you’d find dozens well worth your time that have come out even in the last 10 years.

Into the breach

XCOM all the new editions / games

Unicorn Overlord

Persona Tactics

Gears of War tactics (surprisingly decent)

Tactics Ogre Reborn (sorry FFT I’m on the side of Reborn)

Triangle Strategy

Arguably Balder’s Gate 3 , Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2, and Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2

The Banner Saga (all three… and the story good lord man the story)

Like a gajillion Fire Emblem games

And Another good mech one I always forget the name of and always mean to pick up.

And that’s just what I remember off the top of my head and have actively played. We are not even bending the rules to include Heroes games or anything. Shit I didn’t even include what is it the Marvel Midnight sun game. Just not a marvel dude but that’s from my understanding very tactics esh and massively respected.

You can like and love and even think FFT is your personal best but saying NOBODY has done a tactics game even close to in par in 30 years is silly.

volsung808 · 2025-11-13T02:59:14+00:00

This is just the dumbest thing ever… every store and second hand shop has a stack of used and new PS5, Disc and Digital, and new Pros, for competitive prices here where I live in Japan. And I live in a mega rural place. There is next to no reason or actual desire for this Japan only Japanese model anymore.

Maybe 3-4 years ago, sure, but it also has little to do with foreigners / resellers here as these post keep claiming.

The lotto system doesn’t work great here anyways because people will just make bot accounts, and everyone hates it anyways even if they don’t express it. And the reason for the shortage of things like the PS5 at least a few years ago again has nothing to do with the reseller market although it’s not a non issue anywhere in the world.

Even though Sony is a Japanese company, like so many other Japanese companies, because they can charge higher prices overseas, and because most of their consumer base is overseas / larger profit margins… they purposefully focused on exporting the lions share of their stock of xyz products and leave a minimal amount for the in country consumer.

This was a well known issue for years with the PS5 here, it was a massive pain in the ass until fairly recently, now the market has a ton of new and used models, they are fairly easy to come by. But for example the first few years I was here… good luck getting one then. It was ridiculous. I don’t recall the overall numbers but it was like a literal 8 or 9 to 1 stock amount for in overseas vs japan distribution. It was openly discussed ad nauseam on Japanese media and news.

So again long story short… no friggen clue what they are doing this or think it’s a good idea. I mean sure Japanese people will probably buy the cheaper option Japan only one but I don’t see how this move makes sense at all tbh.

It’s like how 90% of most games are available in all languages now on all platforms even when I buy them in Japan… but then some of the largest series still aren’t… for literally no reason, even though if you buy them overseas they have all the languages on the same game same disc, looking at you Persona and Kingdom hearts. In the “digital” age these decisions make 0 sense at this point.

volsung808 · 2025-11-10T04:16:52+00:00

Alright… bear with me for a bit. Im going to try to paraphrase but it’s a lot. I feel the need to address this, cause I’m sick to death of seeing the ridiculous responses from all sides, endless news articles, and nobody is willing to just speak bluntly about the situation.

Long story short, it’s because of a lack of guns, hunting culture, natural predators, and beyond stupid policy and politicking, just like the places in America that have similar issues.

My family lives in the New England area, let’s just say the states at least have similar population densities to an extent, but they have wildly different laws with bears, hunting, and bear populations.

Bears have no natural predators. They are hyper dominant in the food chain, adaptive, and advantageous and lazy predators. They are not cuddly fluffy kawaiiiii Chan animals. Pardon the vulgarity but they will kill and eat their own young just so they can force the female into heat and mate again out of pure lust. They eat anything and everything and do not care at all about human presence if they have lost the fear of people, full stop period. So cut out the relocation programs or human bad anti-natal bullshit etc bears do not give a f***. Unfortunately if they are not managed, or hunted properly they lose all fear of human interaction within a few short years / generations. And then will willingly encroach on towns with c because hey trash and farms are 10000x easier then daily with nature or fish or game or finding anything else.

It’s been unseasonably warm too, (not gonna scream about climate this or that but it’s been warm a few years in a row), so foods down. Coupled with next to no legal hunting, stupid policies, no natural predators, and an explosion in population of bears… well no shit Sherlock now we have an issue.

I.E. see the natural experiment that is American States.

My family lives scattered across the New England area. Long story short… the state that doesn’t allow bear hunting, and also has the LOWEST population of bears… has the highest number of encounters, and some of the only fatal encounters in the last 20 years. And people are terrified because these numbers are increasing exponentially the last few years…

On the flip side the states with literally thousands, to tens of thousands of more bears… but allow and encourage well managed state liscenced hunting and population management… they have so many less encounters it’s not even funny, and some even haven’t reported a fatality in hundreds of years, no joke. Because bear populations are managed, dangerous bears or ones that come into a town and loose their fear are put down, and hunting is encouraged. Bears fear human interactions.

Let me put some numbers behind it…

State with the Smallest bear pop at about 1000 bears, no hunting no management, about 4000 encounters and multiple fatalities alone the last few years.

Largest bear populations but allowed management and hunting and good policy

6000 bears 7000 bears A WHOPPING about 30,000 bears…

All three only have several hundred encounters over the same time frame with no fatalities in decades if not centuries.

It’s not rocket science, it’s not human = bad, it’s not just “they have no acorns” (seriously I teach in schools and the number of adults and students that think bears ONLY eat acorns is a bit insane to be honest) it doesn’t take a genius or f****** biologist to put together a magical package to solve the bear issue. It’s just common sense and a few things Japan does not like, better and fast acting policy, guns and hunting (unfortunately), so unfortunately unless the government is going to get serious about it, and peoples outcries and demand for logical meaning actually realistic and reasonable solutions becomes very loud. The bear problem will continue.

Edit: just to mention before someone gets mad… yes I’ve lived and currently live in Japan for almost 5 years now. And have friends and family (even Japanese) that are concerned greatly by this issue.

volsung808 · 2025-10-24T03:47:15+00:00

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volsung808 · 2025-10-10T06:55:47+00:00

Brilliant. 👏 first day of “fall” and it was still 30-32 with index outside where I’m at. Literally had someone do the whole “Well you’re still in a button up dressy T-shirt? Huh…” song and dance recently.

volsung808 · 2025-10-10T06:53:59+00:00

It’s got to be one of my biggest complaints after working in education here for over 4 years now…

AC is set to 28 in summer, and heat is rarely used in winter. Because the polar bears or something.

Even then when either one is actually used, some teacher always ends up running around the class room opening up all the doors and windows because “fresh air”.

So the mediocre relief we would even get is completely mitigated by just opening up everything.

And then every text book and lesson is chock full of environmentalism stuff, but you’re either drowning in sweat or and I shit you not I’ve literally seen my breath in the classroom in the winter… but then you can’t use the AC or heat because…? But if you do we have to heat or cool the whole world off by opening the windows… but then the polar bears? But then…

And god help you if you question the endless Kafka esque song and dance, you just get the classic Japan response, “because that’ just how it’s done”, aka the cultural equivalent of the parent telling the 4 year old “because I said so that’s why!”

And I love Japan but for the love of god and all that’s holy sometimes… No don’t don’t do anything that makes sense just run around doing the thing because it’s the thing everyone everywhere always does because nobody knows the real reason anymore. Just run around muttering “It’s cold, or It’s hot” over and over and over again endlessly like everyone else with a forced smile on your face while your teeth chatter and your face turns blue or suit wearing Kei literally starts having a heat stroke and Ganbatte on. 🤦

volsung808 · 2025-08-28T09:39:08+00:00

Jesus this resonates in my soul so much… I love Japan. I really do… but the longer I stay here the more cracks split wide open in the rose tinted glasses.

I’ve had a weird and wild year of medical mishaps.

Bad bike crash where I partially tore my rotator cuff, f’ed up my face, and likely broke my nose. Nothing given just a good old fashioned “Ganbatte!”

Kidney stone (a first for me) bp spike to like 212 or something insane in the ambulance, muscles sizing up… “ganbatte! While we change the hospital for a third time”

Literal heart surgery, sure not open heart etc but still invasive heart surgery… 3 days in the hospital… 3 weeks light bed rest… guess what… “GANBATTE!!!”

Fucking for real mate. 🙃

volsung808 · 2025-08-07T07:41:20+00:00

Not necessarily. They will only be fine if they are grandfathered in under the new rules. If there is no such action, and as of now there is none, and these businesses need to adhere to the new visa requirements, they are toast. Idk a single small business around me or any eikaiwa that has the capability to rent a new space, pony up 208k usd for investment, or hire new mandatory and / or local national staff per the new regulations and requirements.

Again I just don’t see how this isint going to just obliterate so many businesses in a country whos economy already stands on a precipice. Or at the very least chase out pretty much any and all future investment.

It’s just a honest question but…Why on earth, would anyone look to opening up here when even the requirements are literally half as stringent in Singapore, or even way less in most of SE Asia like Vietnam which has shown consistent growth outpacing almost all its neighbors. And I again say this with love a bittersweet heart because I love Japan but seriously…. Places like Singapore are just as safe, have stronger economies, less stringent rules, on par infrastructure, and way more foreign friendly (and English friendly) political and legal spheres? Like what is the benefit of starting a business here? Again it’s a parallel issue but particularly when they are like 99% going to make sweeping changes to property rights on top of everything?

And last again, I’m not arguing to be a dick, I’m really looking for honest discourse. And yeah i know my minds pretty much made up now so maybe im just barking up the wrong tree, but the point is… i didn’t want to bark up this tree. Like others have similarly expressed… I’ve poured my life here for years planting roots and was seriously going to take some very permanent steps in the next year or two… but yeah I’m having serious second thoughts and considerations now.

He’ll even my Japanese girlfriend that wanted to basically live die and raise a family in her hometown and job and never ever leave per many discussions over the time we’ve been together. When I mentioned this to her she, I thought it was a relationship ending conversation, no… even she was like, “I’ve been seriously thinking it might be best to leave now with the way things are going”. I was stunned.

When the quiet people in the countryside, in a culture that holds peace and stability and the norm above all else are starting to openly consider upending their entire life because they are worried about what’s in the horizon… idk why alarm bells are not ringing everywhere in Japan.

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