Uwe Stender

To a degree, yes, it is ultimately the publisher's decision, BUT consultation should be in the contract. And it would be insane for a publisher to publish a book with a cover their author despises.

If you believe in your project, keep querying. If you don't, you should not have queried it to begin with. Keep going until you are out of good options. But querying does not prevent you from writing something else while you wait for the YES.

No.

I don't care about age, race, gender, sexual preference, disabilities, looks, weight, size, health, whatever. I never Google potential clients until after I love a project. Then, if I find they are under indictment for serious crimes, I will pass on them.

Anything can happen. I don't know , find another agent for the other books, or consider the possibility that the agent is correct. Then just write better projects.

I don't hate them, but usually they are avoidable by just telling the story right and well.

Well for *them* it is a faux pas. For *me*, it is not, not at all. It is a subjective business. One of my most successful books I pitched as Werther meets Dead Poet's Society. Or don't use comps at all.

Both, your query needs to tell me the important parts of the book and POV is important. I don't like surprises and question myself why I asked for this. Word count, depends, but 75-100 K give and take .

Ingo Siegner.

If you can't find one, turn to movies or series. If that still fails you, just don't include a comp. But, please, in the name of sanity, don't write in your query: "There has never been anything at all like my novel ever, not ever, in the history of novels in all cultures."

Yes, the genre is called: write- fascinatingly-amazing-books-very- well-and-don't-chase-trends-while -doing-that. Compulsion beats calculation in writing.

I think that comp titles serve their purpose best when they reflect your book best in the image of well known books, films, whatever. So the comps have to be fairly to very well known, and the book must truly be in that vein. Dann wird alles gut.

Be concise yet catchy.

Sometimes an axe is better than a scalpel... And vice versa.

No.

I personally like contemporary YAs to be somewhere between 70-92 K. Exceptions prove the rule.

YA to me features the most sophisticated voices in all of contemporary American literature. So, yes, of course.

Well, if I never heard of the book, because it us under-the-radar, then it is not helpful as a comp to me...so I guess it depends...and then there are always films and TV shows..and then I also would not "over-worry" about comps.

I cannot escape my heritage, so I need a certain order to things. So I read the ones at the top of my Inbox first, thus the most recent one first etc...but I am also obsessed with a clean Inbox, so I read them until the Inbox is empty.

I wouldn't. And don't hate me, but it should be vein not vain...though it probably is because of auto correct.