It's useful to make this part of the process transparent, but it's also interesting to see that it's not just subjective, it's not just some evil gatekeeper or some arcane rules that outsiders haven't been initiated in – the standard just isn't there. The ideas are original or coherent or forcefully-expressed enough.

Please do this again and don't be discouraged by the odd troll or two.

1. Don't know a thing about this business or how it works.
2. Aren't serious about their work or about getting it published. If they were serious, they'd know why these critiques are being done and that most of us seek out this kind of information. In addition, they'd be well-informed about this whole process by joining writing boards, writing organizations, critique groups and the like and then wouldn't have to go around commenting like trolls as mentioned previously.

Critiques make you better. Who doesn't want to be better at what they do.

Thanks Chasya and DGLM for your time and guidance in helping us be better.

Why critique query letters? Well, first of all, I suspect they wouldn't usually do it, they're doing it here to help people.

Agents and publishers get thousands of queries. It's a waste of everyone's time, including the authors', to send full manuscripts in as a first step.

It's really important that an author can make a case for their novel, that they can sum it up in a way that makes it exciting, that they can identify the selling points and what makes it special. Not because the big, bad world is obsessed with commercializing everything (although, by definition, if you want to be published, you want your book to be commercialized), but also because it helps the art – if you know what your book is and what it isn't, and give some thought about who might read it and why, it'll be a better book.

All three of the entrants so far have been a little generic, there's nothing that's made me, at least, go *wow!*. Or, to put it a little more cruelly, there's no point reading the manuscript.

Might the actual books be a lot more dynamic and brillant? Possibly. But a great writer, you'd think, would be able to get across that greatness in a query letter.

It can appear a little artificial – just like people sometimes complain that the ability to do well in a formal interview is not a good indicator of whether someone's good at a job. But Dystel are doing their best here to make the process more transparent, to explain what they're looking for.