The Man Who Never Climbed the Mountain
A summer update on three novels, the hunt for an agent, and why old Mike still hasn’t climbed the mountain
Hey everyone!
This one’s going to be a packed update. I haven’t written in a while, and a lot has been happening. So get tucked in, grab a cup of coffee, maybe put on some calming music and let’s catch up.
Book updates first
Let’s start with The Human Relief Project. I haven’t really done much promotion lately, but still, every month one or two people find the book and buy it. That’s been a nice little rhythm, reminding me that the story keeps finding its way. Someone recently mentioned the book in a LinkedIn conversation, and a dear former colleague gave me detailed feedback on the audiobook version. That’s going to be incredibly helpful when I start working on the audio edition of Birthright. All small things, but they give me energy.
There’s also an exciting podcast interview coming up in two weeks with Olivia Gambelin, a Responsible AI voice I admire. She’s warm, curious, and we’ve had great chats so far. I’m looking forward to diving deep with her into the HRP, our workless future, and what it actually means to write about AI and with AI.
Now to Birthright. I realized I haven’t shared this yet: I started querying agents in early June 🎉 So far, I’ve sent the book to 25 agents, gotten a few rejections, and the rest are still out there, waiting. We’ll see. If no one bites, I’m ready to self-publish again. But this time I’m exploring hybrid publishing models that offer more professional support with book creation, printing, distribution, and a bit of a push into bookstores. First conversations have been super insightful — I’m learning a lot and I’m loving it 🙂
And maybe you’ve seen it already on Instagram… I’ve finished the first draft of the plot for novel number three (!!). It’s incredible how thrilling it is to plot a book. The draft is about 40 pages long right now. Some prose already in there, some scenes loosely sketched, characters coming to life, story arcs forming. It’s still rough, of course, and I’ll definitely go through a second draft of the plot before diving into the actual writing. But I can’t wait to see the story and characters coming to life on the page. This one’s already giving me a lot of energy.
Between these three projects, I’ve also been writing a few shorter pieces here and there. Birthright won’t launch before spring 2026, so I’ll be sharing two or three flash or short fiction pieces with you in the coming months to bridge the gap a little. Stay tuned.
The writing business: Genre & Queries
At the beginning of the year, I promised to give you more behind-the-scenes insights into the writing business. So here are two that have been on my mind lately.
1. Genre — A tricky terrain
Genre is…complicated. On the one hand, agents, publishers, readers (including people like us!) all want to categorize a book. It helps with marketing, discoverability, Amazon listings — you name it. But most books don’t fit neatly into just one genre. Mine certainly don’t.
Sure, there are sci-fi elements. But it’s not really sci-fi. It has some literary elements, but true lovers of literary fiction wouldn’t accept that either. Maybe speculative fiction fits? But that’s too broad. So we get more granular: near-future sci-fi. Or near-future speculative fiction. Or near-future dystopia. And suddenly you’re slicing things so thin that it feels like you're both zooming in and cutting off important dimensions of your work.
It’s something I’ve been struggling with since the HRP. Traditional publishing and platforms still rely heavily on a small set of genres. Selecting the three categories on Amazon was like putting my book into chains. Picking sci-fi as genre for a big newsletter promotion felt so wrong that I didn’t even promote it. But here’s where GenAI has been surprisingly helpful with Birthright. When working on positioning, book summary, or single line pitches, ChatGPT — my Swiss-army knife for all book-related work (since I try to avoid juggling multiple subscriptions and I like the friction of having to think deeply through what I want) — helps to translate my novel’s themes and ideas into genre language that agents and platforms recognize. It adds elements such as “…with coming of age elements”, “…with literary cross-over appeal” or “…blending dystopian worldbuilding with Grace’s sensory, introspective voice”. It’s making the “illegible” parts of my book more legible.
Still, genre remains a moving target, and I’m curious what the final “label” for Birthright will be.
2. What actually is an agent query? And what goes into it?
A query is basically the pitch package you send to agents (and sometimes publishers) to get them interested in representing your book.
It usually includes:
A query letter – one page, either emailed or submitted through a form. It contains a short pitch of the book, a two-paragraph book summary, a little about you as the author, and ideally, a nod to how the book fits into the market (including comparison titles). You want to show the agent that you have a good grasp of your book’s commercial market.
A writing sample – this varies. Some agents want the first 10 pages, others ask for 30 pages or the first three chapters. If they like what they see, they’ll request the full manuscript.
A synopsis – 1–2 pages outlining the entire plot, including all twists and turns (yes, even the big surprises — no wonder agents don’t get hooked after reading a synopsis 😀).
When I queried HRP, I focused mostly on the story. No positioning, no relevant comp titles (1984 is not a relevant comp title for agents…). With Birthright, I’ve leaned much more into the commercial angle: who the book is for, what niche it fits into, which recently successful titles it sits alongside. Because as much as agents adore books, and usually do their work for the love of literature not the love of money, this is a very tough business. So, they need to see potential, both creatively and commercially. Emphasizing this more has probably been the biggest shift in my query process this time around.
A little fiction to end on
Before I wrap up this long update, I want to share a tiny piece of fiction with you. A few weeks ago, I had a tough personal moment and perfectionism kicked in hard. Out of that, I wrote a small father-son dialogue that felt cathartic to get down on paper.
It’s just my raw scribbles, no editing, no polishing. It’s how my very first sketches usually look like before they turn into fully fledged scenes, dialogues, and characters with carefully crafted prose.
“Who is that man?” Jimmy asked. Ryan followed his son’s gaze across the vast meadow spreading out in front of Mount Fortune to the edge of the forest. There, on a huge tree stump turned gray by years of rain, snow, and sun battering it, sat an old man, his long white beard gently swinging in the light breeze, and ice-blue eyes intensely scanning the mountain. An intensity that signaled nothing but the mountain could capture his attention.
“Oh, that’s old Mike.”
“What does he do?”
“He was the first who came here decades ago to climb the mountain.”
“Wow. He put the cross at the top?”
“No, he has never put a foot on the mountain.”
Little Jimmy’s eyes went as wide as the wings of his dad’s plane.
“Why?”
“He hasn’t found the perfect path to the top yet.”
“Oh.”
Ryan observed as Jimmy processed what he had just said. His words seemed incomprehensible to the eight-year-old. Jimmy looked up at the mountain, then at old Mike, then settled back on his dad kneeling next to him.
“Why doesn’t he just walk the path everyone else takes?”
“Who knows if that’s the most perfect route.”
Little Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. “Grandma would say: it does the job.” And with that, the topic was resolved. He turned away from old Mike and started the climb up the mountain, his dad following Jimmy’s lead.
As always, thanks so much for reading and being part of this community! I’d love to hear your thoughts — what resonated, what you’d like to read more about, what questions you have. And if you enjoyed any part of this post, it would mean a lot if you shared it with a friend or subscribed.
Until next time, keep reading (or listening)!
Max
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Thanks for the insights. I already liked the insights into the book market, but the short dialogue really got me. Nice stuff building a scene with very little.