Is it a perfect metaphor, and pun, for publishing or writing? Fishing this weekend reminded me of throwing a lure into a lake is like mailing out a query letter. I roughly know that some bass could be in the water and might want to devour it. Sometimes the fish will strike it, or nibble then spit it out.  No different than an editor who might read two lines of your story and decide she’s had enough.

All you can hope to do, and in fact actually do, is cast out as many lines as you can using what information you have about your target fish/audience.

But that’s not true, is it?  Why couldn’t you be your own editor? Send that query letter to yourself, decide it’s good enough, and do something about it. Sounds pretty good to me.