Sunday, October 14, 2007

Never Assume--Updated

I'm always mystified by my colleagues who say they'll get back to you only if they want more pages. They must have the 100% guarantee, infallible mail server. Silly me, I have gmail. And gmail is great, I love it, but its perfection rate is only 99%. Most of the time that lost 1% doesn't matter.

Today it did. I got a query from a guy smart (and brave!) enough to say he'd not heard back. He included a page. I read it. I liked it. I asked for more. Chances are it will go no further (I take less than 5% of the material I read)*** but what if it does? I'd have been an idiot to let him think it was a no cause he hadn't heard from me.


***partial requested Monday morning.
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4 comments:

  1. Chris Eldin10/14/07, 8:17 PM

    Wow, that small percentage is staggering (in a 'how will I ever get published?' kind of way).

    What are some of the reasons that you don't take 95% of what you asked to read? Do you usually ask for partials or fulls? And if you ask for a full right away, are you more likely to take on that project?

    Thanks,

    ReplyDelete
  2. Janet Reid10/14/07, 8:52 PM

    5% of everything I read, not just what I ask for.

    At least 85% of what I read is unpublishable in my opinion.

    10% is probably good enough, but just not what I'm looking for or what I know how to sell.

    5% is what I've read, liked, think I can sell AND that some of my more nimble colleagues haven't snatched up ahead of me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Janet Reid10/14/07, 8:55 PM

    I ask for 3-5 pages with a query, 20 or 50 pages after that depending on how much I read initially, then a synopsis usually, then a full.

    All of it is electronic except the query letter part which can be mail or electrons. However, if a person can't send me partials electronically, I won't read their work or sign them up, no matter what.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DeadlyAccurate10/15/07, 3:11 PM

    As I mentioned on AW, I just got a snail mail rejection for a query I sent one year and two days ago (ten days after the query I sent you, in fact.) Even though it doesn't matter now, I like the fact that she didn't just toss it because of the time. Seems like taking the time to respond (for email, even just doing a copy/paste "not for me, thanks") would save you from a lot of requeries.

    ReplyDelete

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