Thursday, February 27, 2014

Question: When to reveal you're popular

When querying an agent, is it wise to inform them of other agents who have requested pages? I am thinking of including something along the lines of "Currently, three agents are reading the full manuscript, and several others have requested partials."

I don't want to come across as arrogant, pushy or assuming. But I do think they should know where I'm at in the query process. Your thoughts?

At the query stage, no.
If an agent requests more, yes.

If you're querying me, and you tell me agents are already reading fulls/partials/whatevers, my inclination is to say "hey, wait, how far down your list am I?" If I request a full and you tell me others are reading I'm more likely to assume I'm slow, or this is a hot project that lots of people are asking to see.






7 comments:

Kitty said...

You should compile these 'tutorials' into a book.

LynnRodz said...

I agree with Kitty, in case one day I become popular too!

Kitty said...

Hold a contest for the title :)

Lance said...

Great information. Regarding a compilation, I think the value of these posts lies in the presentation spread over time, and the interactive nature of the comments. Not that I wouldn't buy it in book form. We are sitting at the feet of a great and wise teacher. Who wants the static Cliff Notes version?

Colin Smith said...

@Kitty: Like I said yesterday, I want to know when Janet and Barbara Poelle are going to write SNARK AND SHARK'S DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE PUBLISHING WORLD. :)

DLM said...

What Lance said. :)

We've got a gift here; I'm not asking for even more. Given what Le Shark's time must be right now, where would another project for us fit ... ? (Selfishly: I want her to have all the time she can to adore my own ever-so-humble work, you see ...)

Eileen said...

Loved this question and answer. So helpful! How do writers submit questions for Janet? Looked around the site, but didn't find the guidelines for submitting general publishing questions (not queries).