More on requested fulls, those problems we all want to have

With my third novel (a thriller), after two weeks of querying, I have 10 agents reading my full manuscript, and 2 partials out.

Question 1: I know you've addressed this a couple of times on the blog, but if I get additional full requests, should I let them know ten other agents are reading? More recently you said a writer should only reveal that information if an agent asks, but in a previous post a few years ago "When to reveal you're popular," you said it was okay to tell an agent if they request a full. I want to know if I can mention this without coming across as rude.

Question 2: Before I sent the manuscript out the first time, I believed it was completely ready, but after reading it again several times, I've found a handful of errors (for example, peak instead of peek). These happen after page 100, and I know you've mentioned that this is unacceptable, but I'm wondering if an agent will stop reading if they encounter an error or two past page 100.

None of the agents have responded so far, and I know you advise sending a revised manuscript, but I can't help but feel like the agent will think I would make a bad client if I do. Or will think it's annoying. If the changes are a few typo fixes is it worth sending a revised copy? If I do, how do I phrase that email?

Generally you only need to inform agents if another agent has made an offer.  I sometimes get those "another requested the full" emails, but they don't have any impact on when I read the manuscript.  If there's an offer, I will move that ms to the top of the list.

I caution all of you scofflaws out there who just had the bright idea of telling all agents that you've got an offer so as to get your ms to the top of the list. DO NOT DO THIS.  There are two reasons: lying is a TERRIBLE way to start a relationship with anyone let alone someone you will be working with long term.  And yes, you'd be amazed how easy it is to find out it was a lie.   Second, because I'm reading quickly I'm more likely to stop if I'm not totally thrilled. I'm Unlikely to offer any comments or revision suggestions.

The answer to your question is this: if an agent asks if anyone else is reading, it's fine to say yes, but it's almost impossible to inform everyone of full requests and not sound rude.

As to your second question: I don't stop reading unless the mistakes are frequent or egregious. If it's clear you didn't run spell czech I generally give you a chance to revise and resend.  I'm really not the comma police.

If you've got a LOT of homonyms I'll mark them until I lose patience, then send it back to you with a stern warning. Often I'll read a revised version if the author cleans up the ms.

If you've got a cleaner version of the ms, you offer to the agents reading the full.

Here's how to do that: Dear SharkForBrains, I found some errors that mortify me. I fixed them. Here's the cleaner version.  Yes, I consider myself gnawed. Love and kisses, woodland creature

I'd ALWAYS rather read a cleaner version. Every mistake yanks me out of the story. The fewer times that happens, the more I can concentrate of other things: pacing, tension, plot holes.

And none of that would make me think you'd be a bad client.
In fact, knowing the ms had errors and not caring? THAT's a problem.

Self-pubbing short stories

I’m the kind of guy who’s always been of the mindset that traditional publishing is the way to go. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had opportunities to speak with several indie authors and I love that they’re earning a living (far more of a living than I am with my day job) doing something they love. If I were any other kind of person I’d be jealous and rushing to join their ranks. Thankfully, patience is my middle name.

I’ve written and “trunked” three novels over the past four years for various reasons. I’ve had some short stories published, but nothing professional (i.e., no payment for the publishing). I’m currently working on (what I plan and hope to be) a series of novels I believe will not find themselves in the trunk. (In other words, I feel like I’m on the brink of some kind of success).

With this series, and more importantly the first book, I’m on the fence about whether to pursue self-publishing. For reasons stated here and here, I feel I want to continue with my die-hard pursuit of a traditional publishing contract. However, given all the buzz from the indie world (and some buzz from folks I’ve spoken with in the traditional world) I fully understand the need for an author to have an ability to promote and market his or her work, despite publishing options. With that in mind, I’ve been developing a website and working toward building an email list specifically to help with this promotion and marketing.

I realize this seems more a self-publishing tradition, but I assume (perhaps wrongly) that it wouldn’t hurt a traditionally published author to have a bit of a following. To help generate that following, I intend to offer short stories as a lead magnet to entice people to join my mailing list, etc. I’m also toying with the notion of self-publishing several other short stories and novellas to continue generating interest until (not if – fingers crossed) the first book is published.

Here's my question: given all the talk we’ve had about how bad self-publishing gives you baggage (and realizing that I would treat these short stories as professionally as I would a novel) would self-publishing shorts in this way be detrimental to a future traditionally published career? (i.e., I’m concerned about all the talk we have about sales figures from a previously self-published author with a second book being the “baggage” agents and publishers won’t want to touch.) I want to be proactive, but I’m also afraid (woodland creature)

My instinct tells me to be cautious, but it also says that shorts are a different animal than novels so I might be okay.

You're just not phrasing this correctly. Here's what you mean to say: I'm building my mailing list by publishing work that will appeal to people who will want to read my novel.

Once you phrase this correctly, you understand this is a very good thing, and huzzah to you for taking the promotion bull by the horns and giving him a waltz around the dance floor.

Far from being a detriment, this is something that would make me sit up and take notice in a query. You don't need platform to sell a novel, but if you include "I have a robust mailing list of 500+ readers" in your bio, well, yes, that makes my fin wriggle.

And if you need an example of a guy who's doing this, you need look no further than Jeff Somers.  Follow his Twitter feed to see how he promotes his self-pubbed stories, and builds his mailing list.  Jeff is a lot of things (likely drunk, likely pantsless, likely to be eaten by zombie cats after the apocalypse) but not proactive isn't one of them. He calls himself lazy; I roar with laughter when he does. Watch what he does, not what he says.

Word count, cause why drop a topic after only a gazillion posts?

Dear Almighty Queen of the Reef,

I recently read a blog post by Veronica Roth from 2011 (no depths of the internet are safe when I have a strong case of writer's block). She states Divergent was initially 56k, then 85k after agent revisions, then 105k after more edits with the publisher.

I'm guessing a famous, successful author is an exception. Especially considering she states in bold in the very same blog post: "don't compare yourself to other people." But it's too late to heed that advice, and my curiosity's taken over.

How much/often does a book's word count typically change? (1) Would it be better to submit a cleanly edited 60k to an agent and have to add scenes rather than 100k where I might have added the wrong scenes?(2) Or what about "BOOK TITLE is 80k, with another 20k ready to be added"? (3)

That last idea is really dumb, isn't it? (4) It really depends on the agent/manuscript, doesn't it?(5) I should just stop thinking about word count and get back to writing, shouldn't I?(6)

I'll just swim back into my hole now.

Please don't eat me,

But, but, you're so tasty!

Ok, here's the short version:

(1) How much/often does a book's word count typically change?

There's no way to put a number on this. Books are too varied. It's not apples and oranges; it's people and Klingons. With dragons.

(2) Would it be better to submit a cleanly edited 60k to an agent and have to add scenes rather than 100k where I might have added the wrong scenes?

No

(3)

what about "BOOK TITLE is 80k, with another 20k ready to be added"?

You know the answer to this question.

(4 and 5 and 6)

That last idea is really dumb, isn't it?
It really depends on the agent/manuscript, doesn't it?
I should just stop thinking about word count and get back to writing, shouldn't I?

YES

Ok, now let's talk about WHY those are the answers.

I didn't read the V.Roth article but I was around when that whole thing was happening. Veronica's initial manuscript was amazing of course but with a set of fresh eyes on it, her agent Joanna Volpe was able to point out some places that needed development.

This happens a LOT with manuscripts. You're so familiar with your world and your characters that you sometimes miss things a reader UNfamiliar with the story wants to know.

That happens again at the editorial stage with the publisher.

The point though is this: when Veronica sent that ms to Joanna she thought it was finished and publishable. It was the very best she could make it. She didn't try to hit some kind of word count; she wrote the best book she could.

With fresh eyes and new questions there were characters and scenes to add. That might not have been the case. It's entirely possible characters and scenes might need to be removed.

There's one bench mark here, and it's not word count. The benchmark is: is this the best book you can write?

That's why it's so important, crucial actually, to let your manuscript sit for at least a month before you start querying. Until you're only moving one word a page, and debating yourself blue in the face about commas, keep working.

Your takeaway here is exactly what you think it is: don't compare yourself to other people.

Genderfluidity in the query

I finished and polished an urban fantasy novel some time ago and queried for a while, getting a couple bites for fulls and partials but nothing panned out. My novel features a genderfluid character in the lead role, and a part of me worries that might be a turn off for some agents, despite hearing so much about people wanting diverse books. I fear that this is one of the reasons agents aren't willing to touch the novel.

Another worry on my mind is the fact that I am also genderfluid, and I write mostly under my female name. But that name doesn't match my legal name and I wonder if an agent would let something like this name and pronoun business with the author prevent them from offering representation.

I started querying under my male name, stating my preferred name as my pen name, which is female. Later I queried entirely under the pen name but stated in the query that I am genderfluid mostly so they didn't think I was just doing it for kicks. I live my personal and online lives as genderfluid, though my professional life still requires me to generally be male.

I realize this looks like a bigger mess than it probably is, but would you let something like gender confusion be a reason to shoot down a pretty good book?

Short answer: no

Longer answer: you know me well enough by now I hope to understand that NOTHING gets between me and a project I want. Not gender fluidity, not names, not location, not even threats from La Slitherina Herself.

In other words, it's not you, it's the book.

You've gotten some requests. They haven't progressed.
That tells me that something is wrong with the novel.

If you don't have a good crit group, or a tough-minded (but not vile!) beta reader, that's the first step.

The second is to get pro-eyes on it. A good writing class, an agent pitch session at a conference, or any other of a lot of other options is a good idea.


And a side note: you do NOT need to explain your genderfluidity in a query. You are who you are: a writer. Your name and gender are your business. Just tell me what you like to be called and let me how to make out the check. If it's important to you that you explain your name and genderfluidity, that's ok too. Just tell me what you like to be called and let me know how to make out the check!

Being out in public while on submission

The Amazing and Brilliant conference is coming up in a couple of weeks.

Ordinarily I would wade through a writers' conference with happy anonymity, drink to my liver's discontent, and leave with a few new business cards (which I don't personally carry) go home, and report to my husband that I'm in the wrong career.

Then I'd boot up and carry on.

The good old days.

I'm looking through the attendee list, and seeing death traps everywhere.

For example, quite a few people from Publisher X are going, including Editor Mute who's had my manuscript for months.

Must I avoid him at all cost? Or, must I mention my novel has passed through his inbox?

How about this scenario: I encounter an editor from Publisher GotRox not the editor who passed on the manuscript, but a different editor. She politely asks about my work. Do I tell the truth? (Your colleague hated it) or do I pretend to be wait staff? (Me, a writer? Hahaha.)

Am I over-thinking this? I over-think everything, why not this?

You're a writer. This is par for the course.

Here's the horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten truth: most editors won't remember your name even if they read your manuscript recently. They will remember the plot points perhaps, but most of us don't keep names in our head like that.


Second, a conference is no place to discuss sensitive topics like submissions. If anyone asks how the submission process is going, your one and only answer is "GREAT!" because you never reveal your insecurities, or fears, or fretting to the reading public, let alone editors. That's for friends and family, or here on the blog under cover of OP anonymity.

If asked you say "my agent takes care of all that stuff. I keep her stocked with liquor so I never have to worry about those things."

In other words, you are not on the witness stand, and truth is not required. Most people who ask about the book or your submissions do so because they don't know what else to say. Go prepared with several topics you can steer the conversation toward. This is why you subscribe to the Washington Post. They will have all sorts of odd and wonderful news items that provide grist for the conversational mill.

Like the sea-monster story.

Or the skunk in a Coke can. 

and in a pinch, sex is always a good topic: and you thought Yertle was king of the turtles!

When your life goes off the rails

All too often (because never is the ideal) a client will share news of devastating developments in their personal life. A death. A divorce. Illness. A child in dire straits.

Sometimes that curve ball from Life hits them square on the Muse.

Sometimes the client can say "I just can't write."
Sometimes they can't

Sometimes writing through pain is the only thing that will save you.
Sometimes it isn't.


It's ok to stop writing.
I can renegotiate deadlines.
Life happens to all of us and mostly I just want to make sure you're going to come out on the other end of this. Or your kid is.

If you're querying and something dire happens, it's OK to write to the agents who've requested your full and say "Yanno, Life has thrown me a curve ball and right now I need to spend time getting up and dusting myself off." Sometimes you can't share the details. Sometimes writing the details down is too painful to even think about. That's ok. Just tell me you're in dire straits. I've been there. We've all been there.

All agents you want to work with will reply "I'm really sorry you're having a tough time. Get back in touch when you can. You're in my thoughts."

All agents you want to cross off your list will say something else.

She said no before but now said yes in a Twitter pitch fest

I participated in a twitter pitch event today to find new agents to submit to and received a request to send a query from an agent who looks like a good match.

The problem is, I submitted a query for this project to her about nine months ago and received a form rejection.

I am not sure if I should submit again.

On the one hand, as I've learned from your blog, there are many reasons an agent may pass on a project, such as workload or having something too similar to it out for submission right then. It's possible the agent saw my pitch, thought it was cool, and wants to learn more about it, having forgotten seeing it last year.

On the other, it's possible she just didn't enjoy my thing the first time around, and resubmitting it to her will make me appear foolish, as though I don't pay attention to who I submit to (I have a spreadsheet and everything) and get me blacklisted by her, others at the agency, and will become a funny story she tells to other agents leading to further difficulties finding representation down the line.

should I:
1) resubmit my query et all again as though it's the first time
2) resubmit my query again and say "I'm glad you're interested in my project, I remember submitting to you last year"
3) some third thing 

The answer is Door #3.
You say "I'm querying based on your interest from the Twitter Shark Infested Waters call for Queries on (date)."

You put that at the TOP of the query. (You might even have something in the subject line if so instructed by agent)

Then you have your query.

THEN at the bottom you write, "I want to be upfront that I queried previously with this project on (date.)"

If you have revised the query or the book since then, you add "the query/book has undergone revision since then."

If you have not, just don't say anything.

Do NOT write "and you rejected me"
You don't need to state the obvious.
You do NOT need to put the word rejection in your query.

If she passes this time, well, that's her loss. You've been upfront, and you've given her two bites at the apple.


As to this paragraph:

On the other, it's possible she just didn't enjoy my thing the first time around, and resubmitting it to her will make me appear foolish, as though I don't pay attention to who I submit to (I have a spreadsheet and everything) and get me blacklisted by her, others at the agency, and will become a funny story she tells to other agents leading to further difficulties finding representation down the line. 

That's just not going to happen. People double query often enough that I don't even notice much any more, and it's not really crazy enough to merit making up a good story. The only people I blacklist are the ones who are incredibly rude after a series of interactions (ie you can't get blacklisted by just querying twice unless you actually TRY.)

And the funny stories I tell other agents are hardly ever about writers. They're always about other agents.

Query strategy in the face of looming life changes

My latest manuscript is almost ready to query. Yay! Next to shopping for swimsuits, there's nothing I enjoy more. But...I've been accepted to law school and plan to start this fall. I have four kids still in elementary and middle school. I fret, as writers always do.

What if I am fortunate enough to find an agent who loves the manuscript as much as I do? What if he/she thinks it needs more revision than I  have time for? Will he/she wait until I do? It might be a year or more. Or should I even bother sending out queries right now when I've got this other endeavor looming on the horizon and threatening to take over my whole life?

What would you advise?

You know yourself better than I do (at least I hope you do!)
My plan would be to focus on law school right now.
You don't know how much time it's going to take to keep up with your classes and the assigned reading yet.

And your kids are going to need some attention unless they're the kind you can hang in the closet till Christmas vacation when you need them again to be cookie bakers and tasters. (My friends who are parents have horrifying tales of children who expect to eat at least three times a day! And want to talk to them! It's the stuff of nightmares.)

On the other hand maybe you're one of those people who can do three things well at the same time. Certainly there are examples of people who write novels while in some form of graduate school (medical school, law school, clown school)

As to the actual question: I put manuscripts/projects on hold for people regularly. I'm happy to wait, BUT generally it's about a year.  You're undertaking a three year law school adventure. Then you're going to study for the bar.

Even if you've got a manuscript that requires NO revision, you do need to be available through the editing and production process. Copy edits generally have a very firm two week turn around deadline.

And this doesn't begin to address the problem of promotion. Promoting a novel is a long term process but it requires regular (as in daily) effort.  Will you have the time to do that? You don't know yet.

And there's another thing you don't know about yet: your legal writing class. I have no idea if you can write a novel while also trying to master the art of writing a legal brief. And you don't either.

I suggest waiting to query until you have a better sense of what kind of time law school requires, and more important, how much of your brain space it needs.

The really good news is there are a lot of people who went to law school who ended up writing some pretty terrific books later. 

"I don't want to clutter their inboxes"

I've been querying a novel over the past eight months during which it went through one total rewrite and one large revision. I know, I know, as a first time writer, you think something’s ready only to learn the hard way. But now, it seems like the pieces are finally coming together and it’s gotten a lot of requests and upgrades lately — probably because of some of the early agents who were kind enough to give me real feedback along the way.

In the age of no response means no and form rejections on fulls, I'm grateful to those agents who took the time to help make this a better book and me a better writer. Some of them said to let them know if I revise this work to resend, which I think it’s finally time to do that, and some said something about sending future work.

I don’t want to clutter their inboxes, but should I bother asking them if they want to see the revised version? Or should I firmly conclude the concept was not for them and just keep them on the list in case this MS doesn’t result in an offer? Am I reading too much or not enough into the wording? It’s like being stretched on a ouija board!

Let's be very very clear about something: I need good stuff to sell or I'll be out of business. Thus, it's in MY best interest to see as much good stuff as I can. And we all know it's all about me me me, right?

We may differ on what we call good stuff, but I hope that you believe your stuff is good. Thus, you're eligible for chomping if you did not at least give me a heads up on the revisions.

I know agents yap endlessly about being overworked, and I spent a good portion of this weekend sending emails that started with "I'm sorry I've been so slow to respond" so too much email is a problem, yes.

BUT that is absolutely irrelevant to YOU.
You have a project that you KNOW is good.
I need projects to sell.
Nothing else should factor in to your decision about whether to reach out to agents me me me.

And just a reminder: believe us when we say nice things to you, ok?

Just cause she's an agent doesn't mean she's right (said the agent who is ALWAYS right)

Yesterday I received the most heartbreaking rejection, and find myself again questioning how to know when to take an agent's feedback to heart.

This MS has been through webinars, bootcamps, workshops, multiple face-to-face agent critique appointments (where they've received 50 pages in advance), multiple charity-auction-won critiques from published authors I adore, and countless extensive revisions with 4 critique partners. I feel it's in the best shape of any  of my manuscripts, and I'm genuinely pleased with where it's at -- which is something for a Type-A perfectionist to be able to say. I'm at the tweaking-words stage, seeing no major changes required. It feels polished. I still laugh, I still cry. It feels very much like the book I set out to write.

I've queried in batches, and have had 10 full requests and many partials. Recently, I had a full request within 2 days from a rock-star agent at the top of my list. I felt a bit awkward that she skewered my book title in her request email -- but I certainly didn't point this out. Just replied, "Attached is TITLE OF MY BOOK, per your request," kind of thing.

In the rejection, she said my book was too like two of her other series, which I thought odd because I actually used one of those as a comp title -- her series is in a different age category and I feel very different in nature, but with one shared element that I thought might grab her (it seemed to, since she requested the full based on my query and opening chapters). The other series is absolutely nothing in tone like mine, and I feel, if she'd really read mine, she'd have known that by about chapter 4 at the least, if she couldn't tell it from the opening chapter. But... okay. That's fair enough -- maybe she hated it and didn't read past chapter 3!

The most difficult part was when she said that regardless of that, it needs "a lot of development work," including "worldbuilding, plot, and pacing."

Whoa. So, that's basically the entire manuscript.

This makes me feel as though I'm being told you don't know what you're doing. Although she said, "This is very much the kind of story I enjoy," I feel like I've just been informed that 10 years of writing, and 3 years on this manuscript, and countless conferences, studying and analyzing successful books I love, agent one-on-ones, etc. have all barely pushed me from square one to two. I know we as authors get wobbly and take things personally (and blown out of proportion) in the face of rejection -- and I'm the worst -- but I had a bit of a breakdown.

I don't know what this means, or where to go next. I consulted my CPs, and they are honest, non-smoke-blowing folk, I believe. They said they would've certainly flagged up these rather major issues if they'd seen them in any of the drafts they read. None of the authors/editors/professionals who've laid eyes on the MS or synopsis suggested any major issues like these. I don't know whether to shell out for a developmental edit (seriously considering it), or sit down with My First Craft Book 101 and go through the whole arc and structure with a seam ripper.

On top of all this is the wonder whether the agent actually read any of it. She clearly was excited about the premise and opening. But in all her emails to me, she CCed an assistant. I know it doesn't matter because no is no. But it makes me wonder if I was rejected by the assistant or the agent herself... especially since the title was skewered again in the body of her rejection email. I know agents are human, but I guess I'm surprised by the error, twice.

My question is, when you've worked with this level of workshopping and critiques and feedback that makes you feel overall pleased with the pillars of a manuscript, do you take a rejection like this to heart or not -- if no one else has ever said similar? My heart says no, but my brain whispers, "What if this is the reason you haven't been offered rep yet, and she's the only one who's shared the secret with you?"

I just wish she (or her assistant) had offered even one concrete example from my story to link to these problems.

You're giving too much power to this agent. You don't know if she read it. If she did, you don't know how much.

You need more Shark Salt on your popcorn. My first response would have been"Yer maternal unit, which is clearly not human, wears Army boots!"

You are not stupid. You are not slap dash. You worked hard on this novel. It may not be what Agent Shinola thinks she can sell but that's not the same thing as a novel that needs work.

Frankly this kind of criticism shows the agent doesn't know how to talk about writing very well.  If a manuscript needs world building, it's much more helpful to say "I need to smell the horse manure  on the streets in Helena Montana in 1878."  (Say what you will about Helena Montana, back when gunslingers lit agents rode horses to the negotiating table there was a certain olfactory signature to most towns.)

If someone tells you the plot doesn't work, it damn well better be accompanied by an example of a plot hole or two.

If the pacing is off, you say why: nothing is at stake by page 50; or, the ending of this short story happens too quickly.  Absent that kind of concrete suggestion or example, it's just yammer.

In other words, I can't just say "your plot sucketh the big one" without examples, and expect you to take me seriously.

Agent Shinola didn't offer any examples to bolster HER OPINION.  Why would you invest any kind of confidence in what she says?

If an agent can't tell you what's wrong with your novel, I'm hard pressed to think she's going to be able to talk about what's RIGHT with it if she takes it on and goes out on submission. "Read this, it's really good" is not a good pitch most of the time.

Your takeaway here: If I tell you the moon is made of green cheese,  I better serve you up a slice of Neil Armstrong pizza.

Penultimate bottom line: quit making lists of rock star agents; pay attention to critiques with specifics.

Bottom line: you dodged a real bullet here. Think about if Shinola was your agent and you turned in this ms.  If this was the kind of "edit note" you got, you'd be holding up the bar five days a week at the Writers Regrets Saloon and Synopsis Store. Count yourself lucky and get back to querying.

A novel from spare parts

When I first started writing with intent, I completed my first “real” novel. Being youthful in my journey toward publication and filled with flattering accolades from my writers’ group regarding my writing skills, when a subset of that group formed around the idea of self-publishing our rejected books with a commitment to hawk them at local fairs and events, I did publish the book.

I soon discovered several things:
· Unless I was autographing and shoving the book into the public’s hand, sales were pathetic

· I knew next to nothing about marketing globally (or even nationally) through social media or Amazon (did I already admit to pathetic sales?)

· My writing skills were not as mature as my ego testified they were (thus all the agent rejections)


I do believe in the story (it’s loosely based on an unsolved true crime). The heroin in the original novel is a young woman who is abducted and the trail of terror that follows. I know from more than one agent not to query a self-published work. So my question is, what if I did a complete rewrite, changing the primary POV to an FBI Special Agent who pursues the abductee? Once completed, would this be considered pitching a self-published work? 

This is a very interesting question.

At what point during a rewrite does a book cease to be a revision, and become a new book?
A POV change is probably a good benchmark.

Your question though is really more along the lines of "are you cheating if you re-purpose a previous book?"

Obviously you won't call yourself a debut author, and you'll make sure the previous book is no longer for sale from you or any one else (that means you buy up any used copies floating around on Amazon.)

And, what's the worst that could happen? Rejection? Well, you're going to get that no matter what book you write, it's part of the game.

Is someone going to come out of the woodwork, waving the self-published book, clamoring for a refund on this new book? Very very doubtful.


The key of course is to write a much better book this time. And given you've gotten more experience, the chances of that are pretty good!


Your question reminded me of the recent news story about Karen Hall revising her first novel Dark Debts.

Signing with a more junior agent

So signing with a very new/ junior agent seems like a perfectly fine thing to do if that agent is embedded within a good agency and they are a good fit for your book. Do you think it matters if that particular agency as one (or, um, more than one) other agent/s who are more senior who already rejected your book? I ask because I know junior agents rely on the mentoring and connections of more senior agents as they start getting into the biz. But does this create an awkward or potentially bad situation for the author if other senior agents are familiar with the work and didn't like it? 

You have fallen prey to one of the worst (and totally wrong) assumptions in publishing: rejection means the agent didn't like it.

I reject good and publishable work Every Single Day.

Let me say that again this time with feeling: I pass on good and publishable work Every Single Day. Work that goes on to find an agent and get published and win prizes.

Repeat after me: rejection only means no, nothing else.

Thus, a more senior agent might have passed on your work for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with the caliber of the writing, let alone whether s/he liked it.

Some of the reasons I pass on good and publishable work EVERY SINGLE DAY:
1. I have a project that's similar
2. It's not one of my strongest categories
3. I've just signed a new client and I'm hesitant to take on more work just now (that happens a lot)

Some of the reasons I pass on work that other agents might take on:
4. It needs more editorial work than I want to spend time on



Thus, you should now intuit the answer to your question,

But does this create an awkward or potentially bad situation for the author if other senior agents are familiar with the work 

but in case your frozen intuition whiskers have not yet melted after all my hot air and arm-waving:

NO

When do agents read queries?

How often do agents read queries? I ask because several agents post query status updates that seem to occur monthly, or at least several weeks apart. Of course I know everyone’s different, and the answer will vary widely depending on one’s current workload and how many queries one receives. But I am wondering whether most agents tend to read a couple queries every day (sort of like taking one’s vitamins and just getting it over with), or do they set aside a day for it, curl up with a beaker of scotch and slog through as many hundred as possible? Are there days of the week or month or year that agents tend to attack the slush pile more frequently? Do most agents have interns for just this sort of thing? Do most of you work weekends? 

Oh my beloved woodland creature, you must be at a particularly difficult point in the novel if you are worrying about this!

What difference does it make to you?

NONE!

However, because I know that you won't stop fretting till you have some information here you go:

It varies.

(helpful, I know)

I read queries almost daily. I like to keep up. A simmering vat of unanswered queries makes me slightly crazy.

I know other agents read as they can and get very very behind. One agent who shall remain nameless (because really why would you need a name when you can have 1000 words instead)

 often had 700+ queries backed up.

Another friend right now has over 1000.

That would kill me.

Some agents do have interns who do the first cull. A LOT of queries are so bad they can be rejected almost instantly.

Some agents read all their own queries. I do. Most of my colleagues read their own queries too.

And all of us read on weekends, in the middle of the night, on our phones on the subway, and when we should be paying attention to the flight attendant talking about water landings.

Here's the good news: no matter how many I get, the good ones catch my eye. Even if I don't request the manuscript, a good query gets serious attention.


As for posting updates: most of us post updates less often than we read queries because saying you're caught up throgh X date every day would soon become tedious.

I'm much farther caught up than my blog widget indicates. The reason it says 9/10 is because I have one  query from 9/11, two queries from 9/12, one from 9/13 and one from 9/14 still pending. Those are queries that merited a closer look when I was tearing through them a couple days ago.

Given I get 20 or so a day, you can see I've already said no to 18 or 19 queries from each day 9/11-9/14.



NONE of this matters to you. You have no control over it and how agents read queries doesn't have much to do with how they'll view your query.

There is ONE thing you can control: the effectiveness of your query. Work on that.
Send your queries. Count forward 30 days. Query again to those agents who are courteous enough to reply to all queries.


Quit fretting about this. Figure out what's really bothering you and go take a bite out of that.

Query Question: agencies not agents

 I've been researching agents until my file is bulging and arranged by best fit to long shot, but there is still something eluding my research, and that is the Agency itself.

A good many are venerable and thus, able to be researched.  Should the happy day arrive when I find representation, I would feel relatively certain the Agency or its agents won't be imploding the day after the ink dries.  This is not the case with new(er) agencies, agencies that post elevator music with their opening page (please don't) or where little or no information is available.  There's a surprisingly large amount of that.

As a venerable agent with a well-established Agency, you see from the inside of your industry.  Can you offer a bit of guidance where Agencies themselves remain a mystery. 

Since anyone can hang out a shingle and call themselves an agent (or agency) you're wise to understand that some vetting is very much in order.

BUT, I caution you about assuming all venerable agencies have a spiffy electronic footprint. That is not always the case. Some very good agencies have a very modest presence on the web and you'd be foolish to disdain them for that reason.

Look at who they represent. Google the authors and books. Look at who publishes those books.

The best way to distinguish between an established agent /agency who has a terrible electronic presence and a new agent/agency who has such limited experience you might think twice about querying them: how they talk about queries.

If an agency has almost no information about sales, and no address posted, and isn't trying to entice  you to query with statements about how they love authors, you've probably run in to an agent that simply isn't looking for new clients.  (Phoebe Larmore comes to mind here)

If an agency has no information about sales, no address listed and is chockablock FULL of ways to query, instructions on querying, and essays on how much they love authors, you've run in to an agency that probably doesn't have a lot of sales.

In general you want an agency that's been around for a while. My preference is for agencies that are not sole proprietors but many very good agents have solo practices. 

Remember,  agenting is not an entry level job.

If you're evaluating an agency, look at where the agents started their publishing career. Look at how long they have been in publishing. 

If that kind of information is not on their otherwise chatty website, it's fair to assume they don't want you to know cause it's not reassuring info. In other words, they didn't have a previous job, or they've been in publishing for five minutes.

There's almost no way to fireproof yourself from an agent or agency imploding but you can certainly ask some questions that might give you a heads up.

Do conservative authors have a harder time getting repped or sold?

Senator Ted Cruz complains when he’s kept off the New York Times bestseller list, accused of bulk sales, and then proves there were no bulk sales.

Bill O’Reilly complains that he can’t get a Publishers Weekly blurb for his latest, Killing Reagan, despite the fact that his Killing Patton was the top nonfiction title of 2014.

From your perch, or shall we say depth, is there an institutionalized bias against conservative authors in the publishing industry? If a lit agent agrees to represent a book by a conservative author, do they risk the disdain of many of their peers? If Donald Trump sought representation for a new book, would many lit agents decline on ideological grounds, even if they stood to make a small fortune on the deal? 

It's interesting that you use the word institutionalized to describe the bias you think you've illustrated. Publishing isn't an institution, it's an industry. Some of us may belong in an institution, but nonetheless this is not some sort of lockstep monolith.

Yes it is true that the people who work in this industry tend to skew left in their politics. Since my politics is more middle of the road, that makes for some interesting bar conversation. I can usually stop everyone dead in their tracks with the bald statement that I am a registered Republican (and I am.)

Ted Cruz may have been unfairly blocked from getting his NYT Bestseller badge but he merely joins a LONG list of authors who have that complaint.  The NYT list is based on orders, not sales, and data is gathered from bookstores of the Times' choosing. That list is not published, nor is it widely known. Thus if Ted Cruz is bulk buying from Powells in Portland, Amazon isn't going to have a clue and Harper (Cruz's publisher) wouldn't know either.

The reason bulk buys are discounted for the list is that indeed, an author DID do this some 25 years ago. I'm iffy on the details but it was quite the scandal at the time.


As to Bill O'Reilly, he's just wrong about this, like he is about a lot of things. I've included the link to the PW piece that explains very calmly why that is so.

And honestly if those two rabblerousers are what you base your argument on, here's the counterargument:

Ann Coulter.
She's been publishing books with a major publisher for years.

And so has Donald Trump.

Let me remind you of one cold hard fact: publishers LOVE to make money. If there is "institutional bias" of any sort in publishing it's for making not losing money.

What Cruz and O'Reilly are complaining about is what EVERY author of every political stripe complains about: they didn't get their props.

I have no idea what anyone else would do if Donald Trump wanted a new agent. I'd say no because I prefer to work with people who are actually interested in being writers, not demagogues.

There is no political litmus test to pass here for becoming a client. I have clients who voted for Mitt Romney. I have clients who pounded the pavement for President Obama. I have clients who'd register as anarchists if such a thing was allowed. What they all have in common is they write REALLY REALLY well...and they were robbed of their spot on the NYT list.

Agent question: inventory/old novels

Say you have written manuscripts A, B, and C (A being your oldest written, and C your newest). You are lucky and land agent with manuscript C. Would an agent look at manuscripts A and B at all? Is this decided by how recent they were written, or if the author wants the agent to also look at them? Just curious over all, how does this type of thing work and what factors play a role in these types of decisions?

When I sign a client for a Shiny New Novel, one of the things I do ask about is inventory. If you have inventory, and you sign with an agent, you tell her about it.


Most likely she's not going to read any of it while her hands are full with Shiny New Novel.


If Shiny doesn't sell, then I look at inventory.
Chances are inventory isn't going to sell either, so it's on to New Book.



There's no way to quantify this because every writer has different inventory, and agents work differently.  This is why you want good clear communication with YOUR agent. Ask HER what she wants to do.

I've sold inventory novels. I've flat out refused to look at inventory novels after hearing about them. There is no one answer here because the question has four dimensions: the author, the agent, the book, timing.


You thought three dimensional chess was tough? Add time as a factor and you've got  a good metaphor for this.

At what point does expecting someone to be patient become rude?

CarolynnWith2Ns asked this in the comment trail of the blog post about timing:

At what point does expecting someone to be patient become rude? 

That's a really good question.

I saw the comment 34 minutes after hanging up from a telephone call with a client; a phone call that was about a proposal we've been working on for more than a year, and has had some serious setbacks in terms of my available time.

I'm very fortunate to have clients who have not lost patience with me.
On the other hand I've have more than a few former clients because they DID lose patience with me.

Patience is an individual sensibility.
[Just like eating peas with honey is a gross breach of table manners to some, and the only way to keep peas on a knife, thus practical, to others.]

I try to set realistic expectations for people who query and people who are waiting for me to read full manuscripts.  I tell them how long it should take, and say it's ok to touch base with me if they get worried, and certainly if they haven't heard from me in the time frame I've set.

That has helped diminish the level of writer anxiety in the prospect pool a lot.

Expecing someone to be endlessly patient without paremeters or permission to be in touch is rude.


I try to communicate with clients in a timely manner. Most of the time it works. Some times I fall VERY short. When that happens, the client moves to the top of the priority list. (In the prioritizaion on Tuesday's blog post, they become important AND urgent.)

We set a time for a telephone call and get caught up.

Expecting someone to wait patiently with no end in sight is rude.

In the normal woop and warf of client communication, appointments for phone calls are made, deadlines agreed to and expectations that To Do will Get  Done are set.

A LOT of times, those things get pushed back. A phone call needs to be rescheduled, a project doesn't get finished, a deadline gets missed.

I think a general rule of thumb here is that you can push/move/change an agreement three time before it's rude.

Absent some life changing situation three times is about the max.

If there is a life changing situation, then all bets are off, and you wait it out.

I've had colleagues lose clients when they've been upfront about personal situations they've had to deal with.  One in particular sent out an email that said she'd be dealing with a personal family emergency and was fired in a return email by a client who said s/he really wanted an agent who was available. (I had to be physically restrained from visiting that former client's place of abode. Fortunately we all realized that any client with that atttitude was better off being a former client and as soon as humanly possible, so bullet dodged, thank you.)

10 Tips for Encountering Agents in Social Situations

Gotta tell ya, I'm a tad nervous heading out for my first away game this year. (ThrillerFest, Bouchercon and LeftCoast Crime don't really count)

Why would I be nervous you ask?

Well, let's cue up the replay tape on yesterday's blog comment trail:

Ugh, I sometimes have nightmares about my first agent encounter at a conference. I ran into an agent whose blog I REALLY admire (not, thank all the gods, the illustrious QOTKU) at the cocktail party and managed to put my foot so far down my throat I was farting toes for days. (That's gross, isn't it? It is. And it doesn't even begin to cover my embarrassment.)

Said agent was chatting with some folks and when I introduced myself and expressed my admiration for the agent's blog and clients, it became mortifyingly clear that the agent was not super pleased with said client at that moment and DID NOT WANT TO TALK TO ME. AT. ALL.

So there I stood in awkward silence for a full minute before backing away and finding the bottom of a glass (or two) of wine with my writer buds.

I definitely could have handled that more smoothly. Next time! 

When I read that, my first reaction was Bad Bad Agent Girl! Several blog readers said pretty much the same thing.

But, do you know how easy it is to be that Bad Agent? VERY.

What could be fatigue comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.
What could be preoccupation with something else comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.
What could be mortification from an earlier conversation in which the agent put HER foot in her mouth (yadda yadda) comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.

What could be a sudden urgent need to use the ladies loo comes off as not wanting to talk to the writer.

In other words, you shy woodland creatures assume that anything less than enthusiasm is somehow not wanting to talk to you.

That's a pretty stiff social burden to bear dear readers.

So, let's go over some ways you can interact with agents away from their Lair to keep your foot out of your fangs:

1. Do not initiate conversation about your book, your project, your query.

2. Do not mention you've queried the agent and been rejected, not even if you think you're being nice about it, or you learned from it.

3. Don't ask if they're having a good time. Generally speaking, conferences are work for us. Would you ask someone if they are having a good time when they're at work?

4. Don't ask if they're finding anything good. That can be a very loaded question. I've been to conferences where every single project I saw was unpublishable.


So, that's what NOT to do. Here's what you can do:

5. Mention the books by her client. The more specific you can be the better. Despite the example above, this is really the most direct avenue to an agent's heart.  Sure you can trip up here, in that the agent may no longer rep that client, but you have to take some risks. This is a reasonable risk to take.

6. Mention the agent's blog or twitter feed and that you've learned something from it. Again, be specific here if you can.

7. Ask what they're reading for fun. Most agents have a book in their bag. Hopefully they'll like it and you can talk books.


Once you've served up a conversational gambit, it's incumbent upon the agent to keep it going. It's rude for anyone in a conversation to simply say "yes" or "no" and leave you hanging like a flummoxed interviewer on Good Morning Carkoon. It's also rude to make you feel like you're a plate of chopped liver (as the agent in the example quoted did.)

If you find yourself with an agent who is sending off the "I don't want to be here" vibe remember it's NOT YOU. How could it be? All you've done is be pleasant!

Here's what to do, rather than stand there and feel awful or that somehow this is your fault:

8. Say "it was lovely to meet you. Thank you for coming to the conference. Will you excuse me? I need to attend to my friend over there" and wave in the general direction behind the agent (contrary to popular opinion agents do not have eyes in the back of their head). Then you step away.

 9. If you're feeling particularly kind, ask "is there anything I can do for you right now that would help you out?" If the agent  needs to go to the loo, or can't figure out where she left her glasses, sometimes an offer of help is just the thing.  You're under NO obligation to offer help. You're not some sort of handmaiden in the Temple of Agents.

10. If you're feeling particularly evil, and at this point, who wouldn't, you can say "Janet Reid's July 22 blog post told me not to take hostile attitudes from agents personally and man am I glad I read that.  Have a great day!"


I can assure you that at least once in this coming weekend an author will come up to me in a social situation and do either 1 or 2 or BOTH.  Since I have yet to figure out a way to handle that gracefully, and I know that authors remember Every Single Thing an agent says to them, now you can see why I'm just a tad nervous about Writers in the Wild myself.

Query Question: are you even reading these?

I queried a novel 5 years ago and after 15 no responses, I gave up.

I am now in the process of the dreary queries again (different novel) and tried something crazy, just to test out a theory. Honestly, I don't think my writing career can get any worse at this point.

I sent out a query to an agent and within 3 days had what I knew was a "form" no. I shook it off and hoped that maybe one of the other agents I sent it to would be interested.  One "no" is no big deal. Only I couldn't stop thinking about it. The more I read about agents and writer's good and bad experiences, the more I started to think. 

So this is where the crazy comes in. I sent the exact same query for the exact same book. I literally copied and pasted the original letter in an email and sent it in to the exact same agent. Same thing, 3 days later I got a response from her. The exact same form response.

I can't help, but wonder if my letter and sample were even read. I followed the instructions posted to a T.

I feel like if she read the exact same twice, she would have just ignored the second. Right? I mean why tell me the same thing twice. I clearly wasn't smart enough to understand the first no (I'm thinking this from her perspective here of course).

She could just feel sorry for me and be politely telling me to leave her alone, again, in that same e-mail "form" fashion. I don't know.

It just seems as if an "I don't have time to read this right now" form letter is a better response than, "Your project sounds very interesting, but it's just not for me" email.
Of course this is me assuming that on Wednesday she rejects all of her Monday queries and on Friday rejects all of Wednesdays.

Now that I have typed all of this, I have lost sight of my question. I don't even know if I have a specific question. What do you think about his whole experience and my theory that agents aren't actually reading our letters?
Obviously, all agents aren't the same, and I'm certain that some do take the time to read the queries even if they don't take time to respond. 

In your spare time do you like to beat your head against the wall?

At this point I almost want to read your novel because you have a fevered imagination. Too bad you're using it to torment yourself instead of entice ME.

For starters, let's both of us agree that you don't know a damn thing about how the OTHER side of the query process works. By my count,  you've sent 17 query letters total, and that's over the course of five years. 

I read 17 query letters in 30 minutes a day. Every day. For YEARS now.

And I can tell you that people sending duplicate queries by mistake, or because of bad record keeping, or because they misspelled one word in the closing paragraph, or they failed to add their twitter handle is so common that I don't even notice any more.

I don't investigate. I certainly don't assume the writer is stupid. Or poorly organized. Or anything. I just reply again.

I do this because it's the easiest thing for me to do. And frankly, I'm very invested in keeping things simple.

Now, you're about to become a crazy person here, and you're doing it over something you have ZERO control over.

Do not do that.
Do this: Send more queries.
You can't start to complain or kvetch until you've sent 100.

For ONE book.

And if you don't think your writing career can get worse, let me introduce you to a cold hard truth: you keep sending duplicate queries to torment yourself or prove that agents aren't reading your stuff and you're going to find even agents like me [who respond to ALL queries] ignore you. One fast way to get on my Very Bad Side is to resend the same query endlessly. [Yes, that happens.]

If you're really seriously worried agents aren't reading your work, get to a writing conference. Make some pitch appointments. Take your query. Find out what needs improving.

There is one basic fact you're forgetting here: agents are looking for things to sell.  Finding them is largely a numbers game once your query and pages are in good shape.

Quit making yourself crazy. Go work on your novel. I'm sure there are a few characters in there who could use some skullduggery in their lives.

      

Query Question: more on waiting time

I signed a book contract with a small house a few months back. At the time my editor raved about my manuscript and said she had numerous marketing ideas to make my book a best seller. This was four months ago. Since then I have not heard word one from her. I sent her an email about a month ago to ask what I should be working on before my final due date November 1,  but again, crickets.

I do not have an agent, so my question is: is it normal for several months to go by before we have initial contact from an editor concerning revision? If not, what is my next step?

Since my clients with small presses have always been agented, I'm not sure if my experience will be applicable to you.

It's entirely normal for some months to go by before receiving an editorial letter, even in publishing companies with large staffs.  The piece of information you're missing here is your publication date. If the pub date is this year (ie 2015) and you don't have an editorial letter, it's a problem that requires IMMEDIATE action. That means you email once a week until you hear something.

If pub date is 2016, you're not in trouble yet. If it's the second half of 2016, you're not in trouble at all.



But, I'm puzzled why your editor is the person you're talking to about marketing ideas. Does this small press not have a publicity or marketing person? If they don't, you should assume you're on your own, and not cause this press is a bunch of slackers. Most likely your editor has more than enough to do with just editing (ie she's behind on books ahead of yours in pub date, thus the silence.)

Of course if she raised your hopes and expectations by telling you she had "numerous ideas to make your book a best seller" she did you no favors. Most small presses can't print enough books to make anything a best seller. Maybe she meant digitally, although most of the books I see on those list look self-pubbed.

In other words, my guess here is she over promised, and is now going to under deliver.

That happens a LOT. It happens a lot with small presses (and inexperienced editors) who are just sure that traditional publishing is a bunch of mouth-breathing sluggards who, if they would just get off their asterisks and do these Very Simple, Very Obvious 738 things, Every Book Would Be A Best Seller!

Which means they just haven't been around enough to actually see how sales work long term.

And such lack of knowledge isn't a sign of moral failure, or bad character. It's just a sign of inexperience.

But, you're in bed with these guys now, and this is your book, and you want to know what to do. This is what you do while you're waiting for the editorial letter:

First, plan for NO assistance of any kind.  Plan that you will be doing ALL the work. If you don't, well, so much the better, but better to plan for it and not have to do it than get caught flat-footed.

Second, start sending your manuscript out for blurbs right now. (If you don't know any well-known writers this can be a problem.)

Third, start meeting your local and regional booksellers. Visit their store with a one-sheet of information about your book. Mention you're a local author. Mention you're NOT self-published.

Fourth, build your mailing list. Plan to email every single person on that list INDIVIDUALLY with a  personal email about your book.

This means no "Hi Gang, forgive the form letter" crap. If you want this book to sell, you'll invest time in making PERSONAL contact.  That means "Dear Janet, I've been reading your blog for years and Query Shark really helped me hone my query. My debut novel is coming out X, and I wanted to give you a heads up.  Pre-ordering really helps me out if you're so inclined.  Thanks again, love and kisses, you."

See the difference? One gets me to the order site. The first one gets you to my trash bin.  Yes, it takes MUCH longer to do these one by one. YES, it's worth it.


Small presses are great places to be but most of the people there have a lot more on their plate than they should and the polite squeaky wheel does get the grease.