| PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: STOP THE QUERY RE-SEND |
Do not re-query agents if they have not responded to your initial query. Especially if it was an email query.
Just don't.
We know for a fact that agents are getting BOMBARDED by email queries. And "bombarded" is a euphemism. Swamped. Buried. Drowned. Suffocating in virtual slushpile quicksand is more like it.
So why should writers care? Writers should care because more and more agents are choosing only to respond to email queries that interest them. Thus, no response is a response. And, no... your email query didn't get lost in the black vortex of cyber space. It got read, it didn't generate interest, it got deleted. Period.
Are we condoning bad manners? No, because we DON'T think it's bad manners. We think it's the cost of sending email queries. What writers save in postage, they pay with convenience, and it's convenient for agents to read email queries and delete them. No response required.
And whether writers want to hear it or not, email queries are really only one step above SPAM. It's the price we pay as writers for the privilege of email bombing an agent's inbox with electronic slush.
If the trade-off is that agents keep their slush piles open to unpublished, aspiring writers, even though they can't always respond to every query, then so be it. That's a tiny price to pay for an egalitarian system in
which little nobody unpublished writers may query established literary agents whose client lists include bestselling authors.
So, the fact that you haven't heard from Ms. Perfect Agent three weeks after sending out your initial query is not an invitation to resubmit your query--again.
Well, why the heck not? My Perfect Agent didn't respond, and I know that my book would be perfect for her. How am I really supposed to know if she read and received my perfect little query if she doesn't officially reject me?
If there's one thing we know about ourselves as writers, it's that we like to "project". We've got active imaginations, after all, and when we start researching agents, we only have faceless names to work with. So, with very little information, our tender little hearts project our aspirations onto certain agents.
We assert that they are perfect for us,
despite knowing very little about the agent's reputation or their background or their personality. And yet, we writers project our fantasies onto these agents. So when Ms. Perfect Agent doesn't respond to our email query, we wring our hands and check our
email thirty times a day, wondering why hasn't she responded?
Maybe she never got it. Maybe it's been snared in her SPAM filter. Maybe she's on vacation. Maybe she's read it and forgot to respond.
This is when the writer considers re-querying the agent, and we consider cyber bitch-slapping them with a PSA.
Look, save yourself the headache and move on. Do your research. Carefully select as many "perfect" agents as you can. And stop projecting.
Cast your net wide until you receive an offer of representation. But don't ever stop and wonder why Ms. Perfect Agent hasn't responded. And definitely do not convince yourself that maybe she never received your email, and maybe you should resubmit, or worse--send a follow-up email, enquiring about the status of your query.
Don't do that, please. We're begging you. Such behavior from persistent writers is causing agents to reconsider accepting slush in the first place. And that's bad news for everyone.
Instead of wondering why Ms. Perfect Agent hasn't responded to your query, consider why she may not really be perfect for you. For example, she may not be seriously considering her slush pile right now because of her other responsibilities.
Maybe four of her major clients simultaneously forwarded her their new novels; suddenly, she's got four new manuscripts to read and potentially pitch to editors. Maybe she's changed her mind about loading her client list with more chick lit authors because the chick lit editors that she knows aren't buying it.
Maybe she's changing agencies or starting her own agency, and she's holding off on taking on new clients until she's made the move...
Okay, great. She's busy. That's why she hasn't responded. I'll re-send my email query to her again in six months. Then she'll be interested...
Freeze. Re-read this PSA. Then tell your writer friends of your plans: tell them that you're thinking of re-sending your query again to Ms. Perfect Agent because she still hasn't responded. Hopefully, your friends will physically restrain you and break your "send" finger before you have a chance to email bomb Ms. Agent--again.
Otherwise, every time an agent stops accepting queries, we blame writers like you. The AQ hex is on your head. Your repeated email bombs of the same query over and over (or follow-up emails, regarding the status of your unanswered query) have helped drown these agents in virtual slush, and although they may not be responding to you, they are responding to the rest of us by closing their doors to new queries--indefinitely.
<----Back to PSA Main Page
|
