Checking on Status – When is it okay?

You’ve submitted a partial to an agent and now you’re waiting to hear back with a reply…when do you email for status? Don’t be the person who waits a week, can’t take it, and starts to hound the agent. If they said they’ll review your work…they will. Give it time. (Unless you get an offer of representation, then that’s a whole ‘nother story which I’ll talk about tomorrow.) So, when can you check on status?

Query – Never. You may think it’s polite to call and make sure the agent received your query or to check in after a couple months…but it’s not. If you don’t receive an email it’s a rejection. Sorry, but thems the facts.

Partial or Full – Most agents will tell you their response time when they request a partial or full. This is usually between 6 – 8 weeks. In my experience, agents overestimate…if an agent likes your query, they’ll review your partial within a few weeks and your full within a month, but that’s just what happened to me. You have to wait the amount of time the agent has told you before you should check on status.

After the appropriate amount of time, send off a quick email.

Dear so and so, you requested a partial of my manuscript blah blah blah, which I sent to you on such and such a date. I know you’re extremely busy, but I would like to check on the status of my submission. Thank you for your time.

You want to keep it professional and not sound whiny. Agents are very busy, but they’re generally not jerks. If you ask nicely they’ll reply with a new estimate of how long it will take them to read your work. There’s nothing wrong with sending them a little reminder, after the appropriate amount of time.

Oh Joy of Joys – A Not Rejection

One day you’ll open up an email and instead of a form rejection, it will be a partial request. After you jump up and down and do a little dance, make sure you reread the email carefully. As with queries, you want to give the agent exactly what they ask for in a timely fashion. (That’s why you should never query unless your book is written and polished.)

Partial Request – Agents will ask for anywhere from ten to fifty pages, or three to five chapters. Make sure you give them what they want. My first few chapters were very short, so even though I attached my three chapters, it was only eight pages. I made sure to state this in my email. Don’t presume they want more than they ask for; it may annoy the agent.

Synopsis Request – Sometimes agents will request a partial and a full synopsis. I’ll go into greater detail later, but a synopsis is usually about ten pages and highlights the major plot point and twists of your book. Always include the ending. Agents need to know what happens.

Full Request – If an agent really likes your query or partial they’ll request the full manuscript. Again, this is why your manuscript has to be completed before you start querying. If someone requests a full and you don’t have it, you’ve just ruined your chances with that agent.

Often times, if an agent requests a full, they’ll ask if you’ve submitted to other agents. You don’t have to tell them everyone you’ve queried, only those agents that are currently reviewing a partial or full manuscript. Just tell them that you have three partials and one full with other agents, not who the agent is.

After you send out your manuscripts, it’s time for more waiting. Good news though, if an agent requests a partial or full, you’ll hear back from them. It might be a rejection, but they’ll usually tell you why they’re passing on it, something that might help you if you need to revise.

Try Not to Cry – How to Handle Rejection

So you have your first reply email from an agent, you open it super excited and it reads something like:

Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, we do not feel like this work is a good fit for us. Best of luck.

Don’t freak out. If you cry hysterically every time you get a rejection you’ll live an incredibly stressful life.

Let’s face the facts, not everyone will love your book. You know that old saying, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. In my case, some people just don’t like YA Fantasy. Some people won’t like my plot, some won’t like my writing style, and some won’t like my characters…but here’s the thing, some will.

Here was my query track record for a book I wrote in 2008:

            Queries Sent Out – over 100

            Rejections – 56

            Partial Requests – 0

            Full Requests – 0

And here it is for my current book, In the After:

           

            Queries Sent Out – 34

            Rejections – 17

            Partial Requests – 10

            Full Requests (after partials) – 8

            Final Rejections – 2

            Pass for Time Restraints - 1

            Offers of Representation – 5

So what does this tell me? Maybe I became a better writer over the past two years, or found a more marketable idea. I also did better research this time around and sent out less queries, but to agents who represent YA sci-fi and fantasy.           

Even though I had several interested agents, I also had many many rejections. If all you receive are rejections, put this manuscript away and write another book. Do not give up. If I gave up in 2008, I would still be agent-less and wondering what could have been.

The Waiting Game

You've emailed your query to several agents and now you’re sitting in front of your computer hitting refresh every ten seconds. First off, you need to relax. Agents can take as long as three months to respond, that’s why you don’t want to send out one query at a time.

The least amount of time it’s taken an agent to respond to me is three hours (with a rejection to my query) the most is three months (with a partial request after I’d already signed with an agent). For my current manuscript, it took me exactly one month to go through the whole process, from querying to agent. I’m not bragging, that was just my experience on this go around…I’ve queried before and received nothing but rejections, which I’ll talk about tomorrow.

If you thought writing a novel was hard, you’ll see it was a cake walk compared to what comes next. Believe me, I know how difficult it is to send your idea off and hope that someone is interested. The truth is, a lot of agents won’t even reply. That means that they’re are not interested. It’s common to ask for status on a partial or a full after a couple of months, but if they don’t respond to your query, don’t hound them.

My advice? Keep writing. Begin another book. Distract yourself until the replies come in.

Finding an Agent - Method to the Madness

How do you keep track of all your queries going out?

You can do a couple of things. You can send a query to every agent ever and hope that one of them likes your manuscript…or you can save yourself time and postage.

Pick a top ten to query. Email / snail mail these ten agents. Wait a day (or week) depending on your schedule and your ambition level, then query ten more.

Just like you don’t want to send out a thousand queries at once that are impossible to keep track of, you don’t want to send out one at a time. If you send out one, and wait for a reply before you send out another, you’ll be a hundred years old and still not published.

I stayed organized by setting up special email folders to keep track of my queries, rejections, and partial/full manuscript requests. I was able to access information about a certain agent in seconds because I did a little pre-query planning.

If you’re super organized you can make a spreadsheet with the agents name and query status (sent, rejected, requests). That may be helpful for later on if this manuscript isn’t quite up to par, but your next one is. You can look at your spreadsheet and remember that so and so requested a partial, but ultimately passed. Include that info in your new query letter. Remember, getting published is a marathon, not a sprint. Save yourself wasted time and effort by planning ahead.

Finding an Agent - Which Agents to Query

So you have your kick-ass query…now where do you send it? Do some research. If you write historical fiction, check out the acknowledgements in your favorite books, they’re bound to be agents listed. You want to make sure that you are contacting real agents though, and not scam artists. A real agent will never charge you a reading fee.

This website is great, http://www.aaronline.org/ . You can search by name or genre and each agent lists contact info and preferences. Start by querying agents that represent your genre.

Make sure you read individual guidelines. Some agents want only a query, while some want sample chapters. Some prefer email queries while others like snail mail. The first step to finding an agent is making that agent happy by following their guidelines.

Know who you’re querying. Even though my query wasn’t your standard, “Dear So and So,” I made sure that each letter I sent out had the agent’s name and contact info in the upper left corner, even the ones I emailed. That way, agents could tell that I knew who I was sending the letter to and that I put some thought into who I want my agent to be.

One more thing: Never ever ever send out a mass emailed query. This is a good way to offend a lot of people. Agents want to make sure that you’ve done the research and are querying them for a reason. It’s rude to lump all of them in together and comes off as lazy. This is your career…take the time!