This was a pet hate on a literary agency's website. Honestly I'm a bit confused now. I thought I should submit to any agent who might be interested in my work, and to submit to them all over the course of a few weeks so I don't have to wait years until I've finished going through my list. But this makes me think it's the wrong thing to do? Am I supposed to be waiting the full 3 months for another rejection before I submit to someone else?
my Querytracker stats for the past year: I honestly submitted to the agents i thought were the best fit for my novel.
I think you are misinterpreting the quote. It means submitting to every agent regardless of what they are looking for. Meaning, if you write SFF, and you are submitting to an agent who is looking for cozy mystery and Sports drama just because they are open for queries. You are doing it correctly by submitting your project to agents that are looking for what you write
No, but be selective. Do you take a moment to thoroughly research which genres a particular agent specialises in before submitting?
Even the few that say, "no simultaneous submissions!" you can ignore imo. Chances are they're just going to ignore you anyway, and not even provide the courtesy of a form letter rejection. I say, cast a wide net. Submit to all the agents who seem like they might be a good fit, and who represent writers in your genre. Even if you did "carpet bomb" every literary agency in the country, it's impossible for anyone to take notice of such activities, considering the thousands upon thousands of queries entering every agent's slush pile every year.
I think inserting a line into your query about why you think this particular agent is a good fit for your book can go a long way. You can do this pretty easily by mentioning a book or writer they have represented that might be similar to yours. This extra step show them you want them and not just any agent. And you should be a little picky when it comes to agents. Not every agent will sell your book. I speak from experience. I have had two agents in the past, but do not have a published book. I, honestly, only have one agent that I am 100 percent sure I would like to work with for my new novel. My novel is not ready to show yet, but I am thinking about who I would want to represent me next time and who is likely to sell my book and get me a good deal. It is important to do some homework here. There's no point in having an agent if they can't sell your book. You really don't want just anyone. Handpicking agents and telling them why you want to work with them specifically will get you a lot further than sending the same query to 100 agents, both in terms of getting signed and working with someone who will actually sell your book. Good luck with the search and query process. It can be a rollercoaster.
Thanks all! What do you mean by thoroughly research? I just submit to agents who either state that they are looking for my genre, or are looking for plots/characters similar to mine. Good point. I've considered that before, and I've tried to use language similar to what they're looking for, but I guess that's not enough. Where would you feature that line - towards the end of the email? And should I be saying why it's similar to other novels that they're behind, or just saying "you said you like X This fits my novel because Y" or "I would love to work with you because I plan to make this my career and write more novels of the Z style/genre" And on your second point, this makes me wonder... I have several completed manuscripts. One, I was told by an agent, would be tricky to market so I've left it abandoned to revise as I push the current novel. But this current novel is a different genre to the first, and both are different genres to the third and forth novels I've written. So a lot of the agents I'm submitting to, even if they were interested in this novel, probably wouldn't be able to market the others if they wanted them. So should I be submitting the different novels simultaneously (as they'd be getting submitted to different people) or does that create too much hassle in the case that I find an agent who's interested in one of them?
I'm not PiP, obviously, but I think I can answer this. Just because an agent represents your genres doesn't mean they're qualified. -Does the agent have successful clients in your genre? If not, are they brand new? Because I can think of a couple of agents who say they rep MY genres, but haven't had a single SF/F sale that I could find in the past 15 years. -Is the agent involved in any shady weirdness, like selling editorial services on the side? (This can be a HUGE conflict of interest, unless an agent explicitly says they refuse to rep anyone who uses these services) -Has this agent retired from being an agent in the past, only to return? (Not the biggest red flag, but it's definitely something to look out for) -Even if the agent is brand new and doesn't have a ton of (or any) sales, are they at least at a reputable agency? I'm sure others can give examples, too, but these are the big ones that come to mind.
