Get a Literary Agent: The Complete Guide to Securing Representation for Your Work (7 page)

Once you’re ready to dive in headfirst, a simple question emerges: Can you query multiple literary agents at the same time? Absolutely. This is both normal and encouraged. The simple fact is that an agent may take three months to get back to you, and then her response may simply be a form rejection. That’s no way to go about getting a book published. You must cast a net—but don’t cast a terribly wide net.

So how many agents should you contact at one time? Would it be wise to just mail out your query to all agents who rep science fiction at once? I wouldn’t. I would submit to six to eight at a time, including those you’ve met at a writers conference or retreat.

I say six to eight because I want you to protect yourself. What if you submit your query to all agents on your master list, but—heaven forbid—your query letter stinks? Every agent will turn you down, and you’ll have hit a brick wall at the beginning of your journey. Instead, submit to a limited number of agents and gauge the response. If you submit to seven agents and get seven rejections with no reps asking to see more work, then guess what? Your query stinks. So edit it. Overhaul it. Give it to friends, beta readers, and maybe a professional book editor for a look.

This concept holds true throughout the submission process. Let’s say that you send your polished query to seven more literary agents and get four responses asking for more work. Congratulations—your query letter is doing its job. But none of those four agents who see a partial ask to read your full manuscript. Guess what that means? Your first few chapters aren’t up to snuff. Revise them. Overhaul them. Give the chapters to friends for a blunt critique. Remember that agents will almost never reply with a personalized rejection detailing where your story went wrong. It’s up to you to figure out why you’re falling short.

If you think six to eight is actually too
many
to send to, remember that 99 percent don’t necessarily want to review the query exclusively. Agents are aware that authors target multiple reps at once, so (unless the agent specifically asks to know) your query doesn’t need to say, “This is a simultaneous submission.”

The only instance in which you’ll submit to fewer than six to eight is if you want to entice an agent with the news that your query is exclusive. This is a risk, so make sure the agent knows what you’re doing, or it’s all a waste of time. When you send the e-query, have the subject line read, “Query Exclusive for [Agent Name]: [BOOK TITLE].” Then repeat in your query letter’s first lines that you are querying this agent exclusively and why. Drive the message home. The hope is that this will stir the agent to action and that she will treat your submission as a top priority for review. Most will read it soon, as they realize that an exclusive query is a rare thing. If the agent does not respond within three to four weeks, it’s time to move on and query others.

Unfortunately the high that comes when you begin formal submissions might quickly be dampened if rejections start trickling in. The truth is that rejection is a natural and necessary part of the submission process. An agent can’t just like the work or even like it a lot—she has to
love love love
the book to take it on. Slowly but surely casting a wide net gives you the best chance of generating that bolt of lightning between you and an agent.

There are different ways agents will reject writers. Like I mentioned, the “silent rejection” is unfortunately becoming more popular. Then there is the “form rejection” pasted into a reply. And finally there is the elusive yet immensely valuable “personalized rejection,” when an agent takes the time to address you and your work in the reply. Because it would take many hours out of each week, agents can only give personal rejections to 1 to 10 percent of all the work they turn down. If you do get a personalized rejection, review that agent’s thoughts and notes closely. You’re essentially getting a free critique. Another reason personalized rejections are interesting is that they are often an unspoken invitation to submit your book again if you implement the agent’s suggested changes (though this is not always the case).

No matter what kind of rejection you receive, nothing good can come from getting angry or defensive. Rather than shooting off a half-baked attack at the agent, your time is much better spent finding a new market to query or determining whether your writing still needs work.

If you do receive some nos, you can take comfort knowing countless writers before you went down this same path before finding success. Kathryn Stockett, author of
The Help
, claims that sixty agents said no before one fell in love with her novel. The first Harry Potter book was rejected more than ten times. John Grisham’s first novel was turned down forty-five times before someone said yes. The list goes on—so do not lose heart. Successful authors meet rejection with more hard work. As Stockett collected her rejections for
The Help
, she continued to rewrite and revise the novel to help her chances, and that probably was the reason she found success in the end.

• Most of your correspondence will be electronic, and while there is a tendency to be less formal over e-mail, resist that habit. Address the agent as you would in a paper letter—be formal. Casual elements like sarcasm do not come across well over unsolicited correspondence, simply because an agent cannot read your tone or see your expression.
  
• Personalize your query to each agent or market. No mass submissions to multiple people at the same time. Make sure that you have the agent’s name spelled correctly. If the agent’s name is “Sam Johnson” and you are not positive of the agent’s gender, use neither “Mr. Johnson” nor “Mrs. Johnson.” Just address the agent as “Sam Johnson.”
  
• Make sure you fully understand the guidelines and are submitting the correct materials—if you’re unsure, do more research.
  
• Make the e-mail’s subject line exactly what the agent requests. If she doesn’t specify, simply writing, “Query: (TITLE)” is a safe bet.
  
• Keep your emotions in check: Resist the temptation to send a response after being rejected such as “Please reconsider!” Keep your e-mails businesslike—and spend your time more effectively.
  
• Whether it’s a print or e-mail submission, don’t type in all caps or all lowercase. Use proper punctuation, and always pay attention to grammar and spelling.
  
• Double-check the mailing address or e-mail address. One wrong letter in an e-mail address is enough to lose your letter in cyberspace forever.
  
• If querying by e-mail, make sure all your font and type size is the same. Since you will be cutting and pasting into e-mail, different sentences can appear different sizes. Send yourself or a friend a test e-mail to check for such an issue.
  
• Make no demands. Anything that seems like a demand (“Respond to my letter within two weeks to respect my time”) is a major turnoff. Even polite requests can be annoying. It’s not an agent’s job to critique the work for you, so don’t say, “I welcome feedback on my query letter and novel.”
  
• Act with humility. No matter your current accomplishments, and no matter how much you think your novel is the best thing since
  Breaking Bad
  , you need to stay professional and simply discuss the story. Even if your writing history is impressive, be sure to state your accomplishments quickly and humbly.
  
• Keep a detailed list of submission information—such as where you sent queries and when or if you should personally hear back. This will prevent you from following up with agents too soon or nudging people who have specifically said, “If you don’t hear from us, consider that a no. Do not follow up.”
  
• Unless you have a serious health concern that prevents you from using a computer, submit your book yourself. Don’t have a friend or relative submit your book for you. This kind of communication gets confusing, and the agent may not know who to address in correspondence. Plus, it can give an agent pause to wonder why the writer is not confident enough or able to submit his own work.
  
• Keep exclamation points, bold, underlined text, and italics to a minimum.
  
• Never submit any material for publication that you do not own the complete rights to. For example, don’t submit a fan fiction novel about Batman or other copyrighted characters.
  
• Don’t call. Yes, there will always be that one story of that one guy who called up an agency cold and got an agent on the phone and explained his story and the book became a bestseller. But reps have submission guidelines for a reason. Agents
  hate
  phone queries.
  
• If you do use snail mail, don’t try to set yourself apart by using fancy stationery. Standard letterhead and envelopes are preferable.
  

An exclusive submission is when an agent asks to be the only one reviewing your material at the current time. While virtually no agents ask for an exclusive query letter, this subject does start popping up when an agent requests your full manuscript. Some agents do not believe in this practice.

Agents who favor exclusives do so to protect their time: They don’t want to spend their entire weekend reading a long novel, only to call the writer on Monday morning to offer representation and learn the author just signed with someone else last week. Typically these agents will reply to your query like this: “Thanks for your submission. The novel sounds intriguing. Please send me the full manuscript attached in a Word doc. I request an exclusive on the work for forty-five days.”

At that point, it’s up to you to decide whether or not to grant the agent the exclusive she asks for. Don’t worry if the manuscript is already under review elsewhere; you can reply and explain just that.

If you simply tell the truth and explain the situation, you have the best of all worlds. You, in a way, honor the agent’s request. But you still have multiple agents considering the manuscript, and this latest agent gets to hear you say there is already enough interest in the book that other reps are hovering around it.

But let’s be honest. Writers rarely get excited when an agent mentions an exclusive. It’s exciting to see your work generate interest, but an exclusive can stop the submission process in its tracks. If a second agent were to write next week and ask to see the manuscript, you would have to tell her that the manuscript is under exclusive currently and that you can only pass it to her once the time frame expires in [X] days. This can be frustrating.

So here’s a better way to go about it: If an agent asks for an exclusive, note that you can always send the manuscript (or nonfiction book proposal) to her and nicely decline her request for an exclusive review period. How she reacts to this decision is uncertain and could mean less interest or priority given to it, or it could mean no change whatsoever. Or you can limit the length of time for exclusives. If an agent asks for a “three-month exclusive on the full manuscript,” you can respond with the manuscript and say that you would be happy to grant her an exclusive but wish to limit the time frame to one month (or six weeks or whatever you feel comfortable with). Lastly, if an agent asks for an exclusive and you agree to one—only to realize that no time frame was ever discussed—follow up after thirty days if you’ve received no note from the agent and politely ask her how much more time she thinks she requires.

From time to time, the submission waters can get a little murky—with scamming “agents” lurking in Internet shadows. Luckily this is not much of a concern nowadays as the job of the agent has evolved and become more standardized and search engines do a good job of keeping scammers from the top of the search results. But just to be safe, let’s discuss how to protect yourself from unscrupulous people looking to make your wallet a little lighter.

The concept of literary scammers is nothing new and has evolved over time. Twenty years ago, some writers were still confused about whether agents were allowed to charge money simply to read your work and consider the project. So much confusion existed that databases divided agents into two categories: “fee-charging agents” and “non-fee-charging agents.” Now you’d think that writers would have an easy time deciding who to contact, but plenty of agents who charged fees were skilled at selling books to editors, so a writer’s query process was complicated.