Hey, I hear that some of you have been trying to post comments lately, but my website won’t give you a password. All I can say is that I’m working on it. Bear with me.

Back to agents… So you’ve begun sending out your bitchin’ queries. What do you plan to do if someone DOESN’T turn you down? Yes, it could happen.

This can be a tense time because you start to delude yourself into thinking you’ve got yourself an agent. No, all you’ve gotten is an agent who thinks you’ve written a great query letter. They may end up thinking your book stinks.

Intrigued agents may ask for as little as 5 pages or as much as the whole thing. The best situation is something in between, say the first 3 chapters. If they only want 5 pages, though, just give them what they asked. Some boneheads have advised writers that they should always send more so that they can “trick” the agent into reading the whole thing. How stupid are these people? You can’t “trick” an agent into representing you! And if they like what they read, they will ask for more. Take it easy, Mr. Pushy.

I don’t believe in sending the whole manuscript if the agent has not read any of it yet. Why? Printing and mailing get expensive. If an agent asks for the whole thing right off the bat, offer them 3 chapters and promise them the rest if they like it. You’ll save yourself a ton of money and heartache.

The reason some ask for as little as 5 pages is that there are some who believe they can “tell if you are a writer” in 5 pages or less. Hey, if that’s what they think, there’s nothing you can say to change their minds. Float with it.

Then there’s the writer who says, “Yeah, but my best 3 chapters are Chapters 9, 10, and 11.” DON’T DO IT. Every agent in the world knows that means your beginning sucks. They also know that if you don’t grab the reader right away, you won’t sell a single copy. If your first 3 chapters take too long to get going, rewrite your darn book before looking for a top-flight agent.

Would you believe that after sending what the agent asks for, the standard industry waiting period is 3 months? Yesseree. That’s why getting an agent takes longer than writing a novel. Lots of waiting, even after someone has shown interest.

What about exclusivity? Some agents ask for some chapters, but say they will only look at it if no other agents are doing the same. Here’ s my theory on that: If an agent asks to see something, that’s 1st base. I don’t marry a girl because she let me get to 1st base. The agent is being unreasonable. Once the agent has read a part of your manuscript and asks for the whole thing, that’s 2nd base. Some will ask for exclusivity at that point. Mmmmm…maybe. At that point I would be honest with them and tell them if anyone else already has it (no need for names), or if no one does, I would say, “I promise not to give the entire manuscript to anyone else as long as you get back to me in 1 week.” Sounds bold, I know. But the request is kind of obnoxious, too. I can see their point, but they’re also tying up your life’s dream and they can keep you dangling for months. That’s not fair either.

Today I was asked (I’m paraphrasing), “If I keep up with this and have a whole load of queries, partial manuscripts, and manuscripts floating all over the place, how do I keep track of it all?” Well, you do what you have to do. Some people are really automated and use a software program like Excel. Some just write stuff down by hand in notebooks. What you want to track is:

Name of agent

Contact info (address, e-mail, etc…)

Date you first queried
Result and date of result

If it was a productive query, keep logging in what they asked for and when they asked for it. Make additional notes if necessary (“told me she’d get back to me by July 1”).

Don’t be obnoxious, but follow-up, follow-up, follow-up. And don’t get angry, ever. The only thing that ever ticked me off was someone reading a partial, saying they loved it, asking for the whole thing, then dropping off the face of the earth. That’s rude because, again, they may have asked for some sort of exclusivity and even if they didn’t, printing and shipping whole manuscripts is costly and by that point (2nd base) you deserve at least a rejection to give the whole thing some closure.

A few odds and ends to finish up tomorrow, unless you point me toward other related questions or wrinkles.

Kerry