Jennifer Laughran, a literary agent (@literaticat on Twitter), posted:
If you are an author who is scrambling madly to query / get a ms out on sub “before the end of the year” listen: The year is already over. There are two useful weeks left in Nov, and two useful weeks in Dec. There are few acquisitions meetings left, and those are packed.
Jennifer posted this and several follow-up tweets. I suggest you read her notes.
To unpack this, and I am not an agent, Jennifer is saying that to accept a manuscript often requires a publishing house acquisition meeting. This holiday season, agents have kids, parents, family reunions, and life. Before submitting, check the agent carefully. Many are closing for the holidays because if they don’t, their slush pile will grow.
George’s vision of an agent at work: Forget the office in New York on the 17th floor. Picture the agent (or a reader) settling down with her laptop, one eye on the clock. She has to pick up a child, start dinner, or call to remind her mother to take her pills at five. It is 2:15 PM. Her box has 217 queries, and she laments that she had it down to ten just two days ago. Please don’t blame her if she only reads 50 words of your wonderful book, glances at your bio, and sends a rejection. After 40 minutes, she whittles her queries to 173. She looks at the clock, sips her cold tea, and charges through another 20, in 20 minutes.
She finds a manuscript that catches her attention and spends 20 minutes looking at the writer’s website and reading the full three chapters. She is undecided and marks it for another look. She glances at the clock and remembers she has to call the mechanic before five. Determined to get through another 20, she reads 20 opening lines. Two start with the MC gazing in the mirror, a ploy allowing her to describe her raven hair—easy rejections. Two more have the alarm jerking the MC from sleep followed by getting up‚ easy rejections.
The phone rings. It is a nervous/bored writer who wants to chat. The agent is kind and spends 25 minutes telling the author that publishing houses are not having acquisition meetings until the first of the year, and she has not heard from the three editors to whom she sent the manuscript in September. We must remember that agents go through the same things writers experience. Agents get rejection letters, notes, and calls.
Jennifer concludes her tweets with this:
So if you are querying, and you’re REALLY READY to query – go for it! But just know that it’s unlikely that brand-new books will be able to go on sub in the next few weeks anyway – so if you aren’t quite ready, don’t rush – TAKE THAT TIME AS A GIFT.
(Best Lesson I Ever Learned from Agents)
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