Hi again. Finally broke through the rest of my June queries yesterday. I got a little behind because of a vacation around the holiday, but I'm just about caught up to my 2 weeks response time. I'm sure I'll be behind again by next week. 

At least we spoke in May, my volume was down, with only about 261 queries. This month we're back up a bit. But my request rate is lower again. Mostly I have been really busy, and my list is pretty full, so I'm pickier again.

• Total: 297
• Requested: 3
• Categories of Requested:  All YA - 2 contemporary,  1 dystopian/fantasy
• Queries with attachments: only 2!

A word on that last point: Please don't send attachments unless I ask for it. I'm just not downloading something I'm not interested in. 

AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATORS: A few of you have been pasting images in the body of the email. This also slows me down a lot. One email was so heavy loaded with big files, I could barely scroll down. Annoying. I ask for a link to your online portfolio and website. This is easier. 

Two other weird syndromes struck my slush pile this month. First, I got a few of those queries from third parties, that is where the person sending the query is NOT the person who wrote the book. So either authors are hiring someone to do this for them (are you kidding? don't do that), or they had some weird manager on board. One of them looked to be some a small-time film agent of sorts. Basically, I auto-reject these. I want to hear from the real person.

The other one was a string of queries that were all three shades to the left of believable. Like with a little more imagination they could have been spam. They all tended to be adult non-fiction of various kinds (self-help...dating advice...health...), none of which I really represent. And they were ALL formatted exactly the same way. I'm willing to think that maybe there was a batch of people who were all following advice from a single source. Either way, it seems to have stopped, so I'm not worried. But I definitely got a whiff of spam.

And otherwise, it was a lot of the usual tropes. I've been noticing a lot of school plays, Egyptian myth, Mayan lore, etc. Tons and tons of teens with varying degrees of psychic abilities. Nothing that was exciting me all that much, but...we'll keep going!

So I'm going to do a little Q&A now about offers of representation. Obviously there are going to be a lot of permutations and probabilities of these scenarios so I won't be able to cover everything, but after asking for the main questions on Twitter, here we go:

MY END

1. How do I know when I want to offer?

 I know I love a manuscript when want to tell people about it the minute I finish reading it. But I don't always know if I want to offer until I talk to you. Sometimes the manuscript is great, but I have notes. Sometimes I want to make sure you're not crazy. Usually I get to the end of the phone call before saying, "So, I'd love work with you and offer representation."

2. Do I pass the manuscript around to the agency first?

Often enough. We're a small agency, so that's really only one other opinion. But it's nice to have a second thumbs-up, especially if I'm a little on the fence. If I'm 100% in love with it, I might just want Caren to read it so she can be equally excited about it. But we also work on different kinds of projects, so if I want to sign a picture book, or Caren is signing a new romance author, it doesn't make sense for us to share, since we're not really qualified to judge. Ultimately, my list is my own, and those are my choices.

3. Do I always revise before offering or revise after offering?

There is no "always." Sometimes I see potential but not enough to use up more hours. Sometimes I know the work isn't that much, so I should grab it. I go with my gut on this one. No hard-fast rules.

YOUR END

1. Can you query more agents if you have an offer on the table?

Well, this is a funny one. Suppose you're only part-way through querying and you start to get responses faster than you thought. But you still wanted to query a few more agents that you like. Can you rush a query out to them? The short answer is: sure. It's a free country. I've advocated before for letting even the agents who only have a query know that you have an offer--more options are always good.

But you have to do it understanding that those agents might not get to it in time. If I take 2 weeks to read, then I might not see that email until you've already made a decision. 

Now, agents sometimes do this with editors. We start to get interest, so we submit more widely to create MORE interest. But I have relationships with those editors. I can call and say, "Hey, can you read this quickly? It's going fast." Because you don't have a relationship with those agents, you can't exactly say that.

And you also have a problem of not wanting the offering agent to wait too long. But...if you think you stand a chance at getting more interest, do whatever you want as long as you understand the risks.

2. How do you go about talking to an agent's clients?

This is easy. You ask the agent who is offering if you can speak to his/her clients. They will likely say yes, and if they don't, then that's sketchy. In this situation, I will consider which client of mine would be the most helpful to speak to, based on what they write and their overall situation. (Every case is different after all.) Then I'd put you guys in touch. 

What you shouldn't ever do is go behind the agent's back and get in touch with clients without asking first. Those clients have their loyalty to me first, so they'd say "Uh, is this person legit?" And you also look like a creepy if you're looking for contact info through back channels. 

It's a different story if you already have a relationship with an agent's clients already. In that case, it's a little more fluid, and hopefully the agent knows about the relationship up front. And what would be ideal here is if it's been a referral situation. The client actually puts you guys in touch, which greases the wheels a little. 

3. How long can you ask for to notify everyone and think about the offer?

I think about a week is good. On the receiving end, if someone emails me saying they have an offer, I need at least a few days to read, think, and set up a phone call as well. It helps if there's a weekend in there too. Hopefully the offering agent is understanding, and if they're a jerk about it, well that's really telling information. But common courtesy is still the best thing you can set your career on, so stick to your guns on that and don't be bullied.