Hey literary world. So my August closure to queries was helpful, but I'm still behind. I haven't quite cleared out what was there from July (working on it). The bigger thing is that I have a lot of work to do for existing clients. 

I'm sure you would agree if you were in their shoes that an agent's first responsibility is to her clients, not her query pool. What good would I be if I just kept signing new things instead of selling the things I have, right?

So for another month, that's what I'll be concentrating on. I will reopen eventually, but for the meantime, you'll get a nice auto-response from me if you query me. Mostly they will be deleted unread. The one exception is if I've asked to see your next book before this point, please do email me anyway if you're ready to query. 

Thanks!

I promised. So here we go...

• Total: 351
• Requested: 8
• Categories of Requested: 3 MG, 3 contemporary YA, 1 YA fantasy, 1 narrative nonfiction 
• Queries with attachments: 15
• People who wrote thank you notes: 18

So compared to last month, I saw a 22% increase in queries. My request rate also went up a little. But...it's still only just shy of 3%. (Isn't that scary?) And again, there were some spam queries that all the agents I know, and some I don't, were CCed on. I delete those right away, mark as spam, and don't count them. 

My thoughts...

Style

There were a few notable events in the query pile this month that show me how little people must research ahead of time. There was one email in a pink font on a flowery pink background. My eyes hurt just opening it, and I didn't even care what the content was. Had it been on paper, I'd have expected glitter and perfume. There were also several letters that barely qualified as letters. Either incredibly casual, like "Hey there, can I send you something?" or just reeking of "I don't know what I'm doing." Those are hard to deal with, but by and large I try to find what the book is somewhere (if it's there) and send a rejection.

There's also still that weird syndrome of a lack of sample pages. I really think every listing of mine says: please include the first 3-5 pages of the manuscript in the body of the email. If it doesn't somewhere, can someone let me know? 

I included the number of thank you notes I got for my form rejection letter. It's nice when people are polite. It's less nice when they also ask me if I can recommend another agent. I don't write back to these.

But at least compared the number of people who are still sending me attachments, there are more polite people than sloppy people. The number of unsolicited attachments I got DOUBLED this month. Probably a fluke, but it goes to the point that a solid 10% of people just aren't paying attention AT ALL. And many more just plain don't get it in the first place.

Requests

I seem to be on a middle-grade kick, which is good. I'm looking for good middle-grade, so my requests fit that bill. The concepts on each of these seemed promising, hence the requests.

Obviously the narrative nonfiction was an exception, since I so rarely do those books, but I loved the writing. 

As for the YA, the contemporary YA seemed to be stronger this month in terms of writing and premise. I may also be burned out of dystopian and fantasy. Bear in mind, I already represent 3 authors who have published or about-to-be published dystopian novels. As much as I love them, I'm going to be picky. I don't want to be a one trick pony.

And that's April! Time to dig into May...and I enjoy this now, so stay tuned for the next installment next month.