Should I wait?

gideonna · May 22, 2010

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong forum, but I wasn't sure where to post.

I sent a few submissions out to YA lit agents (UK-style) in March and had no response. In the meantime, I received some great Beta feedback, ran a small revision on my first three chapters and sent out a few more subs based on the second version. Impatient, I know.

I've had a couple of R's on both versions, but yesterday I received a full request on the first. I still haven't heard from 5 agents - some have the first and some the second.

Question is - should I hold off sending out more subs until I receive responses to my other queries? Is it worth finding out which version has the higher success rate first - bearing in mind that I could be waiting for another few months?

Advice would be much appreciated.

Georgina · May 22, 2010

Hi, gideonna.

I think your sample size is too small to be meaningful, even if all five outstanding agents respond. If it were me, I'd pick the vesion I thought was strongest and keep querying.

Cheers.

DonnaDuck · May 22, 2010

One pseudo-rule of querying is you don't touch your novel while it's being queries. Now you have two versions with multiple agents. If neither version ends up going anywhere, you're going to have to do a total rewrite a third time and query a whole new set of agents because you've taken out of your pool.

Then there's the issue of only having revised the first three chapters mid-query. And the rest? You're going to have to crank out the revisions on the rest which could result in a sub-par revision due to time constraints.

Stop revising and wait to hear back from the agents you already have stuff with. If another month or so lapses and you haven't heard anything, move on. But if you keep revising during query, you're going to get yourself in a pickle that might hurt you more than help you.

Sage · May 22, 2010

Moving to Ask the Agent.

gideonna · May 22, 2010

Thanks for the replies. I'm going to go back to the first version that got a full request. The manuscript is already polished and ready to go.

I've gone back to my stats and the second version is only out with 2 agents. If I'm lucky enough to get a full request from one of these, I'll need to revise the manuscript, but as it's only structural, it shouldn't take too long. In fact, I'll probably start work on it this weekend just in case!

Here's hoping.

Should I wait?

gideonna

Georgina

Sushi at midnight

DonnaDuck

My Worlds Are Building

Sage

Our Lady of Parentheticals

gideonna