New to the board w/ question

[cavemel]

Hi There,
I'm Melonie and I've been lurking for a bit (enjoying every moment I might add). I decided to come out of my corner in order to pose this question:

If an agent at a large agency rejects a query, is it okay to submit to another agent at the same agency? I know if an editor rejects a ms, the rejection is essentially coming from the publishing house, but is that the case with agents?

I may be posting this to the wrong board. Could be it belongs in the writing forum, but I thought it would be rude to not introduce myself before sucking your brains for info. Thanks in advance for any help you may have to offer.
Melonie

[mammamaia]

in large agencies, different agents have different specialities, so if you submitted to one and were turned down because that agent didn't handle your genre, i see nothing wrong with approaching another who does...

but if you were rejected for reasons of writing quality, you wouldn't do yourself any good taking such a course... even in large agencies the agents do talk to each other and you don't want to get a rep as a pitiful pest, in case you want to try them again with future work...

best thing to do is have someone knowledgeable take a look at your work before you submit it to anyone, to make sure it's really ready to be seen... if it is, there are plenty of agencies out there... but the large ones, like wm. morris, are not too likely to take on unknown newbies, so you might want to be practical and set your sights somewhat lower...

love and hugs, maia

ps: WELCOME to AW!!!

[aka eraser]

Welcome Melonie. Yeah, you certainly don't want to make your next approach to the same agency. There are a lot of agents out there. As maia suggested, try to target those who specialize in handling books like yours.

Since you've lurked for a while I'm going to assume you've done your homework about weeding the bad ones from the good. Good luck to you. :)

[cavemel]

Thanks to both Mum and the Fishy Character. (That could be a book title. Mum and the Fishy Character - Insurrection) Anyway, I appreciate your help.
Yes, I have researched my victims, I mean agencies and I'm a huge fan of the E & P website. As far as making sure the ms is really ready for publication, I sent it through the critique process and received several thumbs up from folks I don't even know, so I'm thinking that has to be a good sign, right? Since I don't know anyone "in the business" personally, I guess that will have to do. Could be that I write a terrible query letter though. :shrug It'll happen eventually, I'm sure of it.
Thanks again for the warm welcome and the advice. Take care.
Melonie