Advice on exclusive

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Dragonfly45

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Question- I had an agent request a two week exclusive on a full last week, which I sent via e-mail per her directions. I obviously couldn't grant the exclusive as I have partials out already, which I told her, and she said to send it anyway, asking me to hold off on sending to other agents until the two weeks was up, and I agreed. However, I asked in my email for her to please let me know she received the attachment (in the past I've waited a whole 8 weeks for an agent to respond on an e-mail sent partial before finding out she never received it)...not a peep (sent it on Wed. last week, but this agent has returned emails each time within a day). Should I send an email checking or just sit on my hands and wait? I don't want to be the "did it get there" girl, but I also don't want the exclusive lasting forever, either, as I've gotten another request since then. Thanks for any advice. And before you say it, yes, I know I'm paranoid! :)
 

maestrowork

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NEVER badger the agent. If it's a two-week exclusive, wait two weeks. If you don't hear from her for another two, then send a follow-up inquiry reminding her that the exclusivity has expired. Now, if you're truly unsure if the agent received it and you asked for a confirmation but didn't receive one, it's okay to ping the agent and ask if she did receive it. Just be courteous and don't appear to be paranoid, desperate or anything.
 

Dragonfly45

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Thanks, maestro. Yes, I definitely know I should not badger her...but since I asked for confirmation and didn't get one and I recently had this same thing happen and the agent really hadn't received my materials, I'm a little concerned. I think I'm going to sit on it another day or two and if I don't hear, then I'll ask.
 

jclarkdawe

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If you feel you have to contact the agent (Maestroworks has good advice), then you have two approaches. One is via an email, the other is to call the agency and ask to speak to the agent's ASSISTANT.

Either way, you need to sell strongly that you have been having problems with your email and you don't know whether it's been received or not. Next time send yourself a blind cc (BCC) to make sure stuff goes out.

Totally lost emails are rare, unless your email does not tell you when it bounces (send out an email with a bad address -- you should get a message that address can't be found). This should work either with the wrong domain name and the wrong individual name.

Lost emails are usually caused when the receiptant hits the delete button by mistake. It's a random error and not much you can do about it.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

Dragonfly45

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I still wonder if the reason the last one got "lost" was because of an aggressive spam filter or something...I mean, I put in the subject Requested Material with my title, but I guess you never know.
 

ORION

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LOTTERY emails were always going into spam- call to verify it was received. It's what I always did and no one minded...
 

jclarkdawe

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but a blind cc does not tell you the other email went into spam filters

Agreed. Nor will it tell you when someone deletes a message by error. Unfortunately we can't get any information from the receiver's end. But at least it will tell you whether you're actually sending stuff. It will also tell you whether your caption will trip a spam filter if you have an account (I have one account that filters out anything that has even the whiff of being spam for checking things) with really good spam blocking.

I figure I like to cover as much of the elements of chance as I can.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 
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