How do you stay out of the spam filter?

Get a gmail account, and put the word QUERY in the subject line.

The word "Query" in the subject line is the best way of avoiding it. I use Hotmail (Windows Live) and it's never happened to me.

I've never had any problems with gmail.

I'd go with gmail, too.

But the sad fact of life is that a lot of agents don't respond at all any more, even if they say they do. Keep querying!

Chances are your queries were read and rejected. Many, many agents do not respond unless they're interested.

I read somewhere recently that if you also include your title in the subject line, and your title has certain words in it, it might get caught by spam filters. Does anyone have any experience with that?

I also don't think it's a SPAM issue. I have found that numerous agents don't reply unless they are interested. It's just how it goes.

I think the title thing has some merit. I queried an agent a long time ago with an old project and heard back with a reject a few days later. A year later I queried with another project. I heard nothing back. She tweeted that she was caught up on queries and that if you did not get a response, re query. I did and got no response again. This was with a gmail account and yes, query was in the subject. I queried again from a different gmail account to no response then again from a hotmail account still with no response. Every time I wanted until she tweeted that she was caught up on queries and we should re query if there was no response and I always said that I was re querying based on her tweets. Somehow, something is making my email not get through. I don't see how or why, but I can tell you it does happen though how often is anyone's guess.

I'd say about 1 in every 100 queries I get sent ends up in the spam filter. No clue why - they are never suspicious looking to ME, but my email flags them for some reason (very possibly because they come from an account or IP that has been hacked / sent spam in the past.) These are generally yahoo and aol addresses. I have never noticed one from gmail (but then again, I am sure I don't catch all of them.)

Thanks, Jennifer!

It is a good idea to have avoid using your querying email for any activities that can get spam-flagged, like sending out a newsletter.

Never use automated signatures or include live links to your Web site or blog or whatever. Both of these things can be considered spamworthy by over-vigilant filters. Having the word "query" in the subject line helps. So does sending the e-mail to one agent at a time instead of in batches.

Other than that, you're really at the filters' mercy. There are a lot of really amateur ones out there (sorry, agents!) that are...overzealous, shall we say. They need to be set up better. But no matter how careful you are on your end, you could still end up vaporized.

I have a gmail account solely for querying, and many, MANY of my queries got snagged by agents' spam filters. Heck, I even almost lost out on a partial submission because the agent's filter snagged his OUTgoing mail! What the heck!

I have found that polite "checking in" type e-mails, to make sure the initial query got through, don't usually piss off agents. Some were very grateful that I followed up, and I got several partial and full requests from them. So sometimes radio silence isn't an implied no--but you have to check the agent's track record to see where they fall on the "no reply" scale.

I worry about the spam filter too. But what I try to do is snail mail with a SASE envelope. Receiving a responce, even if it is a reject, is probably quicker than waiting for a reply in the email.