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Inklings Literary Agency, LLC

52greg

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Inklings Literary Agency

What's the word on this agency? I queried Michelle Johnson there April 10 and got a request for a full yesterday.
 

amergina

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Thread is here: <snipped>

There's a lovely sticky at the top of the BR&BC forum that indexes the threads. :)
 
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UnbearableLight

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Just wanted to update to say no word. Not sure if that means a no/no.
 

52greg

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I sent Michelle Johnson a requested full manuscript on May 6, and got a nice note from her today apologizing for the delay in response and promising to get back to me as soon as she read it. I took the opportunity to tell her the novel is part of a trilogy.
 

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Has anyone heard from Alex Barba lately? I queried her in mid-March and am approaching 3-month rejection window. Her Query Tracker profile is quiet, no one posting about form rejections or requests for fulls. I was optimistic that she would write back based on MSWL tweets that match with my MS (so stupidly optimistic that I was actually worried an agent with my full might read mine before I heard back from Ms. Barba! Which is hilarious, because publishing is excruciatingly slow. That other agent still has my full, so fingers crossed on that one!)

Anyway--mostly just wondering if she sends form rejects or not--a nice form reject puts me out of my misery. A "If you have not received on answer after 3 months, it's a rejection" is slow, painful torture.

(Also straight obsessing that somehow ONE LETTER in my query letter is randomly underlined (how? I don't know. The poltergeist that lives in my computer must be very pleased) and been stressing for weeks that she could have discarded based on that. :foilhat:
 

Pisco Sour

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Rejection from Michelle. Queried with 10 pages May 4th, polite 'liked the humour but did not connect with voice' rejection June 3rd.
 

WriterRoo

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Rejection from Michelle. Queried with 10 pages May 4th, polite 'liked the humour but did not connect with voice' rejection June 3rd.

Sorry for the R, Pisco! At least she was relatively quick. Are you going to query any more inside Inklings? I hadn't really looked at anyone outside Alex until this thread, but after reading other posts I went through the bios and they have some great people. If I hit the 3 month mark with her I guess I'll consider it a CNR and think about moving on in the firm.
 

Pisco Sour

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Sorry for the R, Pisco! At least she was relatively quick. Are you going to query any more inside Inklings? I hadn't really looked at anyone outside Alex until this thread, but after reading other posts I went through the bios and they have some great people. If I hit the 3 month mark with her I guess I'll consider it a CNR and think about moving on in the firm.

Thanks! I'm not having any luck with this book! It's a previously published novel, so that makes it much more difficult. To answer your questions I hadn't thought of querying anybody else at the agency (can I do that? I need to check their guidelines). In all honestly, I'm waiting for the other agents I queried to get back to me--if they do--and if it's all rejection I'm going to trunk this book for a few years while I write my other books and pursue agency representation with those. I'm polishing up a new novel in hopes of having it ready to query agents in the autumn. Good luck with querying--it's hell out there, and yet we do it. :evil
 

Thedrellum

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Since they don't say not to, the general assumption is that you can (submit to another agent in the agency, I mean). Most agencies that don't will specifically say you can only query one agent at the agency for each project.
 

Pisco Sour

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Since they don't say not to, the general assumption is that you can (submit to another agent in the agency, I mean). Most agencies that don't will specifically say you can only query one agent at the agency for each project.

Thanks! Maybe I will once I'm over my current slumpy mood about this book.
 

ZachJPayne

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I queried Alex Barba on 4/11, still no word. Debating whether or not I should close it out (as per QT statistics) and try another agent in-house.
 

Thedrellum

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I usually close out using QT statistics as a guide, but I find it more tricky when querying someone else in the same house. Because they specify three months on their submission guidelines, I'd wait until then before sending another query over there.
 

UnbearableLight

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Has anyone heard from Alex Barba lately? I queried her in mid-March and am approaching 3-month rejection window. Her Query Tracker profile is quiet, no one posting about form rejections or requests for fulls. I was optimistic that she would write back based on MSWL tweets that match with my MS (so stupidly optimistic that I was actually worried an agent with my full might read mine before I heard back from Ms. Barba! Which is hilarious, because publishing is excruciatingly slow. That other agent still has my full, so fingers crossed on that one!)

Anyway--mostly just wondering if she sends form rejects or not--a nice form reject puts me out of my misery. A "If you have not received on answer after 3 months, it's a rejection" is slow, painful torture.

(Also straight obsessing that somehow ONE LETTER in my query letter is randomly underlined (how? I don't know. The poltergeist that lives in my computer must be very pleased) and been stressing for weeks that she could have discarded based on that. :foilhat:

I think she's pretty new to the biz. I am in the same boat as you - no word still. I've mostly written her off, though I don't think I ever put anything up on QT about submitting. Probably should've.
 

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I know that no-replies are becoming the new form reject in some cases, but they're so much more emotionally destructive to authors. :cry:

A form reject is like, "oh well that sucks, but no big deal I'll just move on." But a no-reply drags out that glimmer of hope like, "they just haven't read it yet, there's still a chance!" and then slowly you go through the stages of "did they miss it? did it get hung up on spam? I obviously can't write them to check because that's new-author suicide." Then to wondering if they read it and obsessively scanning the content that you sent. And finally it's like being broken up with by someone who couldn't bother breaking up with you--that person you went on one date with and then they never called. And you just keep asking yourself what you did wrong. And it's not like a generic form reject gives you any more explanation than a no-reply--but it's an easier pill to swallow, and there's usually just enough sugar in them to convince yourself that your work really didn't fit their list right now, but your next project really will.
 

Filigree

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I follow a very firm rule when querying: after five months of no-response, I consider that a 'No Interest' from that agency and move on. The only exception is when I'm following the agent on social media and know they are genuinely that far behind, and they're occasionally tweeting their progress ('Hey guys, it's May and I'm done with the previous November's queries!')

Other than that, I figure five months is enough time for them to decide if my query is worth more info. If not, then they were obviously not the agency for me, and I move on. Spreadsheets help.
 

Helix

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I know that no-replies are becoming the new form reject in some cases, but they're so much more emotionally destructive to authors. :cry:

A form reject is like, "oh well that sucks, but no big deal I'll just move on." But a no-reply drags out that glimmer of hope like, "they just haven't read it yet, there's still a chance!" and then slowly you go through the stages of "did they miss it? did it get hung up on spam? I obviously can't write them to check because that's new-author suicide." Then to wondering if they read it and obsessively scanning the content that you sent. And finally it's like being broken up with by someone who couldn't bother breaking up with you--that person you went on one date with and then they never called. And you just keep asking yourself what you did wrong. And it's not like a generic form reject gives you any more explanation than a no-reply--but it's an easier pill to swallow, and there's usually just enough sugar in them to convince yourself that your work really didn't fit their list right now, but your next project really will.

It's not really like breaking up with someone, because you aren't in a relationship. At best, it's a rebuff to an advance.
 

Thedrellum

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A lot of agents list the number of months you should wait for a reply before considering it a rejection (most often it's three). If you're willing to spring for a QueryTracker membership, you can also check the normal response times for agents to see how long you should, reasonably, wait before counting the agent not interested.
 

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@Helix that's fair, that's fair.

@UnbearableLight -- Thanks. I got a polite rejection on my first full manuscript request (from another agent, still waiting on Alex from Inklings re: query) That one stung.
 

UnbearableLight

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{Hugs} I'm sorry, that sucks.

Thanks :) It's not so bad, though I'm disappointed in the total lack of feedback. I'm going to suppose that she's too inundated for it and think no more of it after this post!
 

Earthling

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Just to clarify, you can query another Inklings agent if one rejects or doesn't get back to you within three months. It's not the kind of place where they send MSs on to each other as a matter of course.