Question about nudging

lianna williamson said:

I asked this question on the daily rejection thread, but this is probably a better place for it:

There's this one very well-known agent I queried way back in April. On his website it says he responds to all queries, but it had been so long I'd marked it as a CNR. Now I've been cruising querytracker, and I see that a number of people who queried after me have already received rejections. I know he has an assistant. Could the long wait mean I've made it from the assistant's desk onto his? Or is it more likely I've been overlooked? The thought of nudging makes me nervous-- I hate the idea of coming off as an entitled nag-- but I'm really not sure if maybe my e-mail got lost or what.

What would you do if you were me?

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No harm at all in politely nudging. The worst he can say is that it was a pass. But maybe he'll say he never got it and will ask you to resend it.

In either case you won't look like an entitled nag if you queried him back in April. Any time after three months is acceptable to nudge unless his guidelines say otherwise.

Yeah. If an agent has a habit of always responding you should probably follow up, even on a query. (I had to do that with one agent because it was clear that something hadn't gotten through.) I just resent my query + plus any materials the guidelines asked for with an added note at the top that I feared my email had gotten misplaced.

[Short story submissions via email have taught me to follow up because things do get lost. As long as reasonable amount of time has passed you won't hurt anything by doing this. Even if you get a rejection, it's not like *this* will make an agent think you are being too pushy.]