Irene Goodman Literary Agency

August said:

I queried 4/22 to the queries@ address (from my gmail account) and all seemed fine. No bounce, no message...

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What was your subject line, August?

Maddie said:

Checking PM - did you try to send to either Irene Goodman at irene@ irenegoodman.com, or to Miriam Kriss at [email protected]?.

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Their website is very specific. Unsolicited mail sent to these addresses will be deleted unread.

Alright, new attempt. I just sent a message to the query email address stating the problem with queries not getting through. I honestly didn't expect it to work at all, but it looks like it might have made it. So it's definitely something in the bodies of the queries that's tripping it up (unless my failed message report is just slow. It happens sometimes).

I'm hoping that I get an answer to this one, and if I do I'll be sure to let everyone know. Anyone want to PM me their queries? Maybe I can see if there's something in particular those of us who aren't getting through are all doing.

Kristoff said:

What was your subject line, August?

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query - TITLE

That was mine, too. I also tried variations to see if that was the problem.

August said:

query - TITLE

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And you pasted in a synopsis and first ten pages? (I'm wondering if mail length is causing the bounces)

I wondered that, too. I pasted everything in as well. Actually, mine was more like the first eight pages, but still. Totally weird, huh?

Kristoff said:

And you pasted in a synopsis and first ten pages? (I'm wondering if mail length is causing the bounces)

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Yes and yes. Now you got me worried that just because I didn't get a bounce message something even worse probably happened to it. Even when things go right I can't relax...

Nah, if it hadn't worked, you would have gotten the message. I think there's just something unusual in the query or something that a few of us have that's causing problems. I imagine we're getting caught by a hungry spam filter.

I read, somewhere, that something as simple as your email address can suck you into a spam filter. I've taken to doing the (at) & (dot) thing. Is that too simple?

Mine's just my name. I tried two separate yahoo accounts and a gmail one. I really don't see why my name would get a spam filter hit, though.

Sorry, I meant your email address in with your contact info in the body of the query. I'm grasping at straws...

Sara Lou said:

Interesting, I haven't heard back from her on a query I sent April 1st; I was going to see if I could do a follow-up in person. Oh well.

Hope her family is ok though.

Hillary, are you going to Pennwriters? Is anyone on this thread going? I know absolutely no one that is going to be there.

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Sorry, didn't come back to this thread until just now. I'm not going, although when I took another look at the website today, I saw her profile still up. Not sure if they didn't update the website or if her issues resolved.

August said:

Sorry, I meant your email address in with your contact info in the body of the query. I'm grasping at straws...

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Interesting. I've just got it written like a normal email address. Let me try it out and see. Nope, doesn't make a difference. I think I'm just going to send one snail mail and see what happens.

I copy/pasted Kaitie's bounce message into google. It seems there are a lot of complaints.

I think Roly and Sciri are on the right track. Not blocking your email addy per say, or whats in your email, but your server. If you are trying different email addresses from your own computer, and they are all getting that message it could be the Goodman Agency uses Gmail and it is blocking messages from your IP address (because it is prone to spam by other users.). Gmail blacklist certain servers if they have users that send out to much spam. So not necessarily your email account but your servers IP address (company you use to go on line with).

So go here and get your IP address. It will probably come right up as soon as YOU click on it. Then click on the blacklist tab and see if your IP address is blacklisted.

Try using a different computer, like at a library. If they have a different server then you do at home (or where ever you normally email from) it might go through.

Just a thought.

HistorySleuth just made me think of something. What are the chances we aren't getting through because of language? Do those of you getting through have words like fuck in your sample pages? The language is actually rather mild in general in mine, but one of the two characters in the opening has a potty mouth. At first I thought that would be goofy, but I could see a spam filter trying to weed out porn not accepting something with the word "fuck."

My sample pages have no such vulgar language (that comes later in the book).

Yeah neither do mine. This is still a mystery. I wonder if anyone who is repped by the Irene Goodman agency can maybe pass along what's going on so at least we know they know there's a problem.

You know...this might work. Try sending just the query and adding a line in there that you're getting a bounce back and you believe it might be something in the sample pages not getting past the spam filter. I've got a feeling that it's probably something in there that's messing us up. If they're actually interested in seeing pages, they can always write back and ask for an attachment, ne?

Maybe try commenting in one of Barbara Poelle's posts at Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room to let them know what's up? http://heydeadguy.typepad.com/heydeadguy/

I queried Barbara on 5/19 and didn't get a bounceback. I'm using my own domain email address via Yahoo's email program.

It's not the length because my samples were only like seven pages instead of ten and I've got a short synopsis. I think there's probably a certain word or something setting it off. not entirely sure, though.