Paper Cut

Hi Meira. I do think you can spread yourself too thinly. I used to do the shotgun approach, but I've become more selective as I get older. My advice would be to have 5-10 queries out that at a given time. I send them out in waves, doing several in a single day, and then fall back and wait.

As you can see from my sig, I went for the shotgun approach this time. So far it hasn't been too successful. But I dunno.

The only problem with the shotgun approach is that if you're like me, and you have anxiety, you might begin to wonder if you sent your piece out too soon (especially when you start getting a lot of rejections in a row), and since you've sent it to so many places, you might start to feel like you've burned bridges.

Fear not, though. Most agents won't remember you if you query them again in 6-12 months (especially with a different project), and there's bound to be at least one agent who will offer positive advice and allow you to resubmit without being sneaky, if you don't get any acceptances.

Good luck!

I have to say that so far I've gone with the selective approach. I've got a few rejections that say that the MS is good, but not good enough... and I'm afraid that if I pebbledash the place with MS 1 then I'll have run out of agents by the time MS 2 (hopefully a better one) is written. But having said that I have all my rejections back now so I'm going to start querying MS1 again. I'll stick to a couple at a time though. Also,as I'm working in the UK market the process tends to involve printing, sending and posting 3 chapters so it's a lot more time consuming than a query letter. That's just me though!
Good luck!!!

I have a rule that everyday I don't get any agent responses--rejections or otherwise--I send out two more queries.

It works well.

I was very research-intensive when I started querying. I bought the Guide to Literary Agents, cross-referenced it with P&E and Publishers Marketplace, and checked out the chatter on forums. So when I was ready to start sending letters, I knew which agents might make a good fit for my ms.

I ended up sending out 20 queries, which resulted in four full requests and two offers. Not trying to boast, just saying that I'm not so much in favor of the shotgun approach. You might hit someone (and hopefully you hit someone awesome), but I'd rather know exactly who I'm aiming for.

Query widely, but definitely in batches. When I was first querying, I whipped up what I thought was an awesome letter and a terrific excerpt and I sent it out to about twenty people. And... got pretty much nothing but rejections. That's what tipped me off that my query wasn't as good as I thought, and my opening pages needed work, too.

Six months of revisions later, I sent out a new query letter and excerpt, and immediately got five requests on five queries. There really is a learning curve in this business... it's a good idea to give yourself some margin for error.

donut said:

Query widely, but definitely in batches. When I was first querying, I whipped up what I thought was an awesome letter and a terrific excerpt and I sent it out to about twenty people. And... got pretty much nothing but rejections. That's what tipped me off that my query wasn't as good as I thought, and my opening pages needed work, too.

Six months of revisions later, I sent out a new query letter and excerpt, and immediately got five requests on five queries. There really is a learning curve in this business... it's a good idea to give yourself some margin for error.

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I agree with this completely. It's a hard learning curve, too- if you're doing your research, you've excitedly sent your first and least effective query to your top choices of agents!

If you're querying widely, I have two pieces of advice: keep your spreadsheet meticulously up to date (It's a big hassle to reconstruct from the sent box, damn near impossible for the snail mail queries), and when possible, note addresses. A lot of agencies share space, even boxes. You don't want the person grabbing the mail to see several identical envelopes to pass around the small room, even if they are to different agencies (sometimes that other agency is a desk away).

The paper cut makes this art, though. There's a short story in there.