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Teri -- you rebel, you! When you get rich and famous and everyone asks how you did it, are you going to say, "I broke all the stupid rules and disobeyed all the editor guidelines to get here"?
I believe the guidelines are there to trap the unwary.
But for that matter, I believe agents are there to trap the unwary.
Bad Cat says something like, "After all, the agent's job is to prevent manuscripts from reaching New York editors."
I have another story. I was chatting with an assistant editor (email chat) and I asked her, "So how do editors feel about a writer checking in after 3 months?" She said nobody minds a polite check-in after three months. Then she said, "But you have to remember that most editors feel they have to read the agented stuff first, so you may have to wait longer."
(This is a house which says NO UNAGENTED SUBMISSIONS by the way.)
Now when I was younger and less wise, say 1 year ago, I would have heard that and felt like I was a second-class citizen because I wasn't represented.
now, being older and wiser, I know editors did not respond any quicker when I was represented. A few responded very quickly, like after 2 - 3 weeks, but most were 2 - 3 months. There were also no responders when I was repped.
How sensible is it to spent a year getting an agent (query, wait, partial, wait, full, wait wait wait, revise, wait some more) to maybe shorten the wait time by a few weeks.
So now, instead of feeling like a second class citizen, I feel like I elected not to get screened out.
ETA: I posted but deleted as unnecessary my usual disclaimers about how yes, the agent model works for some people. And obviously, doing things this way is no cake walk either.
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