New Query/Requery

Spiny Norman · Apr 16, 2007

I just wanted to run this by you folks. More than a month ago I sent an equery to one agent at an agency. She asked for a partial, which I sent, and then after a very long period of time she sent me a rejection, saying that she thought the beginning was a little overwritten and didn't get started fast enough.

About two weeks later I made significant alterations to the beginning of the book, completely revising the first three chapters. I then began another round of queries, these all by snail mail, and one of the agents that I planned to query was another agent at that same agency. This was a little over a half a month after I had finally gotten that rejection.

Did I just do a no-no? That agent doesn't accept equeries and also asks for the first chapter, which I included, much changed. But I understand that there's a rule that if one agent rejects you, they all do... even if it's a pretty big agency.

So do I need to do something even up my karma here, or is it all good?

ccarver30 · Apr 16, 2007

A comment, not an answer-
It seems kind of dumb that if one agent rejects novel X, and you send it again to another agent at the same place they would reject novel X+abcde.
I wonder if they log in stuff they have already rejected and just do a search by title or something so they don't do double work... hmmm...

:Shrug:

Spiny Norman · Apr 16, 2007

I suppose it may be unneccessary worrying, as the worst that can happen is that nothing will change and I still won't have a shot with that agency. ...unless agents have newsletters they all read that say, "This person sent in two queries, please do not accept anything from him in the future and if you see him crossing the street we strongly suggest you accelerate and go YEEEHAW."

RainbowDragon · Apr 16, 2007

I think it depends on the agency. If they don't specifically say on their website "A rejection from one of us=a rejection from all of us, so deal, people," it should be OK to query another. For instance Lowenstein-Yost says it's ok just so you query only one at a time whereas other sites have generic query e-mail addresses and/or say outright that it's one query per customer (if I remember correctly from my last round of rejections).

Lots of e-queries tend to get deleted without a response anyway, so if you made a faux paus, I'm sure they can deal.

ChaosTitan · Apr 16, 2007

I had a partial rejected by an agent at Agency Y last year. After several months and some rewriting of the beginning, I started a new round of querying, and have a partial of the revised chapters on submission to another agent at the same agency.

From what I understand, many agencies don't want you to spam every single agent with the same query/pages. If they think someone else at their agency will like a project, they will pass it along to that person. If not, rejection.

It seems different if you are sending revised pages. One agent blogged that they rejected an author's pages several times (and over the course of several revisions and re-queries) before eventually reading a full and accepting them as a client.

herdon · Apr 16, 2007

It depends entirely on the agency. I've talked to some agents that don't want the same manuscript proposed to multiple agents at the their agency, and read in guidelines of other agencies that it is okay so long as they aren't simultanious.

Rob B · Apr 16, 2007

Everybody has given the exact advice I would have. With the way this market is, I think we all have to find agencies who handle our genre and then beat on that agency with queries until every opportunity is exhausted (again, while respecting agency guidelines).

What's the worse that can happen? A writer is not going to get blackballed for having faith in his/her work. This is unfortunately as much a game of percentages (and diminishing returns) as anything. And I think it's obvious the more exposure, with the right agency, the better the potential.

AllieB · Apr 17, 2007

I say go ahead and send your new query to the other agent. It's not likely that the one agent at X agency will have exclusive rights to say no to everything you submit. Many agencies say it's OK, just don't query more than one of their agents at the same time.

Spiny Norman · Apr 17, 2007

Okie doke. This feels okay, then.

ccarver30 · Apr 17, 2007

Spiny Norman said:
I suppose it may be unneccessary worrying, as the worst that can happen is that nothing will change and I still won't have a shot with that agency. ...unless agents have newsletters they all read that say, "This person sent in two queries, please do not accept anything from him in the future and if you see him crossing the street we strongly suggest you accelerate and go YEEEHAW."

LMAO!!!!!

New Query/Requery

Spiny Norman

ccarver30

Nicole Castro

Spiny Norman

RainbowDragon

Perpetuous Revisasaurus

ChaosTitan

Around

herdon

What's up?

Rob B

AllieB

Spiny Norman

ccarver30

Nicole Castro