Partial request and a question

sheadakota said:

I got a request for the first three chapters to be sent either by e-mail or snail mail. I asked the agent if she would prefer an attachment (I know they hate those) or to paste the chapters to the body of the e-mail. I Haven't recieved an answer yet (I'm being impatient, it's only been 2 days!)

My question is, should I just go ahead and send the material as both an attachment and in the body of the e-mail and let her chose which one? (Or just be patient and wait for an answer-) Or bite the bullet and print it out and send via snail mail?

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Most agents, unless they specify otherwise, only hate unsolicited attachments via query letters. I.E. if you're going to include a few pages, you need to paste them into the body of the email because the majority of agents aren't going to open any attachments at that stage of the game. However, once you get to the stage of the agent requesting a partial or full, it's a whole new ballgame and it's perfectly acceptable to email the partial or full as an attachment. You've gone past the unsolicited stage once you're getting requests for more material. I can't think of a single instance when I haven't emailed attachments to agents who have requested partials or fulls, except for when they've requested them via snail mail instead.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

I agree with Kasey. In every e-partial request I've received, the agent wanted it as an attachment. The same was true for a full.

ETA: Be sure to include a cover letter, your original query and (if requested) the synopsis.

I've always just attached as well.

I've always attached.

I'm sure agents get phishing mail and spam, but once they've replied to your query, they know your email address is genuine.

Good luck with the submission.

attachment if it's requested is pretty standard.