"Full MS is available upon request" -- include?

A lot of people use it, I think it's pointless. The way I see it is, of course you have the full manuscript available, why else would you be querying?

It's not like if you leave it out, an agent will say "I like your query, but I wonder if you have the manuscript ready...." Because, it's obvious that you do.

Agreed. I'd leave it out. If you really want to point out that your MS is complete, there are subtler ways to do it -- eg. "My book FANCY-PANTS TITLE is complete at 80000 words."

Use it or not, I don't think it makes a great deal of difference. My queries usually included the line "The first five pages are attached below, and the full manuscript is available upon request."

And while yes, agents are going to assume you're querying because the book is finished, they still receive submissions that are incomplete. Not everyone has AW at their disposal and *knows* not to query until the manuscript is finished and polished.

LizzieFriend said:

@ChaosTitan Makes sense. I noticed some passionate responses to this in SYW (for the last time, don't do this!! etc. etc.) so i just wanted to make sure there wasn't some giant industry bias against this that I managed to miss. Thanks for the response.

Click to expand...

You're welcome.

And something important to remember about any critique you receive (whether in SYW or an outside source) is that, as the author, you have to decide what advice to use and what advice to not use. Critters aren't always right one-hundred percent of the time.

Also, check out the agents info/blogs if available, if they say they want it, include it, if they say they don't want it, omit it.

I use the "complete at 100,000 words" bit, but I think even that's overkill. I just like how it sounds. Including the word count, which is mandatory, should make it clear that the MS is completed.

I don't think we should clutter up our queries just to show that we're not one of Those People who query unfinished manuscripts, unedited work, Nano first drafts, etc.

All that said -- this is one of those tiny things that doesn't really matter in the end. Some agents want to hear it. Some agents think it's pointless. Some agents want title, genre, and word count before the pitch, some insist it needs to come after. Unless it's stated prominently in their submissions guidelines, don't worry about it. No one will reject an otherwise good query because you do one of these things 'wrong' -- and no agent can expect you to read through every single entry of their blog to figure out what they do or don't want in their queries.

Write an industry-standard query letter, polish it, check guidelines for specifics, then send it out. Don't stress too much about these details. You'll never please everyone.