The Nth Query Round

Hi everyone,

So I'm getting ready to throw my novel back in the ring with agents. Here's my situation, which I'm hoping for a little advice on.

I've been querying my novel on and off for two years. Since then, my query and novel have both gotten 100 times better. I've had some partial/full requests from some top NYC agents, and some have said really positive things about my writing, the voice, characters, etc. but no takers yet.

Last summer, I got fantastic feedback from an agent who rejected me with an offer to reread if I'd revise. She gave me a long list of detailed comments and we had a call about it. Her comments were super insightful and pointed out some serious deficits in the manuscript. It really needed a structural overhaul.

This agent emailed me around Halloween to see how my revision was coming along and reiterated that she's excited to read it. Which is really great and all. But here's my reservation: this agent is very new. She's definitely legit, but has only been an associate agent for a two-person, no-name agency for one year. She has an education in publishing and has interned at houses/literary agencies. I've been following her blog and Twitter feed since our call, and my impression is that she's savvy, smart, hungry and sincere. I have a hard time imagining she won't move eventually to another lit agency where she might gain more experience, but I can't count on that. She seems like a fast learner ... Her firm has placed books with good houses but mostly nonfic. She's still making initial contacts and getting to know editors in my genre (lit. fiction).

So...my manuscript is almost ready to send to her. As a hedge, I thought I should also requery the NYC agents who rejected but praised the ms before, plus some dream agents I didn't shoot for in earlier rounds.

I'm certain this young agent will read my revision quickly, and if she likes it enough to offer representation, I really want to have all my balls in play first to give myself the most options. My query wish list contains 30 agents, including the requeries.

Is 30 a totally insane number of queries to be sending at once? I averaged a 15% request rate with my query on its last few rounds out, but I think the manuscript and query are both much better, plus four of those agents are requeries.

I'd love to hear what you guys think and any advice on how to best handle this.

Yeah, when you put it that way, it's exactly how it feels. I think it's do-or-die time for this manuscript.

Phaeal, thanks. You summed up all my inner conflict about this. You're right. Hungry New gave awesome feedback, was generous with her time, and I do appreciate it greatly and told her so at the time. I was referred to her by a fellow writer who's one of her clients, and she loved my writing the first time around, so I know she'll put a high priority on reading. If I do submit to her and she does indeed offer rep., I'd like to know I tried the dream agents first so I can choose her gladly and quickly if it comes to that.

MsJudy, those are excellent points. And yeah, those things weigh a lot. That's why I'm so uncertain of writing her off completely. She may do an awesome job for me, and she's definitely really motivated.

She only reps one or two other lit. fiction writers and hasn't sold their manuscripts yet. I'm pretty certain she doesn't know a lot of editors in my genre yet, and I imagine my manuscript will be, in some cases, an opportunity to make the first contact. She doesn't have a mentor who's in with editors either, so it's all her legwork. She's sold other things, though, primarily nonfiction, foreign rights and at least one general fiction title to a very good house.