splitting from my agent, a few questions

Check your contract. You probably have to send the letter via registered mail, although if you are parting amicably then the agent might be fine with an e-mail.

You don't need to mention you were agented before, but you do need to check your contract, because there's probably a clause in there about how long you have to wait after your current representation ends before you can have new representation.

If an MS has been shopped around the new agent might try it with publishers who haven't seen it yet, but don't count on it. Depends a lot on how much it's been around.

It all depends on your contract. Sometimes you send a letter, sometimes an e-mail, and sometimes you phone. I think a phone call is the best way, even if you have to follow it up with a letter to satisfy your contract.

The only time you need to mention an old agent to a new one concerns any projects the old agent handled. The new agent needs to know where and when an old project was submitted so she doesn't look like an idiot by sending it to an editor who has already rejected it.

When I split with my agent we just did it through e-mail. If you both agree that it's not working out then it probably doesn't need to be more official than that. I can't recall offhand what my contract said, but I think it stated that either one of us could end it at any time if we chose. There might have been a notification period mentioned, or something like that.

If the book you're sending out now is a new one, then no, you don't need to mention anything about a previous agent.

oaktree said:

Thanks, I checked my contract, and it specificies 30 days written notice, which I assume means I have to wait a month before I start querying again. As to whether "written" means an actual paper letter, I'm not sure, but I suppose I could send her an email and if she says she needs a real letter to close out the file, I could do that as well.

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If it just says written, then e-mail should be fine. If you haven't sold anything and aren't likely to sell with that agent they could waive the 30 day clause, but that depends on your relationship.

Yes you should wait the 30 days if you don't get it waived.

I sent an initial email that was less formal and then a more formal "just the facts" letter in case she needed it for paperwork reasons. And even though she waived the 30-day clause, I still waited, but in part that was because I was going to try querying the novel she'd shopped, and I didn't yet have a query letter written for it.

In those query letters I mentioned previous representation, but with this new project I didn't, since it was an unshopped manuscript.

oaktree said:

Deadly, how did it go querying a project that had already been shopped? That's a big part of the situation I'm in now... she shopped my current project, but not widely. And now she wants to send it to e-book publishers, although we've nowhere near exhausted or options for print books. If I had my druthers, I'd be querying for this book, to find someone willing to send it out more widely to traditional publishers. I hate to think that this book is "dead" because it was sent to ten editors.

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Hope you don't mind me asking,
. . . but is that becoming part of the "new" normal practice, for an agent to shop a novel manuscript to e-publishers?