Is it standard for an agent to ask for a NF full?

tigger33

First of all, thank you to all the wonderful writers and agents who post here! I'm new to the business and truly appreciate this board.

I haven't seen this issue addressed specifically, so I'm hoping someone can help. I'm working on a NF book and have had a couple of nibbles from agents based on my query letter. (Yay!) Published-writer friends have told me that it's usual to sell NF on the basis of a proposal and sample chapters, and that agents/publishers will often want input--so I didn't finish the book before querying. Now I have a (reputable) agent asking for the full!

I plan to let her know it's not finished yet and see what she says. Meanwhile--is this now the standard? Can I expect a similar request from other agents (assuming they're interested)?

Thanks in advance.
 

CaoPaux

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How exactly did you query it? That is, did you query for the book or for a proposal? If you gave the impression that the book was finished (rather than query along the lines of "may I send you my proposal") then the agent could be confused.
 

Jamesaritchie

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tigger33 said:
First of all, thank you to all the wonderful writers and agents who post here! I'm new to the business and truly appreciate this board.

I haven't seen this issue addressed specifically, so I'm hoping someone can help. I'm working on a NF book and have had a couple of nibbles from agents based on my query letter. (Yay!) Published-writer friends have told me that it's usual to sell NF on the basis of a proposal and sample chapters, and that agents/publishers will often want input--so I didn't finish the book before querying. Now I have a (reputable) agent asking for the full!

I plan to let her know it's not finished yet and see what she says. Meanwhile--is this now the standard? Can I expect a similar request from other agents (assuming they're interested)?

Thanks in advance.



If you've never sold a book before, you'll probably have to finsih it before anyone buys it. There are exceptions, but you simply can't count of this happening. Pubishers simply do not like handing new writers money until after they have a finished product in hand, whether it's for fiction or nonfiction.

Why should they? For all they know, you'll take the money and run, or simply never finish the book.