carol h.
How honest do we need to be when agents ask for an exclusive on a partial or a whole? I've got a bunch of queries out, and now some requests for partials and even a few whole manuscripts are coming in, and some of the agents want exclusives for 2, 3, 4 weeks. It's like when you couldn't simultaneously submit stories to literary magazines, and editors kept them so long you only got to submit a particular story once or twice each academic year. That policy changed, and maybe this exclusive-manuscript one should too. I'm worried that if I hold back and send the ms just one at a time, the agents will lose interest and it'll be summer before I know it, when the whole industry slows down. On the other hand, I don't want to be put on some secret blackballed bad-sport list! Has anyone else wrestled with this problem? What do you advise?