Three months ago, three different agents requests MS on my MG chapter book. Meanwhile I have a fourth who wants an exclusive. Should I contact the three agents or continue to be patient (not)?
3 months and counting
- Thread starter jonereb
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There's nothing wrong in making a polite inquiry if those agents have had your work for three months -- unless each one has clearly posted on his/her website that his/her turnaround time is a minimum of six months ...
... even then, though, I would feel well within my rights to contact an agent -- because if one short/polite inquiry from me after 12 weeks is going to piss him/her off, well, then, I wouldn't want him/her to represent me!
And congratulations for having so many agents interested in reading your work! Way to GO!
BTW: If you cannot get an answer from all three at this point, then explain the situation to the new agent. While you wouldn't be able to offer him/her an exclusive, you could promise not to send the work out to any further agents -- as well as offer him/her an exclusive for the rest of the work (should he/she want to read further). I did that once, and the agent thought it was just fine.
... even then, though, I would feel well within my rights to contact an agent -- because if one short/polite inquiry from me after 12 weeks is going to piss him/her off, well, then, I wouldn't want him/her to represent me!
And congratulations for having so many agents interested in reading your work! Way to GO!
BTW: If you cannot get an answer from all three at this point, then explain the situation to the new agent. While you wouldn't be able to offer him/her an exclusive, you could promise not to send the work out to any further agents -- as well as offer him/her an exclusive for the rest of the work (should he/she want to read further). I did that once, and the agent thought it was just fine.
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Who's the agent? Most are pretty lenient when you say other agents are reading, but a few won't budge on the exclusive issue. And congrats on the interest!
Doing a quick Google search on her, it seems that she's unreliable when it comes to response times (for instance, serveral people who gave her an exclusive 1-month partial didn't hear back from her after two months' time, and their status e-mails went unanswered). I'd definitedly recommend asking for a non-exclusive on this one.
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