Agent Dilemma

I'd do both.

Telling Agent A you got interest from others will probably speed up the reading. Then again, they may have less of a problem rejecting it if they know someone else could pick it up.

You shouldn't keep agents B and C waiting. Tell them about the exclusive and let them know you'll be happy to send them the manuscript after X days.

Let's look ahead, what would you do if agent A offered representation. Would you ask them to wait (so B and C can read) or would you take it?

A similar thing happened to me last fall. I quickly told the other two agents what had occurred, promised to keep everyone informed, ignored a question by one of them as to the identity of the other two, and waited to see what would come of it. None of the three took the ms., but the reading went a whole lot faster than it would have, and the third agent has shown interest in another project of mine, now in the early writing stage.

I disagree that telling Agent A about the other two nibbles makes your work that much easier to reject. How could that be? You're saying that not one but two other agents have confirmed Agent A's sense of judgment by expressing interest. What kind of agent would it be who lost interest in a project because others wanted to see it? That would be equivalent to saying the agent wanted to sell it to a publisher who'd produce a single copy.

Relax. Time overlaps happen all the time with multiple submissions.

Congratulations. Hope it works out, and keep us posted.

Congrats. I agree with Novelhistorian, if they LOVE your work, they'll fight for it. Multiple agents vying for a hot manuscript by an un-agented author happens all the time.

That's great news. It wouldn't be the book I read would it? :crosses fingers:

I wouldn't tell agent A (who has the work exclusively) that others want to see it. It could sound like you're trying to pressure him/her, and nothing good can come from that. Your book won't look any better to him because someone else also liked your query letter.

On the other hand, I would absolutely tell agents B and C that I'd given the work to another agent exclusively, and should that agent pass, I'll send it to them post haste. If anything, they should appreciate your honesty, not only to them, but to the agent who has the partial.

Would offering the full to the other two agents be unethical? She has an exclusive on the first few chapters, not the full ms.

Are you saying the full doesn't include the first few chapters? An exclusive is an exclusive. If you're looking for loopholes, that's probably a clue to the ethics of the situation.

Birol said:

Are you saying the full doesn't include the first few chapters? An exclusive is an exclusive. If you're looking for loopholes, that's probably a clue to the ethics of the situation.

Click to expand...

I see your point. I was raising the question, not advocating it, per se. This summer I had given a 30 day exclusive on the full, and posted about it and someone suggested that I could still send out queries during that time as long as I didn't send out any fulls. I guess the cases were not exactly parallel. In the end I wanted till the 30 days were over to begin querying.