The "Second Chance" Link (anyone else get this after querying an agent?)

capricornair

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Hi All,

Yesterday, I received a personalized rejection from one of my top agents. I knew it was a low chance (she accepts less than one percent of submissions as per QueryTracker, although I know those numbers are sometime inaccurate).

Anyway, she shared a link to the "second chance" submission page for her agency, where writers can re-submit their work, and it's read by all of the agents. I'm planning on re-submitting. Curious if this has occurred with other folks, and what their experiences were. Going to research the rest of the agents today and take a few days to prep materials again.

Thanks!
 
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alexp336

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Not something I've ever heard of myself (not that I'm some submissions fiend over here), though I know some agents say "we'll share with others at the agency if we think it's a potentially better fit." But that seems like great news for your submission!
 
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writera

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This thread might need to be moved to the Andrea Brown Literary Agency thread in Backgrounds?

I came across this the other day. Here’s some more information.

Agent Jennifer Laughran explains it in detail here:

https://literaticat.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F753564088060231680

New Submission Guidelines at ABLA​

Another not-an-ask post?! Wow!
Some of you gentle readers might remember that I've mentioned in the past how our agency submission guidelines were failing us. For a brief recap: Our original policy was "a no from one is a no from all." You had ONE chance to query the agency per submission, full stop.
People complained, so we changed it so that if you got a decline, you could try again, and then again -- so you had a total of THREE agents to query per submission.
Well -- that didn't work out great for US, because suddenly we were overwhelmed -- the number of queries per agent became absolutely out of control. (Like, double or even triple what had already been a large number!) -- AND, because of this, we were almost certainly missing out on some good stuff, either because one of the three people you chose wasn't the person who might have really loved it, or because the people you chose were overwhelmed -- so ultimately, everyone was unhappy. :(
GOOD NEWS: WE CHANGED OUR GUIDELINES AGAIN! <<< click that link to read em! Please don't query if you haven't clicked on that link! <3
Now we ask you to choose ONE agent to query. Every agent WILL respond to all their queries.
(Response times per agent vary, but every query will get a response.)
BUT! We know it is hard to choose an agent to query, since there are 15 of us, and our tastes may overlap. So, should the agent you queried decline, we invite you to submit your work to the ABLA Second Chance Inbox.
The ABLA Second Chance Inbox is a shared inbox that ALL the agents have access to -- even the agents who are currently closed to regular queries. This way we will all get a crack at EVERYTHING -- you'll know that multiple agents saw your work -- and hopefully our individual inboxes will be less overwhelming to navigate. WIN WIN WIN!
What to expect if you submit to the Second Chance Inbox:
You'll get a form indicating that your query to the shared inbox was received. If an agent is interested, they will forward the material to their own inbox, and reply to you directly.
However, with the Second Chance Inbox, you will not get a decline -- this is because we want to make absolutely sure everyone who might be interested has had the chance to look. So if it has been longer than 12 weeks, you can consider a query to the Second Chance inbox a decline from ABLA.
This is a new query process, and I do expect there will be some questions that come up. I can answer them (probably), or I can figure out the answers, and we can tweak stuff as it comes up -- but I'm VERY EXCITED about this development and I hope it helps authors, too! <3
There’s also a few follow up questions/answers elsewhere on her Ask the Agent page (which I highly recommend in general) that provides more info. One of these in particular I also found interesting:

https://literaticat.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F753833718412656640
Anonymous asked:

Hi Jenn! I'm indecisive. I have a new project but don't know which agent to query at Andrea Brown. Would it be okay to send a query to the Second Chance Inbox instead of submitting directly to an agent? I subbed to one of the agents with a different project not too long ago.

A​

I mean - you CAN do that. There’s nothing in the rule book that says you can’t.
I’d just suggest NOT doing that for the project that hasn’t been to any of the agents yet; while of course we are all pawing through the Second Chance Inbox, there’s a LOT of material in there, and it feels to me like choosing one of the agents first (whether it’s the one you queried before, or somebody else), at least you know you’ll get a response, which feels nicer (TO ME).
In the Second Chance Inbox, yes, of course, more eyes will be on it, so in that sense it’s good – but it also will have more competition. And there’s less of a sense of closure, since you don’t get a response unless somebody is interested. Which, OK, there are definitely valid reasons for that (I helped write the rules, so I do believe in them!) – it just feels like getting two whacks at the piñata is better than one. Because you can’t do the second chance inbox and THEN send it to one agent, you know?
 
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capricornair

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Thanks for sharing this info; and yes, this was from Andrea Brown Lit Agency! I'll check out the thread.
 
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Jennifer_Laughran

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Hi - I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the Second Chance Inbox (though lots of them are probably addressed on our website or on the post linked above!) :)

This is something we started literally THIS WEEK, so it is quite new -- I imagine some things will need refining/tweaking as we go along, but so far so good! :)

ETA: I posted about the change to the sub guidelines on the Bewares/Background Checks ABLA post, given that probably (hopefully!) lots of people will check there if they are planning to query the agency.
 
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Lex

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Wow, that's kind of brilliant. What a win/win for agents and authors alike. I hope more agencies adopt this approach. The "query one, query all, no second chances" rule is quite common from what I've seen.
 
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kaitie

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I was wondering how this applies to agents who are closed to queries? If agents who represent our genre are closed, for example, should we wait until they're open to send to the second chance in box? Or do all the agents check it regularly?
 

capricornair

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I was wondering how this applies to agents who are closed to queries? If agents who represent our genre are closed, for example, should we wait until they're open to send to the second chance in box? Or do all the agents check it regularly?
Not quite sure. My sense is they all check it regularly - I believe they mentioned it stays in the "second chance" inbox for four weeks, and if anyone is interested they will reach out.
 
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