Deborah Harris Agency

I queried them on March 29, 2016. Got a request for the first 50 pages on June 20, 2016. Rejection on July 13, 2016.

My story!

I queried Rena back in August of 2015 when she was looking for some non-space/alien science fiction. She asked for 50 pages the next day. She asked for a full in October of 2015. In the meantime I got an R&R from another agent so I sent her the revised full in November of 2015. By February of 2016 I hadn't heard anything so I gave a gentle nudge. In May of 2016 she sent a very heartfelt detailed rejection. I emailed her right back asking about suggestions for improvements. Figure, it couldn't hurt. We exchanged a few emails where she told me what she felt was working and what wasn't. She mentioned that if the revisions made sense to feel free to resubmit again. I gave myself a month to think it over as her direction was a full heavy revision. I started the revision in June of 2016. I worked my butt off on this book until March of 2017. I sent her the manuscript and kept querying. I got an offer. I contacted Rena and let her know. She was currently on vacation but still managed to read my whole manuscript. We set up a meeting and talked. It was a fantastic conversation. I gave myself a week to consider the offers and emailed Rena earlier this week and accepted her offer of representation.

So yeah...from a reluctant rejection to an offer over the course of nearly two years!

I still can't believe it happened. We're meeting up tomorrow while she's in NYC for BookExpo!

Congratulations! I have a full out with Rena right now - I queried her after she liked a #DVpit tweet of mine and she requested the full pretty quickly. Thank you for sharing your story - I'll keep it in mind if I end up having to "nudge" or get a rejection.

Rena is one of those agents I keep coming back and wondering if I should query. #SFFpit is up in two weeks, so if she likes my entry I'll definitely try to catch her attention.

Sage said:

On Manuscript Wishlist, Rena says she wants 50 pages as an attachment, and it does seem from QT and a couple posts here that if you don't send those (or even if you do), she'll ask to "take a closer look" at them anyway, but I'm nervous about attaching to a query, and the agency website says "First two chapters of the book, or an equivalent of up to fifty pages," with no info about pasting versus attachment. Anyone have recent experience that sheds some light about her preference between pasting versus attaching, 2 chapters versus 50 pages (wildly different in my novel)?

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I actually had a novel on query with her last year, where I just sent out the query with the first chapter pasted in after the query. She later requested the additional 50 pages as an attached file, although for me the 50 pages came in right at the middle of a chapter, so I sent 57 instead. She was fine with that.

Yeah, for that particular novel, the first chapter was actually pretty short, only 5 about pages, so I figured "Well, it can't hurt, it's a taste test," and I pasted it in at the bottom.

I just checked my QueryTracker stats for that book, here's what I got for ya' Sage:

Submitted Query: 2016, March 21
Request For Partial: June 20
Request For Full: July 31
Rejection: December 20th, short, but personalized

Queried Rena Rossner with first 50 pages pasted into e-mail after #kidpit req: 23.07.17
Request for same 50 pages, this time attached as Word doc 'for a closer look': 27.09.17

Oh dear!

ETA: I did e-mail her to ask, and she sent back a prompt, polite message asking me to follow her website guidelines. Oopsie. My only excuse is that I did have other requests and I must have logged her guidelines down wrong.

Pisco Sour said:

Queried Rena Rossner with first 50 pages pasted into e-mail after #kidpit req: 23.07.17
Request for same 50 pages, this time attached as Word doc 'for a closer look': 27.09.17

Oh dear!

ETA: I did e-mail her to ask, and she sent back a prompt, polite message asking me to follow her website guidelines. Oopsie. My only excuse is that I did have other requests and I must have logged her guidelines down wrong.

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I got the same email today as well (I had pasted them in the body of the email). Looking back on her website and the agency website I don't see anywhere that it says to attach it as a word document. It just says to include it. Regardless, I want to think she wouldn't even bother with that email if it wasn't something that slightly piqued her interest. Small victories, Pisco!

TMeuretBooks said:

I got the same email today as well (I had pasted them in the body of the email). Looking back on her website and the agency website I don't see anywhere that it says to attach it as a word document. It just says to include it. Regardless, I want to think she wouldn't even bother with that email if it wasn't something that slightly piqued her interest. Small victories, Pisco!

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Absolutely! Good luck with the sub. All we can do is wait...

She liked my DVPIT tweet, so I sent her my first 50 and the query three days ago. Today she emailed me and asked for the full. I'm freaking out just a little. Time to go frantically edit.

sockycat said:

She liked my DVPIT tweet, so I sent her my first 50 and the query three days ago. Today she emailed me and asked for the full. I'm freaking out just a little. Time to go frantically edit.

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YAY! Good luck!

Rena just requested my full manuscript, 5 days after I emailed her my query. I saw some people upthread asking, so yes, I did paste in my query and synopsis and then ATTACH my first 50 pages. Different than the typical guidelines, but if she wanted it in purple ink and comic sans I'd send it to her that way! What the agent wants, the agent gets.

Seems she's requesting a lot of stuff and even taken some clients on from AW. Anyone have more recent sales info?

Back on September 21st Rena requested the first fifty pages of our near-Earth SF novel, which we promptly sent. We didn't get a response, so a month later we sent a "did you get it" email. Still no reply.

Does anyone know if this is normal? We hate to think the pages are in limbo somewhere between here and Jerusalem, and we're a bit leery about pushing it.

Thanks!

Well, I've written this one off. It's been three months since she requested the first fifty pages, and after three follow-up emails asking her if she got ever got them (given their overseas location I was more than willing to re-send them, and did), no response.

Stings like billy hell, of course, and it's utterly baffling, but them's the breaks.

Onward.

Have you tried to find her on Twitter?

Good point, Fil! I just sent her a tweet. Here's hoping.

The website indicates they do not respond to all material sent, but usually an agent who requests a partial will reply (usually, but not always.). Query Tracker shows some responses from Rena after four months. Querying is a game of patience. Submissions from August received responses in December.

Took almost (or maybe over) a year to hear back from Rena Rossner on a full manuscript request. And little to no feedback, mostly a form rejection.

Queried Rena Rossner on 6th Oct and received a full on 28th Nov

Received rejection on a full today. No feedback. Just a form rejection from Rena