Slush

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Resubmission Versus Requested Submission

January 25, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 33 comments

I’m seeing some of this in my slush and want to clear something up very quickly. When I request something from you, I’m emailing to ask you, “Hey, can you send me a full manuscript?” or, “Hey, can you send me a few picture book manuscripts to review?” or, “Hey, do you have an illustration portfolio?” This means that I saw your work, read it, and really liked it. When I do this, I’ll give you instructions so that you can submit it as requested material and bypass my slush.

There are a few tricksters out on the Internet who say that writers should just mark something as requested material, trick the agent into opening it, and get past all the gatekeepers and become Dan Brown. Here’s the thing: we know what we request and why we request it. So it is not only a waste of time but also an annoyance to mark something “Requested” when it really isn’t. This tactic probably works better for mail submissions, when the agent or editor might get confused about the name and open the envelope anyway, and not email, where we can instantly search your submission and figure out whether we’ve corresponded with you before or not. Either way, the jig will be up when we open your “Requested” submission and realize that it’s just slush. We’ll be able to tell, nine times out of ten, because it won’t be of the same kind of quality as something we’d normally request.

To clarify, sometimes I will ask a writer to resubmit. This is if they do not follow our submission guidelines. Some agents, at my agency and other agencies, will automatically delete a submission that doesn’t follow guidelines. Our guidelines require the first 10 pages pasted into the body of the email, along with the query letter. If I get a skimpy submission of query letter only, I will send the writer a form message asking them to resubmit. Yes, I asked them to (re)submit something. Yes, this is technically a request from me (that they follow the submission guidelines). It is not, however, a requested submission.

I can’t tell you how many enterprising scamps have then emailed me, proclaiming that they’re sending in a requested submission. It’s not. It’s me giving them a chance to correct their submission error. I know exactly what I’ve requested, as does every other agent in the world. This kind of cheekiness isn’t appreciated. I hope the distinction between a requested submission and a resubmission request is clear and makes a bit of sense.

(I know some of you will call me a hypocrite to insist on submission guidelines while also writing a post about flouting submission guidelines and sending a writing sample anyway. So be it. I still stand by what I said there — only if you really want to take the risk and be a little bold. That trick isn’t for everyone’s sensibilities and there is a chance you’ll piss certain people off. All I can say is that I love having a writing sample to read, I think the more you send to sell yourself the better (within the 10 page limit, of course), and that it has worked in my personal querying life. Please take that with as much salt as you like.)

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Rejection Follow-Up Part 3

January 20, 2010 in Agent, Queries | 30 comments

Wow. Here I am again, writing about rejection follow-up. This one will be short because I think the point is easily made. Writers: I invest my time and energy in the success of my clients. That is what I am paid to do. I brainstorm ideas with them, talk to them, figure what houses and editors are good fits for their work, give them notes on their manuscripts and, in general, spend a lot of time thinking about their careers. I do not do this for the people in my slush. Unless what they send me completely blows me away and they become my clients.

If you query me, please do not expect me to critique your manuscript for you after I reject it. Do not turn around and ask what was wrong with it, what parts didn’t work, what could be better. I understand that you want these answers. I understand that writing and querying agents can be a lonely, confusing process fraught with pain and rejection.

But it’s not my job to provide free critiques to all of Creation. At conferences, organizers charge a lot of money for a critique with an agent. Because they’re worth that much. That’s not my ego talking. Let me explain (with a brilliant analogy I borrowed from another writer). A person usually balks at a repairman who comes and fixes their appliance with a 15-cent washer and charges them $500 bucks. “All he had to do is stick that washer in there!” they shout. What they don’t take into account is the years that repairman spent learning the trade or the time he spends practicing it. Sure, the washer cost 15 cents, but it’s not like the customer knew where to stick it himself.

It’s the same thing with the skills I’ve learned. They have come through me from an expensive education, work experience and years and years and years of reading, writing, and soaking up the wisdom and expertise of agents and editors. If I send you a form rejection letter, do not ask me to trot out my skills for free. That repairman’s job is to learn how to repair things well enough that he can make a living. My job is to work with a select list of writers and sell their projects. Your job, as a writer who wants to attain publication, is to learn how to write with a level of skill and craft that will get you published. Like with any other job, you need to invest time and, often, money (in the form of classes, conferences, books, etc…. but never pay an agent or agency to read your query or manuscript!) in order to get started.

There are tons of resources out there, including the SCBWI, conferences and other writers who you can include in a critique group. I would love to be a resource for new writers, because I know and understand where they come from and what they’re going through, but I can’t provide individual assistance to everyone who wants it. That’s why I keep this blog and reach out to as many as I possibly can with articles that are as relevant as possible to the greatest number of people at once.

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When You Get an Offer

January 13, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 31 comments

This is the situation every querying writer is looking forward to: getting an offer of representation from an agent. Awesome. Now what? Well, I want to write several posts on this issue, but here’s the first thing you need to do… let other agents know.

Don’t let every agent you queried know — let only the agents who have responded with a partial request, a full request, or any other kind of encouraging sign, and have not given you their decision yet. The only exception is with a picture book submission, where you’ve queried with a full manuscript. Since you sent the full manuscript, contact all the agents you queried. Write them the following email and put “OFFER RECEIVED” in the subject line:

Dear Mary,

I know you’re still reading BOOK TITLE but I wanted to let you know that I’ve received an offer of representation. I’d like to see if you’re also interested in the project. Please get back to me by X day and let me know. I look forward to hearing from you!

Author

Give the agent a week to respond. Within the day, you should hear back from agents. They’ll either say, “Yes, I’m still reading and will get back to you within the week” or, “You know, I should probably step aside at this point.” Then you wait for the agents who still want to consider to either bow out or toss their hats into the ring. But yes, let them know immediately. It’s not being pushy. Someone already sees the value in your work, so you can call attention to yourself in this situation.

I hope all of you get to experience this and have one of the most exciting weeks of your career so far!

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Submitting On Your Own, Then Getting an Agent

January 11, 2010 in Agent, Editors, Publishing, Queries | 35 comments

I recently got a question on my “Getting an Offer and THEN an Agent” post. I started typing out the answer but it was too long and I thought I’d make it into a post of its own, just because there’s a point at the end that I wish more writers would be aware of. Here’s the question, from MM:

If I get an offer by myself, would it be considered inappropriate, after acquiring an agent, for that agent to pitch the project to other publishers in search of a better offer? Is there a ticking clock on the initial publisher’s offer?

Also, what of the situation in which an author has queried publishers directly, received all rejections, and then acquires an agent? I’ve heard agents warn against direct querying of publishers, saying that in the case of all rejections, now the agent’s hands are rather tied and it’s much more difficult to find a publisher.

Great question, MM, and one that agents often have to struggle with. A lot of the time, we get clients who have submitted on their own or who have had previous agents who’ve done submissions, and we really have to consider where the manuscript has been before. We also get writers who have an offer on the table when they come to us and they want us to negotiate better terms for them. Both situations have happened to me.

I’ll answer the first part first, and I don’t know if this is what you want to hear. If you want to find a better offer, you will have to decline the present offer. The offering publisher expects you to get back to them within a reasonable time frame, sure, but they’re also not going to be very pleased with you if you go around with your new agent and pitch everywhere else because you hate their offer… while their offer is still on the table. Imagine coming back to them and saying, “Yeah, I guess we’ll accept your crappy offer, even though we wanted that shiny publisher over there.” You won’t be saying that directly but they’ll know because a) a suspicious amount of time has passed and b) people in this small community of publishers talk.

That’s going to be a horrible working relationship with a publisher you’ve offended, if they don’t pull the offer themselves. You will have burned a bridge and nobody wants that. So if you hate the offer, your new agent will try to negotiate the best possible situation. If it’s still not enough — if your agent has said that you’re considering taking this elsewhere and the publisher still won’t fight to keep you — you will pull the project and decline the offer. It’s a risk because you may not have interest from other publishers or, if you get another offer, it may be equal to or worse than your first. But if you’re really unhappy, nobody needs that business relationship.

In this situation, I usually advise people to get the best possible terms from the offering publisher and then have their agent fight for no option clause, so they can go elsewhere with their next project. It’s not an ideal situation because nobody wants to be unhappy, but… read to the end of the post for my big advice before even getting into this mess.

Second, our hands are rather tied if you’ve been rejected all over Creation. It’s true. That’s why we really do warn people… if their eventual goal is to get an agent, then get the agent first, before you go shopping the manuscript. At a lot of places, you only have one shot per project. I guess how doomed you are depends on if you know which editors read it. If you got a form rejection from that house, it means an intern read it. But they could’ve shown it to their bosses first. If you get a personal rejection from an editor, that means your agent knows who read it and might be able to pitch to another editor there or at a different imprint. Either way, you do risk the editor saying, “Oh, my colleague has already passed on this” or, “Oh, my intern showed me this and we’ve already passed.” We really do remember what we read and a repeat submission sticks out. That’s the worst that can happen but it still doesn’t look very good for you or your new agent.

Same with burning your initial offer. This is a small industry and reputation is key. So here is the main thing I want everyone to take away from this post. If you don’t want to be published by that house–or represented by that agent, or working with that editor, etc.–then why did you query them in the first place?!?!?!? Agents get this all the time. I’ve heard colleagues and friends talking about offering representation only to have the writer start waffling. They want more time, they want to check in with other agents. Then they frantically appeal to all their Dream Agents because their last choice agent has offered representation and, since it’s not who they hoped would offer, they are queasy about working with that person.

When you pitch your project or query an agent, the person on the other end of that pitch assumes you really want to work with them. Don’t query them if you wouldn’t be happy to work together. Don’t let your eagerness for someone to publish or represent you cloud your good judgment.

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Asking Agents for Referrals

January 8, 2010 in Queries | 29 comments

Here’s something that people do after a rejection that really gets my goat. (I’ve already done two posts on rejection follow-up but there really is more to be said about it.) Some writers, after a form rejection, will ask me if I can refer them to an agent who might be a better fit. Before anyone gets upset and defends this, let me say that I understand it perfectly well. Agents are inscrutable to most people. We are intimidating. How can you possibly know what we want? (Especially when we sometimes don’t know what we want until we see it, as frustrating as that is.) I totally sympathize with writers who want any clue as to who might be a good fit for them.

However, there are two reasons why I dread this response to a rejection. First, the easy-to-hear reason: I don’t know much more about other agents than you do. I know the agents at my own agency very well, but not agents at other agencies, unless I happen to be friends with them or see a lot of their recent deals posted. Besides, even if agents are friends in their off hours, they compete for projects and for editor attention at work. It’s not one giant share-fest between agencies. At Andrea Brown, if you read our guidelines, you’ll see that a “no” from one agent means a “no” from all. So if I’m passing on a manuscript, I’m saying that it isn’t a good fit for me or any of my colleagues.

Believe me, we do think about this. We routinely pull manuscripts from the slush and pass them around if we think they’re a good fit for another ABLit agent’s tastes. This only happens with excellent manuscripts, however, and projects that show great promise. Something we really want to hand off to a colleague because it is an amazing project but not up our alley for whatever reason.

This brings me to my second point, the one that stings a little: 99% of what I get in the slush is not ready for publication. The majority of the time, when I reject something, I reject it because it isn’t good enough for publication. If I reject your project but think it shows great promise, if I reject your project but think you have talent as a writer, believe me, you’ll know. You’ll know because I’ll tell you. If I send you my standard rejection note, however, please don’t follow up and ask me for a referral to someone else. My colleagues and I all have a finely-tuned sense of what makes a saleable project. If the writing or the story aren’t there yet, another set of eyes reading the material won’t change that. Think about it. Why would I want to forward you on to another agent? So they can reject you for the same reason? Besides, reputation is everything, for both authors and agents, and I don’t want to attach my name to a bad referral.

The agent search is aptly named. It is a quest. It is part careful craft, part shooting blindfolded. And it is a writer’s job to do. Unfortunately, you have to research agents, try to decipher their tastes and query them yourself. The only people who get referrals from me are those who seem like they’d be a fit for someone else at the agency. If this happens, I’ll tell the writer about it first thing. In any other situation, please don’t ask.

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Exclusive Submissions

January 6, 2010 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 37 comments

Pretty frequently, actually, I get a query that’s an exclusive submission. What this means: an author tells me that they’re only sending to me. Sometimes they specify a time period — “exclusive for three months,” for example — sometimes not. This is a situation where I haven’t requested the submission, I haven’t requested exclusivity… the writer just sends it to me and says, “Here, you’re the only one who gets this.” I have some issues with exclusivity and I’ll explain why. Keep in mind, these are my thoughts, and I might not share these opinions with other agents. I usually have a mixed response. I want the author to know that this is their choice, not mine, and that they shouldn’t expect any special treatment. I really appreciate their excitement about querying me, but it’s not really going to make a difference in the way I read their submission. The writing and the story idea are all that matter. Just like applying Early Decision to a college won’t get an unqualified student in any easier than applying the regular way, querying me exclusively won’t give you an advantage. Not to mention, seeing that a submission is exclusive causes me a little bit of guilt and anxiety… it makes me feel like I should rush and respond faster, like there’s pressure, which I don’t enjoy.

Now, after the query phase, there are some agents who request exclusive submissions if they’re interested in a manuscript. It makes sense: you love something, you want to be the only one considering it. However, there’s a huge disadvantage here for the writer. If you query people exclusively or if you accept too many requests for an exclusive read from agents, you will be on the agent search forever. Imagine that it will take 10 agents who read your full for you to finally find The One. Now imagine that each agent has asked for exclusivity for three months. That’s 30 months you’re waiting! If they all read it at the same time, you’d only be out the three months.

An agent seeks out properties to sell. As with any other job, there are times when we get what we want and there are times when we lose out. That’s the nature of the beast. I never expect a writer to submit — either a query or a full — to me exclusively. If I want it, I will make the time to read it and try to get back to that writer ASAP, just like everyone else. That’s the fair way to play the game. I’m not saying you should laugh in the face of any agent who requests exclusivity, of course. If you feel like granting exclusivity to an agent, do it. It’s always your choice whether to grant it or not. You can tell them “no” or that the manuscript is out with others so that you simply can’t grant exclusivity because you won’t withdraw it. They might still want to read your work if you can’t send it exclusively. It’s up to you.

There is one situation, however, where I would expect something special and potentially exclusive from a writer, and that’s if I’ve worked with them before. Maybe I did a critique at a conference or talked to them at length about their project. Or sometimes I request and love a full manuscript that might not be ready for prime time just yet. So I give the writer notes for revision. I take hours of my time with it, before the writer is even a client, and really invest a lot of thought. It doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes I will do this with a manuscript I adore but that’s deeply flawed. I usually tell them that they can consider my notes and, if they resonate with what I said and want to revise, I’d love to see it again. This is for more extensive notes, mind you, than a paragraph or two in my rejection letter; this is after I’ve talked to the writer at length and they’re well-aware of how much potential I see in their work.

Now, this next scenario hasn’t happened to me personally, but I hear about it happening frequently to colleagues. Most writers will send the manuscript back to the agent who gave them notes and invested the time. This is the decent thing to do. Other people take the feedback, revise, then send the manuscript all over Creation in its stronger, more saleable state, attract other agents and then choose to sign with them. This isn’t necessarily a good thing to do but, like I said, it happens all the time. In this unique situation, yes, I expect them to send it to me if and when they revise, but I wouldn’t outright demand it. At the end of the day, it’s the writer’s choice who they want to be represented by.

It seems like exclusivity as a trend might be declining among agents. It’s no longer as easy to demand it when there are lots of people out there who understand how impractical it can be for the writer. So consider this before locking up your work with someone. At the end of the day, it’s your time and it is precious, especially when you’ve got a career to get off the ground.

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Full Requests

January 4, 2010 in Advice, Agent | 41 comments

All right. We are back in the saddle with some regular thoughts I have. Here, I want to explain my philosophy on full requests. I only request full manuscripts, not partials. Part of it is the same rationale as why I say you should send 10 sample pages with every query, regardless of an agency’s submission guidelines: instant gratification.

Imagine if I followed the partial request plan of some agents:

  • Ask for the first 30 pages, evaluate
  • As for the next 50/70 pages, evaluate
  • Ask for the next 100/150 pages, evaluate
  • Ask for the full

This is a bit extreme, but I have seen all sorts of iterations of this. Why bother? Well, here’s the rationale. An agent who asks for a lot of partials ultimately ends up rejecting fewer fulls, because their decision process is long and fewer manuscripts get all the way to the full request. On the other hand, there are also agents who request a full after reading only the query. They probably reject the vast majority (~99%) of their fulls, since the first time they see a writing sample is when they get a full manuscript. I request a full after reading the query and the first 10 pages. I reject a vast majority of my full manuscripts, but not nearly as many as the person who reads only a query and asks for the full.

The one downside to asking for a full is that, to a writer, a full request is a Big Deal. It is More Serious and More Important than a partial request. I wish this wasn’t the case. I only request a full so that I can read through the first 30, 50, 70, 100, 150, etc. etc. etc. and keep reading until a) the quality of the writing takes a nosedive, b) the plot stops making sense, c) the story takes some kind of bizarre turn, d) the characters warp, e) I lose interest. All of these things, unfortunately, happen sometimes. However, sometimes they don’t!

There are a million reasons to stop reading a manuscript but there are also a million reasons to keep reading. With requesting a full and not a partial, I don’t have to stop, ask for more, stop, ask for more. I can read for as long as I’m riveted and, if that extends to the end of the manuscript, I’m a very happy agent. With a full at my disposal, I’m free to take my time, have my process, really dig in and mull things over without going back and forth with the writer.

I wouldn’t advocate sending a full when asked for a partial, like I’d suggest you send a writing sample anyway, but I just hope you understand a little bit more of what goes through my mind and exactly what a full request from me means.

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A Writer’s Worst Enemy

November 30, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Revision | 36 comments

Impatience is a writer’s worst enemy. To all those who are rushing rushing rushing to get your manuscript out the gate and into my hot little hands, think of it this way real quick: you’ve spent… what? A year of your life on this manuscript? Why not give it the best chance possible and spend as much hard work revising as it — honestly — needs?

There is a finite number of agents and editors. Once you query your project around to every agent who represents your genre or age group (or every smaller publisher that still accepts unsolicited submissions) and once they reject you, you can’t do anything else with that project other than a) self-publish it (a whole other bucket of fish, to be discussed later) or b) revise the hell out of it and submit again to people who might be open to seeing a drastically different version (your pool this time around will be much smaller). So… just take the time, revise the hell out of it from the get-go, and skip that whole nasty getting-rejected-first bit! In other words: be patient.

Sad truth alert! Not every manuscript you write will go somewhere, publication-wise. Far from it. Every manuscript you write is supremely useful, though. I think every time you sit down at the keys, you should be striving to improve. Everything you write this week should be better and more exciting to you than what you wrote last week. You hear people talking about starter cars and houses, maybe even starter spouses. Well, I think that almost every currently published writer has written at least one starter (or drawer) novel. MG and YA superstar Lauren Myracle wrote something like five books, she said once, before getting her first published. Some have many more than that. So will all the novels you write be published? Even eventually? Probably not. In fact, I think it should be a good and healthy thing to look at some of your starter novels and be horrified by the quality of the writing. That means you’ve come a long way since.

Everyone knows the story of the person who never once sat down at a computer before, wrote a first draft manuscript inspired by a dream they had, sold it for a million dollars and got six thousand movies made of their story, etc. etc. etc. You know why everyone knows the story of “the exception to the rule”? Because it’s news. It’s so rare that everyone talks about it and raises it to mythical status. The other 99.999999% of us mere mortals have to write plenty of dreary starter novels (and don’t forget about the Million Bad Words) before we can figure out how to draft a living character, create a compelling plot, achieve tension and humor and literary magic. That sort of stuff takes practice. And practice takes… patience.

For a lot of writers, or anyone working in the creative arts, our ego often compels us to think we’re “special.” What teen girl hasn’t heard stories of some chick at the mall getting discovered by a modeling scout and then immediately dressed up really cute and gone to the mall in hopes of scoring her one-in-a-million chance at stardom? It’s worse for writers, because they don’t actually have to get dressed and leave the house to indulge in such fantasies. Who among you hasn’t started in on a hot idea and thought, “This is a brilliant, undiscovered masterpiece that everyone will love the second they read it”? Who hasn’t let themselves boast, “Let all the other writers slog around in the trenches because I’m special“?

Well, talent is a huge piece of the puzzle, naturally. But hard work, I’ll argue, is a bigger piece. Because naturally talented people — especially the people who know they’re naturally talented — often get an entitled attitude and wait for the success to come to them. It’s the people who think “I might not be special enough yet but, damn it, I will be successful” who usually end up towering over their smug counterparts. Because the ordinary writers have to work for it and they know it. They have to put in the hours to see improvement, to witness the talent start to shine. They learn to work hard and never give up. And those are the people who make it, while some of the naturally talented people sit around on their couches, waiting for that model scout to come knocking.

In the writing game — and I’ll say it is one, on many levels — the qualities of patience, hard-work, humility and the eagerness to learn will get you much farther than striving to be the exception to the rule. The former you can control, the latter you can’t. Wouldn’t you rather be in control of your success and your career?

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The Best Time of Year to Query?

November 25, 2009 in Agent, Publishing, Queries | 19 comments

Erinn wrote in to me a little while ago to ask:

What’s a good time of year to query? I know the week between Christmas and New Years is terrible, since agents across the country are enjoying time with their families and avoiding their computers at all costs. Besides the holidays, is there a time that you get very busy? Is it a few months after NANOWRIMO? Or at 12:02 am on December 1st does your inbox get flooded? Should writers avoid flu season in case you get sick and you’re in “I hate life and everything about it” sort of mood? Are there any major holidays that fill you with joy, like Arbor Day, that someone might be more likely to get past the Publishing Gate Keeper?

Erinn’s is a charmingly-put question but one I think a lot of writers wonder about. There are two times of the year when I’d avoid sending queries if I was on the agent search. The first, as Erinn mentions, is the holiday season. Publishing mostly slumbers from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, so a lot of agents are using this time to catch up with work, read manuscripts and get all of our affairs for the upcoming year in order.

Plus, you know, we have to pop in at Mom and Dad’s, shovel some turkey in our gullets and figure out how to keep reading manuscripts over pumpkin pie. Queries tend to fall by the wayside during this time. As Erinn so astutely guesses, a lot of the queries coming in after 12:01 a.m. on December 1st will also be for NaNo novels. As I mentioned in my NaNoWriMo post earlier this month, a lot of NaNo novels are not finished come November 30th. They haven’t been revised yet. So the people who query them around anyway are most likely going to get rejected. NaNoWriMo queries are usually the slushiest slush in the slush, so we tend to not prioritize those as highly on our holiday To Do list.

I’d add that you probably don’t want to query the first few weeks of January either. People are just getting into the swing of things. Agents are pitching a lot of projects that they maybe held off on pitching during the holidays. We’re doing lots of business. Queries usually drop off the To Do list here as well. Finally, there’s a partially-true myth about publishing shutting down in the month of August. While some editors report working just as hard as ever in the late summer, it is usually true that not a lot of business gets done around that time. Agents are also using this lull to catch up and read manuscripts and get affairs in order, so queries are usually put off.

As for the rest of Erinn’s question… like whether you should take flu season into consideration or if there is a scientific formula for a good time to query, I say: don’t worry about it. You’ll query when you query and then it’s out of your hands. The person you queried could break their arm the next day, or drink 15 shots of espresso and race through the slush immediately. There’s really no way to control a submission’s fate once you release it into the world. The best thing you can do for your query letter, is to polish, perfect and truly revise the hell out of the manuscript it’s pitching.

If you get way too into timing this, you may as well avoid the second week of January (ALA Midwinter), the last week of January (SCBWI NYC), the last week of March (Bologna Children’s Rights Fair), the end of May (BEA), the end of June (ALA), the end of July (SCBWI LA), etc. etc. etc. I mean, we’re always going to be busy with one thing or another, so you really can’t predict an optimum time. Getting to the slush in a timely manner is our issue, not yours.

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Rejection Follow-up Part 2

November 20, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 10 comments

Here’s another question about rejection follow-up, this time from Kim:

When an agent has rejected a requested full or partial is it ok to send a thank you email or letter? Especially if they give personal feedback? I’m reading that some agents say not to do this. What do you suggest?

In my earlier blog post about rejection follow-up, I covered two responses I frequently get to just your run-of-the-mill rejection. But, as I said a little bit earlier, there are many different types of rejection. So what do you do when the agent has sent you a more detailed rejection, like a Revision Rejection?

Any time an agent goes above and beyond the form letter to give advice, to give you notes or to ask to see more work or a revision of the current manuscript, we are opening a door. We like what we see. There is potential, talent, a certain je ne sais quoi to you and your work. While this particular version of your project — or this particular project — might not work for us for any number of reasons, we’d like to see more down the line. Note that last part. The learning curve to learning the craft of writing is a long and brutal one, full of slow going and road blocks.

If an agent sends notes or feedback with their rejection, make sure to a) thank them and b) keep them in mind for later. In my first rejection follow-up post, I warned against sending everything else under the sun right away. This still holds true for a nicer or more detailed rejection. Unless the agent says “Do you have anything else right now?” I’d hold off on unleashing your entire back catalog.

When we give notes, we’re saying: you’re not right for us right now, but we see potential. So give yourself some time to revise, to cook up something new, to improve your craft, and then reach out to the agents who have been helpful to you in the past or who have left doors open or encouraged you. I remember the projects I reject but like and, if that writer approaches me again with something that’s really gone to the next level, you better believe I’ll be excited to read it.

So yes, a “thank you” email is probably best for all kinds of rejections, especially for the more personal or involved ones. If an agent reads a full and you really can’t stop yourself from sending a card in the mail, there’s really no harm. I remember that urge and, yes, the first time I queried agents, there were a few Crane & Co. casualties. As for sending correspondence in the mail to an e-jection, I’d hold off. That’s a little much. Stick to the same medium that you’ve been interacting in, whether it’s mail or email.

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