T A Chan Blogs

March 2017

Time to send out queries. (In case you missed it, here’s the Evolution of the Query.) My hands are shaking as I scan through the list of agents and publishers that invited me to submit my MS to them. And here, my friends, is where I made my not-first mistake: querying both publishers and agents at the same time.

What I Wish I Knew: Do NOT query both publishers and agent simultaneously. Decide, beforehand, whether you want an agent to represent your work, or if you plan on submitting to publishers directly.

Here’s the deal: the big 5 publishers (maybe it’s 4 now? Since Penguin merged with Random House . . .) only allow agents to submit novels, but many independent/small press publishers don’t require an agent. I didn’t plan—didn’t think through what I wanted to do—so I sent queries to everyone who responded to my pitches.

And thus, my problems began. I’ve heard rumors floating around on the web that publishers will respond to queries quicker than agents. I don’t know if it’s actually true or not, but for me personally, I was definitely hearing back from publishers faster than agents—as quickly as within a couple hours of me shooting off my query. (Also, this has probably been rehashed countless times already, but please for the sake of all things good and puppies, please address your query using the name of the agent/editor/whoever you’re submitting to. And if you can’t find a name . . . well, I guess there’s always this story*).

But for the most part, turnaround time was a couple weeks, which I dubbed The Waiting Period in which I fretted and stalked Twitter and distracted myself by beginning a new WIP.

Since I was generally hearing back from publishers before agents (2-3 weeks was the average response time for me), there was an awkward time gap where I didn’t know how to respond to offers because I didn’t know all of the options available. I scrambled and panicked and sent a bunch of follow up emails to those who I haven’t heard back from yet. (And prayed that I didn’t annoy them afterwards.)

To make things more complicated, because I decided to participate in three different pitch events spread over a month, there was a lot of overlap in response times = ONE HUGE MESS. I would be sending out partials/MS requests for my first wave of queries as I was only just beginning to send out the query itself for my third batch.

Also, although this is super obvious in hindsight, I really should’ve only queries agents/publishers who I would want to work with. Just because you got the “like” doesn’t mean you have to submit.

What I Wish I Knew: Only query agents/publishers who you genuinely want to work with.

Then one day, I finally got The Call. Three things the project manager said to me:

1. We would like to make an offer

2. But do not withdraw your submission from others yet. Not until that contract offer is sitting in your inbox

3.  Love the story, but there are some changes/edits that would have to be made. Are you open to them?**

Well, I said yes! And now, I had to rush off to deal with Mess II. Since I queried Blaze in my first “wave”, there were, quite literally, queries I had submitted less than three days ago—and I was already sending out follow ups.

Maybe I’m being silly? Who knows. But I felt really bad and just plain awkward doing that. Like, “Hey, remember me from three days ago? I know on your website you said to allow 6-8 weeks for a response but I NEED TO HEAR BACK FROM YOU SOONER!!!!!”

So I sent a quick email that went something like this:

Dear ___,

I just wanted to let you know that Silver and Ice currently has an offer from ____, and I would very much appreciate it if you could inform me of your decision regarding my submission within the next 1-2 weeks.

Well. That certainly started getting responses faster. Both rejections and requests. (I’ve included my rejection vs partial vs full request stats below.)

What I Wish I Knew: It’s common courtesy to allow agents/publishers a 2 week heads up that you have a pending offer. Use it. Don’t rush. See what all your options are, then pick the one that fits you and your MS best.

Throughout that same week, I also spent time doing research (Part Three: Research, Contracts, and Lawyers, Oh My!) and ultimately chose Blaze Pub 7 days later.

Be sure not to miss Part One: Ready to Query of the Welcome to the (Publishing) Jungle series if you haven't read it already!

Submission Stats

1x 50 pg partial request that ended in rejection

3x full MS request that I ended up withdrawing from submission early

2x rejection upon initial query

1x full MS request w/ offer

3x N/A because I ended up withdrawing my submission right away

*Alright. So sort of a funny/random story with a happy ending. I’ve done enough googling to know that one should always use name instead of “agent” or “editor” when sending a query. However, I, could not, for the life of me, find any names to address my query to for a particular publisher. The publisher website had a submission guideline, the site itself looked legit, the books it published all appeared professional—in other words, I was 99.999% sure this wasn’t a scam. So I ended up hunting down the publisher owner’s name and used it in my query. Less then 3 hours later, I got a response from the owner:

“Dear Tina,

My submission team forwarded this email to my account. Please send over your complete MS.”

So I did. Who knows—sometimes (good) weird stuff happens.

**Oh boy. That should’ve been my first warning. But it all worked out in the end—for the better :P

PS: Questions and comments? I would love to hear your thoughts below!

Find me on Social Media

Twitter | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook