Communicating with Literary Agents
Communicating with literary agents is an important part of the querying process. Here are some communication do's and don'ts that'll give you the best shot at receiving a response to your query.
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Transcription for Communicating with Literary Agents
Hi. My name is Mary Kole with Good Story Company, in my new video corner that I'm very excited about. And this is all about communicating with literary agents. Now, there are a few dos. There are a lot more don'ts. I will just give you, sort of, a lay of the land.
You do want to communicate with the literary agent exactly how they want to be communicated with. They get to call the shots here because they are facing tens of thousands of manuscript submissions and so, you want to be one of those missions that sticks out because you follow the rules, and you can respond to basic directions, and you're sending the agent exactly what they want to see. Another factor of, sort of, communicating with them on their level and how they want to be communicated is to use the email address, or the form, or the query link that they provide. You can always find a different mailbox for them. A lot of agents take their queries to a different part of their email or a different part of their online presence, but they don't necessarily want to see queries in the email that they use to communicate with their clients and with publishers. A lot of agents that I know, they don't like to mix those. And so, you can always find their phone number, their private social media account, an email that they use for business, but you're not necessarily going to endear them to you or to your manuscript by using that information.
Communicate with agents exactly how they want to be communicated with. That, sort of, will put you on good footing with them from the beginning. Send them exactly what they want to see per their submission guidelines. These are out there. It behooves the agents to be very clear and to put their guidelines out there so that they get exactly what they're looking for. So send them whatever they ask for. Don't send them attachments. Don't send them what they're not asking for. Don't send them huge files. Don't send them movie files. If you need to share any kind of visual big file, like illustration samples, a movie of your work if you're also a filmmaker, screenwriter, that sort of thing, send them a link where they can view it, without sort of dropping a 500-megabyte file on them.
And then, you also want to be careful about follow-up. You do not want to clog up an agent's inbox. You can, obviously, email them once you have a relationship going. They've, sort of, written back to you and they want to see more from you. They want to have a conversation, that sort of thing. It becomes a lot more open for you to, sort of, communicate with them. But, before that happens, until you get, sort of, an invitation from an agent, you really want to be careful about how often you email them. If you screw up something massively in your submission, you can resend the submission. But if it's something really, really tiny, I would maybe think twice before sending them just another email to open saying, "Oh, I caught a typo." This sort of thing. I don't know. It depends on your sensibility but sometimes, it's better to point out an error. Sometimes, you can just let it be if it means not emailing them an extra time, not calling extra attention to yourself in a potentially negative way.
Follow up based on their submission guidelines. Some agents will say, "You know, if you don't hear from me in six weeks, that's a no, unfortunately." Others will say, "If you don't hear from me in six weeks, check in." So, follow their lead. Communicate with them. Follow up. Check in on the schedule that they have set forth. If you truly believe that your submission wasn't received, or it may be lost somewhere, or they didn't consider it for whatever reason, I would give it 6 weeks, 8 weeks, maybe even 3 months to let them attend to your submission before you check in with them, because sometimes, agents have so much to read. They get behind. They don't necessarily respond to every single submission in the most timely way possible. It is extremely maddening for writers but it is, unfortunately, one of the ways in which agents get all gummed up because they have so many things to consider, and manuscripts to read that they request, and client manuscripts, and contract negotiations, all of these other things on their plate. So if they have, sort of, expectations for response and timing posted, follow those. If you truly believe that something was missed, if the agent says, "I respond to everybody," and you didn't hear back from them, for example, you can follow up. Unfortunately, a lot of agents, they do not have time to respond to everybody and so, silence is sometimes the only response, which is very disappointing for a writer but unfortunately, a business necessity for overworked, underpaid literary agents.
I guess the message is follow pristine email etiquette. Do not overwhelm them and, sort of, the fewer pieces of outreach that you generate for an agent, the better. And if they reject a project, thank them for their time if you feel like it. But anything is better than, "Well, you know, you don't know nothing and this is gonna be a New York Times Bestseller. And you're probably not even that good at your job," you know, a defensive reaction from a writer to a decline or pass. Generates a memorable moment but maybe not one that you want, so that's something to keep in mind as well. So just basically be a nice, flexible human being and don't overcommunicate, and stick to their guidelines. At the end of the day, that's how you best communicate with a literary agent.
My name is Mary Kole, and here's to a good story.
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