Many of the novelists who have sought and gained VERY GOOD representation did so by querying somewhere around five agents a week. Why? Because that will test one query over another, for one thing, and will also yield the possibility of an “agent race.”
What’s that? I wondered.
“Oh, that’s where, when one agent offers representation, you stall them (politely…and they expect you to), informing them that other agents have the manuscript, too. Then,” say these modern ladies and gents who do know their stuff, “the several agents who are reading partials or fulls will finish their evaluation and either also offer representation or decline, one or the other. That gives you more offers to choose from.”
Ooookaaaaay. Um……..yeah.
Well, I’m going to split the difference, I think. I’ve got a handful of first choices — those agents who I will query exclusively, one at a time. This handful — agents who, after extensive and exhaustive research using every book and tool to which I have access, are the very top on my list — all “first choices,” which makes deciding who I’ll write first a very difficult decision. I think I’ll start with the agent I think will most likely just laugh at the very audacity of my even thinking of querying, then work my way down toward more likely, but still quite out of reach possibles. One can always ask…which is what a query is. 
Recently:
- Writing Pedagogues
- They Work Very Hard
- Treading the Dangers of Fiction
- Infighting About Grammar & Punctuation
- Scary Writers
- New Novel, Chapter Two
- To the Book Store
- New Novel Amid Chaos
- Raw Gore, Explicit Cruelty, Debased Sex in Novels
- Back from Summer Hiatus
