When to follow up with a literary agent

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From former literary agent Nathan Bransford:

Contrary to popular belief among some fearful authors, literary agents will not be scared off and disappear into an angry puff of smoke the moment you send them a follow-up email.

An agent’s inbox looks like the electronic equivalent of Niagara Falls, and at any given time they will have literally thousands of pages in their to-be-read pile.

As a result, most agents will appreciate a timely and extremely polite nudge. (And if they would get annoyed by one, would you really want to work with them anyway?)

But when do you follow up with an agent and how often? In this post I’ll give you some guidelines on when and when not to follow up with an agent based on different stages in the publishing process.

Bear in mind that the below are just rules of thumb and different agents are always going to feel differently. And an individual agent’s stated preferences always wins for that agent.

. . . .

Unless otherwise specified by the agent, it’s not customary to follow up on query letters. Many agents have “no reply means no” policies and they will get annoyed pretty fast if you start chasing after a query that they didn’t reply to.

Yes, I know, it’s really scary to think your query got lost in the ether and was never seen by your dream agent, but that’s the way the e-cookie crumbles.

The only exception to this is if the agent specifically requested a query letter from you, as in a referral situation or where there’s some sort of a personal connection. In that case, I’d wait a few weeks and check again.

. . . .

If an agent requests a partial or full manuscript from you, they will expect you to follow up at some point if they haven’t gotten back to you in a timely fashion.

So how long do you wait? I’ve seen everything from a month to two and a half months recommended, but I personally would split the difference and follow-up once after six weeks and thereafter once a month until you get tired of following up.

. . . .

If you receive an offer of representation, it’s customary to then follow up with all of the agents who are currently considering your manuscript, whether a partial or a full. Give them a reasonable timeframe (7-14 days) to get back to you so you don’t leave the agent who offered you representation hanging.

Link to the rest at Nathan Bransford

PG has seen prior posts from Nathan (who is now an author) and he seems like an intelligent and pleasant individual.

While PG has no doubt that the recommendations in the OP accurately reflect the world of agents and their expectations, while he was reading them, he was reminded of the rules of court (not the legal types of courts, although they can also be a bit strange, but the rules of royal courts).

As illustrations, here are some Rules of Etiquette as followed at Versailles:

Those wanting to speak to the king were not to knock on his door. Instead, using the left little finger, they had to gently scratch on the door until they were granted the permission to enter the room. Many courtiers grew that fingernail longer than the others for that purpose.

Continuing the rules of court.

. . . .

During the 17th century, in France, manners became a political issue. King Louis XIV and his predecessors, in collecting together the nobility of France to live with the sovereign at Versailles, instituted a sort of school of manners. At the palace, the courtiers lived under the despotic surveillance of the king, and upon their good behavior, their deference, and their observance of etiquette their whole careers depended. If you displeased a Louis, he would simply “not see you” the following day; his gaze would pass over you as he surveyed the people before him. And not being “seen” by the king was tantamount to ceasing to count, at Versailles.

A whole timetable of ceremonies was followed, much of it revolving around the King’s own person. Intimacy with Louis meant power, and power was symbolically expressed in attending to certain of the king’s most private and physical needs: handing him his stockings to put on in the morning, being present as he used to chaise percée, rushing when the signal sounded to be present as he got ready for bed. It mattered desperately what closeness the king allowed you – whether he spoke to you, in front of whom, and for how long.

The point about Versailles was that there was no escape: the courtiers had to “make it” where they were. The stage was Louis’s, and the roles that could be played were designed by him. It was up to each courtier to fit him- or herself into one of the slots provided. The leaders of all the other towns and villages of France were made, largely through the use of etiquette, and more specifically through rudeness and judicious slighting by the tax-collecting intendants, to feel their subordination, the distance from the court.

. . . .

The French court imposed elaborate codes of etiquette on the aristocracy, among them the way to use a napkin, when to use it, and how far to unfold it in the lap. A French treatise dating from 1729 stated that “It is ungentlemanly to use a napkin for wiping the face or scraping the teeth, and a most vulgar error to wipe one’s nose with it.” And a rule of decorum from the same year laid out the protocol:

“The person of highest rank in the company should unfold his napkin first, all others waiting till he has done so before they unfold theirs. When all of those present are social equals, all unfold together, with no ceremony.”
Fashionable men of the time wore stiffly starched ruffled collars, a style protected while dining with a napkin tied around the neck. Hence the expression “to make ends meet.” When shirts with lace fronts came into vogue, napkins were tucked into the neck or buttonhole or were attached with a pin. In 1774, a French treatise declared, “the napkin covered the front of the body down to the knees, starting from below the collar and not tucked into said collar.”

Link to the rest at Etiquipedia

PG (sort of) remembers a saying to the effect that officials with the least power require the most punctilious respect for their position.

What is the position of a literary agent in 2018? Will that position change by 2028?

Traditionally, agents provided a valuable service for publishers. They strained away the worst of manuscripts thereby saving the employees of publishers untold hours of work wading through large stacks of paper to find the occasional pearl.

And, even better, agents were paid for their services by authors, not publishers.

An agent’s life is easier if all manuscripts must pass through his/her hands.

Let’s assume, for discussion purposes, that one in one thousand random manuscripts that a literary agency receives will interest a publisher. Expanding the pool of manuscripts should be good news for the agent. 5,000 manuscripts equals 5 published books, 10,000 manuscripts equals 10 published books, etc.

Yes, there’s more work involved if more manuscripts come into an agency, but a skilled agent (or a less-skilled intern) can usually discern within a few paragraphs that the author has not submitted a commercially viable manuscript. Dealing with a large number of incoming manuscripts is generally more efficient if the losers are rapidly culled. If an agent finds one reason to reject a manuscript she/he should probably not continue reading to discover whether there may be other reasons to reject the manuscript. Better to start on a fresh manuscript that may not include a reason to reject.

However, if a disturbance in the Force reduces the number of manuscripts coming in the door, that’s bad news for the agent. If one in one thousand manuscripts is going to be published and the monthly flow drops from 1,000 to 500, the agent’s income is cut in half.

Since not all manuscripts are created equal, even worse news arrives if the creators of publishable manuscripts begin to do something else with their manuscripts instead of submitting them to agents. If the ratio of publishable to received manuscripts changes from one in 1,000 to one in 2,000, the agent’s income is again cut in half.

PG is over-simplifying the situation, but the bottom line for agents is that every successful indie author represents a loss of potential income for agents as a group and one agency in particular. And it’s likely not just a loss of a single book. While some successful indie authors do go into traditional publishing exclusively or on a hybrid basis, most don’t, so an indie author with the talent to support a successful career takes many books out of an agent’s pile of money-makers.

PG suspects that documents like the OP will seem very strange to authors in future years.

29 thoughts on “When to follow up with a literary agent”

  1. Having lived in the time of literary agents I think their passing will only be lamented by other literary agents. It is not like they’re professional who understand IP law and who are bound to give good advice for a fixed price.

  2. Unless otherwise specified by the agent, it’s not customary to follow up on query letters. Many agents have “no reply means no” policies and they will get annoyed pretty fast if you start chasing after a query that they didn’t reply to.

    And a rejected author should worry about upsetting the rejecting agent because…?

    If I could be bothered, I’d find a literary agent and annoy him just for the hell of it.

  3. Yeah, part of the problem with helpful lists like this is it still means there are secret rules which you (the author) must research and get just right if you hope to have a career (in tradpub). It’s not enough to expect common courtesy or professionalism from the people you are inquiring about having a professional relationship with. Nope, you have to know the secret rules, and it’s considered part of your job to do whatever internet research is required to learn them. And then you’ve got to hope that there’s any kind of consistency in these rules from agent to agent, because even though one agent may say one thing, another agent may think that thing is so annoying that it sends you instantly to the rejection pile.

    I enjoyed the “court rules” info, PG. I think it’s an apt analogy.

    I hope one day I’m successful enough to get queries from literary agents (as I’ve heard of some indies getting), just so I can send them a form rejection. (The thing that cracks me up about those is that, from what I’ve heard, even when they do query successful indies, it’s still, “I’m offering you the chance to pitch to me, so send me your sales data and I may consider repping you.” Hahahaha no.)

    • You *could* ask them for their client list and revenue numbers as proof of their value as agents.
      (“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”)

  4. Documents like the OP seem very strange to me right now. Why are any authors anywhere *still* pitching to agents? You give away 15% of your income to the agent in exchange for the privelege of giving away all of your IP rights and most of your IP profits to a publisher. Back in the Jurassic era, we didn’t have a choice. Today’s authors have no reason to follow yesterday’s rules.

    • 15% of your income from that book for life plus 70 years. You are also giving away your children’s income that would otherwise come from your estate.

      I can’t think of a single person on the planet that is worth 15% of my income (except myself).

  5. This is like reading about the bygone mating rituals of Neanderthals.

    The OP’s preferred agent-derriere osculation techniques, I mean.
    By contrast, PG’s rules of the royal court seem far less byzantine in 2017.

  6. Ironically enough years back I wrote a post on this very topic, called something like “The Rejection Letter of the Future Will Be Silence.”

    But that brave new world is still a bit in the future, and even the world as it stands feels a bit less zero sum to me than is presented here. Haven’t we moved past the either/or “indie vs traditional” battles?

    • I think the “indie vs. traditional” battles you observe is because of the legacy publishing world snootiness that many rejected writers haven’t forgotten. There’s a particular bitterness that lingers in the hearts of indie authors from the way that the legacy publishers, agents, and even many traditionally-published authors looked haughtily down their noses at self-published authors, as if they were not even bugs worthy of being squashed. Now the indies have gained ground, and even the respect of many professional associations, and many of the old gatekeepers have seen their power erode. This may not apply to you, but I’ve seen it evolve over the last decade in bitter exchanges online on both sides.

      It will take time for those sore feelings to lessen, but the tides are changing, albeit slowly. It depends on what groups you observe. You can’t paint everyone with the same stroke, especially when you’re only seeing the loudest opinions online (the tip of the iceberg vs. the silent majority, likely containing a significant chunk of indifferent individuals, beneath the surface).

    • Doubtful.
      There is as much commonality of interests as between feudalism and capitalist libertarianism.

      The two biggest blocks of Indies are the “tradpub refugees” (like the Harlequin expatriates who were burned by the establishment) who no longer “the universe will take care of them”, if they ever did; and the entrepreneurial startups who are looking forward to the challenge of building a business on their own terms.

      Neither has much use for gatekeepers or added middlemen in the supply chain.

      It’s all about added value and the opportunity cost.
      Basic economics.

      • “Neither has much use for gatekeepers or added middlemen in the supply chain.”

        From the reader’s perspective, however, the gatekeeper function adds value. This is particularly true for books other than the “fill a few idle hours” sort. The tension between the readers’ use for gatekeepers and the authors’ desire to avoid them is as yet unresolved.

        • Who is the hypothetical “the reader” that encompasses every individual in the world who reads books?

          Maybe some readers want to only read things that have been “vetted” by some nebulous someone who can decide “good literature”, but other readers (like me) are so excited that finally they get to read the books they have desperately wanted all their lives but that never got past the “gatekeepers” who simply didn’t know how to market the books. For me, “gatekeepers” never added value, they simply refused to publish the kind of books I want to read. Good riddance to them.

          • The gatekeepers need not be traditional publishers. If you have desperately wanted all your life to read the slush pile, then you do indeed live in a glorious time and do not need a gatekeeper. For myself, keeping all abstract collectives of other readers out of it, I am limited more by time than by money. I am happy to pay a premium to avoid the slush pile.

            • Then your comment would have been more accurate to say that you want gatekeepers, not “readers” want gatekeepers.

              This comment thread is about agents and traditional publishers, and that is what I am talking about. They routinely refuse to publish excellent books simply because the market isn’t big enough for it or they don’t know how to market it (I draw that claim from their own statements), which is their prerogative and makes perfect sense from their perspective. That just means that what they publish and what I want to read are often different.

              I don’t want gatekeepers, but I do appreciate reviews and recommendations and other methods of finding good books. There are all kinds of ways to find good books, but that’s not what we are talking about. Gatekeepers keep things out of the market, hence the name. I prefer methods that sort through what is out there and help me find what I want to read, not people who will only let me read what they like, because anything else is buried.

              • “I don’t want gatekeepers, but I do appreciate reviews and recommendations and other methods of finding good books.”

                In other words, you want gatekeepers. The author has to get past the keeper to get the book read by a reviewer, much less favorably.

                • No, I don’t want gatekeepers. I don’t want anyone keeping books out of the marketplace.

                  Someone reading an already published book and then telling me they loved it is not a gatekeeper, they are another reader giving me a recommendation. If we are going to redefine “gatekeeper” as “someone who has an opinion on a book and tells someone else,” then the word has completely lost its meaning.

                • If a gatekeeper is someone keeping books out of the marketplace, then there never have been any. No one ever had that power. The individual editor could only keep a book from being published by a particular publishing house. This is not at all the same thing as the marketplace.

                  Back in the day, the economics of publishing were such that finding someone willing to risk money on a book was a limiting factor. All this talk of gatekeepers is really about finding that someone and his money. This was never the only limiting factor. Getting published and getting noticed were always two different things. Getting noticed has always had its own set of challenges. And yes: gatekeepers. It is wonderful if your friend recommends that unknown book you will love, but in the bigger picture the issue is how the book goes from unknown to known. This isn’t just a matter of waiting for recommendations.

                  The economics have changed. You no longer have to find someone willing to risk their own money on your book. This doesn’t remove the limitation of attention. Quite the opposite. With all those previously frustrated authors now self-publishing, the marketplace for attention is more crowded than ever, and the attention gatekeepers important than ever. This may not be the New York Review of Books, but getting on the front page of Goodreads or finding favor from Amazon’s algorithms.

        • The vast majority of readers don’t make their buy/no buy decisions based on who published their story. They decide based on genre, cover, title, blurb, summary, and price. If the author is a familiar name that might factor pro or con.

          Some readers do indeed refuse to read anything not validated by “industry standard contracts” but sales show they are not representative of the market. If anything, they are a shrinking minority.

          If a given author wishes to bet their career on that particular segment they are free to do so but their odds of making a living writing will go down dramatically. This is reflected in the rising number of one and done debut authors this decade. In many genres, no new “Big Name” authors have emerged from tradpub since Indie, Inc emerged as a force in publishing.

    • Haven’t we moved past the either/or “indie vs traditional” battles?

      Of course not. It’s a battle for market share.

      • On “market share,” again, I reject the zero sum premise. Writers are competing for mindshare with other forms of entertainment more than they’re fighting for a fixed market amongst each other. The market is elastic, not fixed.

        • Not when the market is shrinking in one area and growing in others. At that point market share will flow to those focusing on the growth areas and away from those focusing on the shrinking sector. The result will look like zero sum, with winners (share gainers) and losers (share donors) regardless of whether it really is or isn’t zero sum.

          Positioning matters.

          Look to ongoing development in the automotive sector where the practicality of (tall wagon) SUVs and “crossovers” (autos masquerading as trucks) is trumping the sheer quality of the SEDAN CAR OF THE YEAR to the point FORD is discontinuing ALL sedans.

          The market goes where the market wants to go.
          Suppliers either go with the market or get left behind.

        • Market share is by definition a zero sum game. It is a measure of percentages. They all must add to 100%. That’s zero sum.

          Sales, however, are not zero sum since aggregate sales can increase for everyone.

          Total sales for two parties may both increase, but when one gains market share, and the other loses, the first is gaining more sales. If that trend continues, he also gains market share while the other loses it. Continue further, and he dominates the market.

          Some writers may be competing for mindshare. Others don’t bother, and just compete for sales and market share.

          Some may have also moved beyond “indie vs traditional.” That’s fine. That’s their choice. Others will continue to fight for market share while the competition looks for mindshare.

  7. I am close to giving up on getting any Agent to view my writing. I am beginning to think that maybe I can earn more money from another hobby if I focus on something that I love to do. I was talked into writing by my partner who said I could make money from writing very easily. But I really am starting to think that this ain’t for me. Maybe, if you are passionate about what you do and do not choose it simply as a way to make money, then you are on the right path. My thoughts on your article are that if you really enjoy writing, then write about something that you are passionate about and sell your work. If it ain’t rewarding while doing the writing, then maybe like me, it’s time to try something else?

    • Slap a cover on it and offer it on Amazon as an ebook. If it makes you nothing then no loss – but if it sells a single copy then you’ve already done better than 99% of those trying to get trad-pub to notice you.

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