Are Authors Wasting Agents' Time?
A Q&A Weekend Edition
Hello my friends,
I was talking to my husband about advice columns the other night, about how we used to read a lot of relationship ones, but as we've aged, we've become less tolerant of the mishegoss of (whom we assume are) younger people. You know which ones I still read? Ask a manager! And others about work! Does that mean we're old? Probably. But it also made me realize that my Q&As here are not just let me explain option clauses to you but life, work, and sometimes relationship (to art) advice. Is that obvious? Yes. But sometimes we don't notice the stuff right under our noses.
ANYWAY! Let's take some questions and offer some answers! If you're a paid subscriber, you can fill out this form and ask your question for a future Q&A edition!
SC asks: I queried a novel 25 + years ago and to my great disappointment was not signed by an agent despite multiple requests for the full manuscript and personal (and in one case lovely) rejection letters. In retrospect, it's abundantly clear I gave up too soon, but that's another story. All these years later, though, I've written a new novel, which I hope to be querying later this year. Here's my question: some of the agents from that time are still agenting, and several of them said they would be happy to look at my next manuscript (clearly not realizing it would take 25 years!). Has the statute of limitations passed on this? Obviously, I will want to find the right agent for my project, who is probably not one of the folks I queried decades ago. But given how tough the market is, is it worth going back to people who were positive about something I wrote so long ago? (FWIW, I think this new book is better, in part because I am older and wiser and also because I have a tough writing group to keep me on my toes.) Curious about your thoughts on this. Thanks so much!
The heart of your question is does a long ago bit of positive feedback help me in this very competitive query market today? And my answer is maybe–but not for the reasons you might assume.
