The Best Time

To (Not) Query

Hi friends,

Well, that was fun. I spent the last week on a lake in the middle of nowhere New York and I saw both a juvenile and adult Bald Eagle and it was GREAT! We saw so few people! It was amazing.

But now it’s time to get back to work, and you, too, might be feeling that same way about your new book. (Let’s be real, for most of us it’s been ohgodwhencanIactuallyreallydomyrealjobinthemiddleofallthis for months now.) ANYWAY, you might be gearing up to query now, and wondering to yourself is this best time to send a query?

The good news is there is no best time to send a query! But let’s break down all the times people think it’s a good or bad time to query, and what might actually be happening with agents at that time.

The Fall

(The season, not the apocalypse)

Back to school! Summer’s over! Time to get back to work! That’s how I feel in September. You might, too! The fall is, however, when agents send out big submissions for big books. I mean, some agents do this—it’s not a rule and it doesn’t mean books sent out at other times are not “big.” Agents are also, often but not always, coming back from vacation post-Labor Day and might have full inboxes. This might lead you to believe that agents will be too busy to read your query, so you better wait until a slower time.

Except there is no slower time. It’s full throttle here until Christmas, where we try to fit four months of work into three months of time, when you subtract for holidays and such. If you wait until things are “slow” for an agent, you’ll be waiting until New Years, and there will be hundreds of other queries ahead of you in the queue.

Just send your query when you’re ready to send it. Get in the queue.

New Years

Maybe your New Year’s Resolution is to have your query letter ready to send on January 1st. You would not be alone! Agents definitely see an uptick in queries in early January for this very reason. And it’s fine! Whatever motivation you need to get it done is fine with me. And it’s very possible that agents may be slower to respond to queries in January because their inboxes are teeming. But….if you don’t send it, we can’t answer it, and you’ll just be waiting even longer.

Guess what I’m going to say?

Just send your query when you’re ready to send it. Get in the queue.

Summer!

BUT, you may be thinking, what if I send in the summer when publishing is apparently “slow?” Isn’t that better? Publishing is not necessarily measurably slower in the summer, though it might feel that ways sometimes. Dueling vacations across all publishing positions sometimes means that contracts get slower or editors are slower to read or agents have less time to read queries. But you can’t account for a single one of those factors, so there’s no point in trying to game when an agent has more or less time to read your query. JUST SEND IT. Surprised to see that again? I bet not.

There is no time you will be able to pin point—for ANY agent, no less all of those on your list—that will result in an agent reading your query mere hours after you send it, requesting the full that night, reading it over the weekend, and offering you representation on Monday morning. Does that happen? Sure! Occasionally! But it has nothing to do with WHEN an author sends a query. It has to do with…the stars aligning or something completely out of all human control. Kismet. Luck. Uranus transit. Whatever. And besides, while we all want things NOW NOW NOW NOW, fast doesn’t always mean better. Fast can be less painful, because waiting sucks for everyone, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with time passing. If your book is so time sensitive that waiting a few weeks, even a few months, means the window for your book’s relevance has passed, then traditional publishing was not right for your book. Very, very, very few things move THAT fast in publishing.

The only query strategy re: when to send that I endorse is send when your query is ready. Most agents read queries in the order they are received, so if you wait, there will just be more people in front of you. Do your homework. Research agents. Figure out your genre and/or finish your book proposal. Control what you can control (i.e. your query and materials) and don’t try to game a system that’s not really even a system. Queries are literally just emails agents read whenever they can. We WANT good things in our inboxes. We WANT to offer you representation. We just can’t do it ahead of other client work, and we can’t offer rep to everyone, or we’d do a bad job for ALL our clients. (Don’t forget most agents don’t get paid until they sell your book, so reading queries and taking on new clients is unpaid labor until your book is sold. We NEED to do it to ensure future paychecks, but it’s tough to juggle day to day. Don’t forget this is a job, not a public service.)

Send your query. We know it’s scary but we’re excited to read.

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And now:

HAPPY PUB DAY ALANNA OKUN!

Today is the publication day for Alanna Okun’s second book KNIT A HAT and it’s GORGEOUS. If you’ve always meant to learn to knit, Alanna is the kindest, best, most encouraging teacher in the whole world to help you do just that. And look how PRETTY this book is! It’ll keep you cozy all fall and winter long. And you’ll have dozens of hats to gift these holidays. Go order it right now!!

Keep wearing your masks, loves. (but don’t knit one. that doesn’t work.)

OXOXOX,

Kate