I've been cleaning today. Cleaned out two email accounts, my desk, a couple of bathrooms. And, I went to clean out my electronic file for the first manuscript I queried and discovered that I'm still waiting on three responses. Two agents who say they respond to ALL queries have not yet responded. And one agent who has a partial, and who said she would respond in eight weeks, and again within four weeks when I followed up.
So, 10% of the queries I sent for MS#1 went e-wandering and were never received. And what have we learned from this? We've learned to follow up with agents who have not responded within their specified timeline, because sometimes emails get lost. Could those two agents have been my golden ticket? Probably not. That wasn't the tightest story. And besides, I'm very happy with the agent I have, thank you very much.
What else have we learned? That sometimes agents make your day by asking for pages, thrill you again when they take the time to reply to follow-ups, and then ignore you.
Or...or...maybe that reply was lost as well. I just hope it wasn't an offer of representation because I'd hate to think an agent fell in love with that poor, neglected manuscript and has been sitting at her computer, fingers crossed, since March, hoping I'd get back to her. Heehee...as if anyone has time to wait for anything.
Good thing you went in to clean house! I always heard to keep a notebook with the dates sent and responses received. I still think that's good advice even tho everything is electronic.
ReplyDeleteRule 1. Back everything up.
ReplyDeleteRule 2. Track everything.
Rule 3. Don't be obsessive about the rules. :)