Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Blog Rec: BookEnds LLC on Submissions

Every agent tells you, "Don't blog about the submissions process!" Which, frankly, I don't. I think it's kind of odd to talk a lot about fulls and partials and getting your hopes up, and it just intensifies the roller-coasteriness of something that's already pretty roller-coastery.

But that doesn't mean I can't point to someone else's post! :)

Jessica Faust over at BookEnds LLC revisited a post she wrote in 2009, "Submission 101" with some updates on how to handle being on submission. Her advice is almost always wonderful and clear, and this post is no exception. I especially liked her comment on how, as a writer, to handle the increasingly common practice of "no reply means no:"

This is one of those issues that stresses submitting writers out more than anything and, as we learned in Agentfail, causes more than a little anger and frustration. My advice is that if the agency has a “no response means no" policy, note that on your query-tracking sheet and move on the minute the query goes out.
I've been running this practice ever since I got an email saying the agency responds in 6-8 weeks even when it was clear from other data that about 95% of all requests came within six days of the query.  It saves a lot of heartache, and, if someone gets back to me, yay! Happy surprise. So, I was happy to see someone on the other side of the desk validate my intuition.

If you're a writer on sub, wander over there and read. Lots of great advice.

Jessica Faust at BookEnds LLC on Submissions


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