Should You Query during the Holiday?
By Therese Walsh | December 18, 2007 |
One of the many things that came up at the BackSpace Writers Seminar was whether or not agents actively seek new clients in December, and whether or not it’s a good time to submit to them.
“I send out more rejections between December 25th and January 1st than any other time of year,” said one agent.
Why?
Maybe like Rachel Vater, it happens in an effort to clear the desk, and the slate, for the New Year. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get an auto-rejection if your work happens to be in the pile. On the contrary, say agents, while they hope to clear their desks, they’re also still looking for the Next Best Thing. Says agent Janet Reid: “…if you’ve got a full out to an agent, don’t forget that we do a lot of our reading in the last half of December. That’s NOT the time to ignore your email or put your phone on no-ring.”
But is now a good time to send a query? What are the chances that query is going to be rejected more quickly than, say, waiting until January?
Said Nathan Bransford, “if you are polishing off a query, go ahead and send it now (but I’d avoid the week around Christmas and New Years).”
I think it was agent Jennie Dunham who provided these guidelines at the seminar on the BEST times of year to submit to editors (apologies for slapdash notes here!):
* Submit whenever there’s a sense of restart, like:
– right after the New Year
– in late April through May (buds on trees, Spring)
– in September (corresponds with “back to school”)
Since agents may not read your query–especially a snail query–for a few weeks prior to those times, feel free to add that into your calculations. Which might mean this is a good time of year to submit after all.
P.S. Rachel Vater also recommended that all NaNoers take the time to polish their manuscripts before submitting. She’s seen a lot of half-baked work lately.
Good luck to all!
Photo courtesy Flickr’s Unbound67
Therese Walsh (she/her) co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006 and is the site’s editorial director. She was the editor of WU’s only book, Author in Progress, and runs the Writer Unboxed UnConference.
Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, received starred reviews and was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot.
Learn more about Therese on her website, and sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to hear about any new projects.
As always, excellent advice. You make me wish I’d attended (or even known about) the BackSpace Writers Seminar.
I absolutely agree with this post since I just signed with my agent last Friday.
i think Jan 1 is a good date to send. Go for it!!
Always good advice, as usual. Thanks.
Hi Therese,
Great post with good information. As I see, if you have a great book with lots of sales potential and that WOW effect, it doesn’t matter when you send your query, an agent will pick it even if it’s Christmas Eve.
Hey, Jaye, CONGRATS!!
Anthony, I hope you’re right, since I won’t make the end-of-year cutoff…and I won’t wait until Spring, either. ;-)
I’ve learned that one can get rejected any time of the year. Rejection is better than hearing nothing. I realize agents are busy, but if you send a equery, it would take them no time at all to actually send a rejection. We writers are required to stand on our heads for agents and publishers, so to speak, but they often can’t even bother to invoke an auto rejection which could take just a few seconds.
Guess I need to write a book on how not to be rude in business.
[…] Unboxed posted this article. I’d been wondering whether or not it was worth sending out queries during the holidays. Rate […]