...or would you wait until September?
It's exciting. My draft was finished in February. I revised and had the manuscript beta-read. I've been researching agents and just this past weekend spent a couple of hours at the big Barnes & Noble up the road looking for books "like" mine and making lists of agents and authors. I wrote a query that I tinkered with for a bit, and my wife has looked it over and given me some feedback to make it better. So, I need to finalize my list of agents to hit up initially, and then I am good to go.
But now the question has arisen in my mind: it's already July. It'll probably still take me another week or two to get my list finalized. Then it will be more than halfway to August, one of publishing's "dead times." Advice to the effect of "use July and August to write, and query in September" is starting to pop up on the blogosphere.
Of course I am excited for my new project and eager to get it out there. But I also want to be strategic and maximize my chances, especially since we know how the deck is stacked against cold queriers. I also have plenty of other writing and publishing related tasks I could do if I put this project on ice for a bit. So let me ask you, my fine readers, for your opinions.
What would you do if you had a project just about ready to query right now? Would you forge ahead, or would you wait a couple of months?
Your feedback would be appreciated, and might very well prove determinative.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
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5 comments:
Well, if you think about it, if you wait until September, your query will be arriving at the same time as the queries of everyone else that waited until September and so is less likely to stand out.
i'd probably go ahead and selectively query some of them now, or in the next few weeks, when you're ready.
Half of those people are going to take two months to get back to you anyway. And not EVERYBODY in publishing goes off for a month-long vacation.
do it now. they haven't shut down yet. go!
Thanks for your feedback. I'm going to see if I can't get a list 5-10 agents together and send out a first batch within the next week or two tops. Then I'll take it from there.
Thanks again, you two! I was stuck in indecision and this has helped spur me on.
Sorry. Late to the party here, but I say, if the agent hasn't closed to queries for the August slow down, go ahead and query. Although I'm guessing you already did. Good luck! Fingers double-crossed into Pennsylvania Dutch pretzels!
I missed this survey altogether, but I agree with the rest - go, go, go before it's August. Then wait. Although I read a survey that showed many publishing people are on vacation in July and others even during the first two weeks of Sept. So who the hell knows.
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