Queries Out!

Another week, five morning queries!

Cameron McClure of Donald Maass
Anne Boyle of Wylie-Merrick
Whitney Lee of the Fielding Agency
Christi Cardenas of the Lazear Agency
Shawna McCarthy of the McCarthy Agency

I’ll continue the literary series shortly, but today I’ve got to be a good coordinator, and get some things together for the teachers.

Catherine

Originally published at Writer Tamago. You can comment here or there.

Agents and Politeness

Well, there’s always got to be one.

I received a rude return from an agent today. I made the mistake of sending out a query to an agent whose criteria fit my novel’s when I added her to my list, but no longer do. Yup, I should have visited all the sites in regard to the agent, and I shouldn’t have been in a hurry to get my five done this week, and get on with my day job.

Because I didn’t do this, however, I rated a scolding. Visit my site and see how your query doesn’t match my criteria. Implication: you should have known better than to waste my time.

The good news here is that I have learned that this would be an agent I wouldn’t do business with. This afternoon, I had a student in my office try to tell my how unjust and unfair one of my better instructors is. I know he was full of venom because he didn’t get the grade he wanted, and I did essentially what this agent did to me. I walked him through his test. I showed him how she had figured the grade, and where he had gone wrong. With a student like this, well, he’s never going to believe me, sure, but the point is I treated him with respect and heard his complaint.

So. We’re all in business here. It’s about respect. I expect an agent, even if that agent thinks I am the most foolish clod in the universe, to treat me with respect. There’s no reason for a rejection to be negative. Neutral, even, is acceptable.

I am not thin skinned. I’ll admit I wasn’t thorough this time. And sometimes you take the long shot, especially when the agent tells you that they don’t do your genre, but they like good writing. You dare to assume you have good writing. However, just like you shouldn’t take your bad day or frustration with the industry out on the agent, an agent owes you courtesy.

Because I owe even an agent with poor bed side matter courtesy, I’ll not write a name. I want to re-iterate that the other agents I’ve had interaction with have been strongly professional or neutral. I also want to mark the occasion to let you guys know that this can happen, but you shouldn’t let an unprofessional agent take you out of the game, or even bother you…much.

Catherine

Originally published at Writer Tamago. You can comment here or there.