Too many projects

I believe standard protocol is to wait for a period of time in between querying projects. I've heard anywhere from 3 months to a year. That's if you're querying the same agents as for the previous book, of course. If it's all new agents, then there's no timeframe recommended.

I would go insane trying to keep up with everything from four books at once. Keeping in mind that if one agent has the query for one book, you can't query a different agent at the agency with a different book, and so on. Not to mention keeping track of the time between submissions and making sure you aren't querying the same agent a week apart for each book.

If you think you can keep up with all the hassle, then I'm not quite sure what would stop you, but personally I would query the first, then put that aside and query the second, and put that aside and so forth. I'd be willing to start the next with queries still out, but I wouldn't actively continue to send them.

LOL, if you think that's forever, your inner 5 year old is in for a shock if you get an agent. Publishing can best be described as moving at the speed of a slug. Full requests can take a year (though it's usually less). Then there's edits before the agent sends to publishers. Then there's months to a year before the publishers make a decision. Then there's the lead time to edit and actual pub. the book....

Patience will definitely be a skill that's critical.

As for querying, read a couple agent blogs and they'll give you a better idea of the acceptable timeframe between querying projects. I'm thinking it's closer to the 3-6 month range, but don't take my word as 100% good.

A.P.M. said:

Woops. I had no idea about that rule. I suppose it would be awkward to have to tell an agent that another agent made an offer on a different book...? Assuming I was lucky enough to even get an offer, of course.

I suppose I'll have to wait until I send this query, then. My inner five year old is freaking out here. 3 months to a year is forever.

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A.P.M. said:

I don't know when to give up querying agents, and I also can't stop writing.

I'm in the end stages of querying one novel (no luck ), the middle stages of another, and I am raring to start querying a third. In a few months, maybe longer depending on beta readers and such, a fourth will be ready.

Is this too much? I am especially concerned because at the moment an agent has a partial of one story-should I wait to start querying the third novel until I've heard back? Or should it be all queries go, all the time?

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I'd be afraid of dropping balls with that many in the air...I'm scatterbrained.

that said, you've got 157 posts--when I see "end stage of querying the first" I'm wondering if anyone told you to go to Hell yet (yes, QLH, not literal hell) and see how the query fares there. By the time I could write a query worth anything I had more posts than that in QLH alone. Which isn't to challenge your work, only to say you might not want to give up on any book until you're sure the query is truly working and it is the book that's failing you.

Yes, no querying two (or more) agents at the same agency at the same time.

Yes, probably not a good idea to bombard an agent who's rejected one query with another until a cooling period has passed. Three months should be enough, in my opinion -- she'll have forgotten your name well before then. The exception: An agent who asks to see something else from you. Which invitation you will feature in your new query letter. Like, at the top of paragraph one.

You might also run into sticky situations when an agent requests an exclusive -- say another agent accepts another book, but with the exclusive out, you aren't really a free commodity, as it were. At least, not a "squeaky-free" one.

Otherwise, if you're very organized, you could pull multi-book querying off. I mean, VERY ORGANIZED, like you have cross-referenced spreadsheets on each project, scrupulously maintained.

And you must be prepared, should an agent offer rep, to get in touch with all the others, no matter what project they have. An agent will want to rep all your works, unless they are in a genre he (or an agency mate) doesn't rep.

I've heard agents suggest that you pick the strongest project and query that, then move to the next. But this was in response to some writers querying two novels at once (in the same letter). That is definitely a no no. One at a time, at least per agency.

Probably your best bet is to work on submissions for one full force while still working on your WIP, then if you get serious interest you can mention your other work (the suggestion I'm sure would be to wait until asked, they usually do at some point). But there isn't anything wrong with querying two different projects at once, just as long as you can keep track of who has what. I hadn't heard the 3 month rule, not with different projects. That might be a good question to ask if you get the chance (twitter often has agents willing to answer questions on #askagent for example), should you wait a certain amount of time before querying a different project once one is rejected, although that might be something that differs depending on which agent you ask.