When they accept either, do you email or snail mail?

[Ken]

Originally Posted by Old Hack

You're reading too much into things, Ken.

If agents are happy to take both email and postal submissions then they'll say so.

If they're not, they'll say so.

They offer to accept submissions in the ways that they do in order to help writers submit their work in the best way possible; and in order to ensure that they, they agents, can work their way through those submissions as speedily and thoroughly as they can.

Agents certainly don't say these things as part of an elaborate ploy in the hopes of trapping the writers who might dare to submit exactly according to the agents' guidelines and therefore reveal themselves as potential troublemakers. That would be ridiculous.

... not a ploy, or anything. Just a way of encouraging writers to sub via their preferred route: email or snail. Some, actually do express this outrightly. "If you must send it by mail, then ..." I have encountered that at least half a dozen times. It's a way of keeping the options open, while expressing a preference. Nothing wrong with that on an agent's part. And there's nothing wrong with a writer doing opposite as suggested, especially if there's a reason for it. Incredibly, some still do not have internet access or email accounts. There are still some holdouts, g*d bless them. Anyway, just trying to add something to the discussion. Am not speaking from any direct experience. Don't have an agent. Don't have any books pub'd. Etc. So figure all that I post as = or < 2 cents.

[HFgal]

Another factor to consider that I just thought of (forgive me if someone has mentioned this earlier in the thread):

Most of the submission guidelines where either form is accepted state that for snail mail, if you include a SASE, they will get back to you. If email, they will only contact you if they are interested.

So snail mail might be good if you are interested in either 1) knowing definitively where you stand (perhaps because you want to query another agent at the same agency, assuming this is allowed), or 2) you want feedback, with the giant caveat that you will in all likelihood get a form letter which wouldn't really be feedback.

[mayqueen]

Yeah, but I've sent out plenty of snail mail queries with SASE and never got a response. So it's not a guarantee, either.