Standard Submission

I can't watch the clip so might be misinterpreting this: but I doubt she'd reject simply because one included those first pages. Isn't it more likely that she'd read that first page, see the quality of writing, and reject because of that?

Old Hack said:

I can't watch the clip so might be misinterpreting this: but I doubt she'd reject simply because one included those first pages. Isn't it more likely that she'd read that first page, see the quality of writing, and reject because of that?

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I can't speak for her (obviously) but it seems she either will reject from the query or would prefer to make a decision based on a sample size larger than five pages. In my case, she asked for my first 30 pages, and I sure hope she will want to see the rest.

Um, if she was going to reject from the first five pages in the query, she was going to reject the partial anyway. Think she's going to read all 30 pages if she doesn't like the first 5?

If an agent doesn't specify, I'd send a query plus five pages in the body of the mail. No attachments.

rainsmom said:

Um, if she was going to reject from the first five pages in the query, she was going to reject the partial anyway. Think she's going to read all 30 pages if she doesn't like the first 5?

If an agent doesn't specify, I'd send a query plus five pages in the body of the mail. No attachments.

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This is my thinking. If an agent would request on the query, but would reject the first five, well, they're going to reject on the partial, also, so all you're doing is getting your hopes up. It's not as though the partial is going to somehow be different.

The only advantage there is that if your book does get off to a slow start but suddenly picks up steam, a partial allows the agent to see that. I believe that's the idea behind NLA's submission policy.

rainsmom said:

Um, if she was going to reject from the first five pages in the query, she was going to reject the partial anyway. Think she's going to read all 30 pages if she doesn't like the first 5?

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JSSchley said:

The only advantage there is that if your book does get off to a slow start but suddenly picks up steam, a partial allows the agent to see that. I believe that's the idea behind NLA's submission policy.

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I'm only reporting what she said. I guess if she thinks the query is worth a 30-page request, she's willing to look beyond a sluggish first page or two. What's her cutoff? I do not know. I do know that I've read on past a slow opening a number of times, and was glad I did.