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WME Entertainment / William Morris Endeavor (US)

janetbellinger

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I submitted by snail a couple of months ago but haven't heard. I am not about to enquire about it as that always brings me bad luck. William Morris Agency is what dreams are made of
 

ORION

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My agent is at William Morris. If you are interested in being represented by them it is a good idea to put "William Morris" into agentquery.com and you will get individual agents. Many agents at large agencies pass manuscripts on to other agents if they think there is a better fit and often manuscripts are read first by assistants. I did an e-mail query and pasted the first 5 pages of my novel at the bottom of my query and got a request for a full in 40 minutes. I had an offer of representation in just under 3 weeks.
My novel went to auction and sold a week after my agent submitted it.
They are a phenomenal agency.
I highly recommend them.
 

ORION

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Scribbler - if you email the specific agent they WILL see it first - WMA does not have a submissions dept per se.
 

roach

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A question for those who've been rejected by WMA, did the rejection come in your SASE? I could swear I sent one, in my letter it states I sent one, but the rejection I got today came in one of their envelopes. Now I have this niggling feeling I didn't put an SASE in with my query letter! If that's the case I'm happy they took the time/expense to respond anyway. I just feel like a dolt for letting that slip. But maybe they just use their own envelopes for the sake of expediecy? Or maybe I'm just overthinking this. hrm..
 

Chumplet

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I think WMA was one of the first agencies I queried a couple of years ago when I was, uh, young and stupid. I was obviously not ready to query such a high roller, but I was so anxious to jump into the shark pit.

I'll wait a bit, hone my query for my second novel, include my publishing credit (yay), and try again. I'll tread more carefully this time, and hopefully not come across as an idiot.
 

Glenda

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The best of luck to you, Aruna. I hope you get everything you want from this.
 

silversisters

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I think a lot of factors enter into the acceptances and rejections. This is about a book, not a screenplay. A CORPSE IN THE SOUP, released in September 2006, was picked up unagented but you might enjoy this story anyway.

My sister and I did the usual round of querying agents and received an amazing amount of requests for the first three chapters, etc. We've been told we write a great query letter. Unfortunately our manuscript wasn't holding up as well when we sent in the first three chapters or fifty pages as requested. They didn't want to see the whole thing.

One agent was very kind, said she really liked our characters and story so she gave us lots of advice on what needed to be fixed and suggested that we should find a manuscript consultant for this first book in the series. She clearly stated that she thought it was a good candidate for publication. We took her advice, found a great consultant, did a rewrite and when we sent her a thank you note for her advice months later after our manuscript was polished, we also enclosed the first fifty pages and asked for another shot with her.

We didn't hear anything and figured you only get one go-around. The book got picked up, was released in September 2006 and was getting some really good reviews. Lo and behold, in January 2007---one and a half years after the query if you can believe that, we received back the fifty pages and a handwritten note essentially saying, "The story is too silly for me, I don't like the characters and good luck with someone else." Hmmmm. Were the original advice we received from the person who really liked the characters and story and the rejection letter a year and a half later written by the same person? Gotta wonder. There wasn't a major change in the story or characters.
 

jkorzenko

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I emailed a query to Dorian Karchmar and received a rejection by mail in their envelope.

J.
 

Maprilynne

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Finish. Your. Work. Before. You. Query.

Really. Don't waste your time or the agent's. Trust me, you don't want to screw your chances with an agent at an agency as powerful and well-respected as WM.
 

ORION

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Non-fiction project usually does not have to be finished Re the proposal? gosh why wouldn't you be ready to send in a complete package? The work spent on a proposal usually makes your query letter stronger.
Other wise you better have a really good platform!
 

janetbellinger

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I submitted my query by snail mail to the literary department co-ordinator. I could swoon just thinking of the possibility I might still yet hear a positive response from this agency
 

ORION

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FYI - If you type in William Morris in Agent query.com you will get a list of agents and most if not all (even if they say they don't) take e-queries.
It make be best to target a specific agent at WMA.
I will reiterate that they have been fabulous to work with.
 

e.dashwood

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I found the name of a specific agent at WM, emailed her, and received a request for my proposal within the hour. I did sign with someone else before I heard bakc from her. So I can verify that contacting a specific agent at WM can generate a response from that agent.
 

ORION

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Don't give it a thought. All the agents and assistants there are busy all week. They are emailing and working with clients-me :) & editors - with contracts and a host of other things that I had no idea about until afterwards -- Sometimes I will email my agent on a Sunday night if there is something I think she needs to see on Monday and she answers me that night. In fact if anything Monday can be extraordinarily busy.I get great response from WMA ANYTIME.
BUT -- You shoot yourself in the foot if you agonize about days of the week as if that matters --What matters is your proposal and your writing.
 

RJLeahy

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I emailed SG on the third. Haven't heard anything. Does anyone know if she's out of the office?
 

lostlore

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Is the William Morris response time always that good for e-queries? I e-queried one of their agents last week and still haven't heard ...
 

ORION

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Dorian K. is my agent (SG is her boss) their assistants are usually the first ones to see their queries. I can't say for others what the response time is. For me it was about 40 minutes.
Queries come WAY down in their list of priorities on their TO DO list but if they see something they love they jump on it.
 

lostlore

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Patricia, appreciate the info. Do you know at what point it's ok to query someone else at WM?

I know some agents who are very Internet literate and I've had good success with them but I'm wary of e-querying agents I don't know. The problem I have is you have no way of knowing whether they even got the mail, if it was caught in a spamtrap or what ... you don't even know what kind of email software they're using. So if you're really sharp at computers and send plaintext mail, and they're not so experienced so that HTML mail is the norm for them, they might see your submission and think, 'This guy can't even make it double spaced, what's wrong with him?'

Soooo I'm going to do paper in the next round.
 

ORION

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If you email any of the addresses listed on Agentquery.com it will get right to them. It is one of the same emails I use for my correspondence with them.
They get all emails and no one obsesses over what it looks like. At first mine was sent all garbled (full of mime errors) and she asked for the full anyway.
DO NOT OBSESS over the form. Obsess over the premise and first 5 pages (which btw I just pasted at the bottom of my email)
The assistants are SHARP- they are great and VERY kind.
I called while Dorian had my full(before she offered) with a question and they were more than helpful.
Query someone else at WMA if they reject or if it's been more than 3 weeks.
I did not double space my query or the pages that came with them. I specifically asked about font and formatting and they reassured me that was of the LEAST importance.
I do not think paper is any advantage IMHO.
It is the writing.
It is ALWAYS the writing...
 

lostlore

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Patricia,

Thanks, this is reassuring & great to hear. I have some very good eyes on the ms now but somehow WMA wasn't in that first volley -- they are now & if weeks pass or it comes back there's 2 other great names there to go on.

As for the query itself, I'm just writing off the cuff and from my gut each time, no looking back or obsessing with it at all -- which I think is best, because looking at the responses from the first volley I can't trace out any pattern at all. It's not all bad or all good, but I've got same-day requests for fulls right next to unsigned sloppy form-letter rejects and nice letters telling me a month later how lovely (but not for them) the samples are ...

Ok, marking the calendar for agent #2 at WMA ...