East Coast Storm Etiquette?

c.e.lawson

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I feel like such an idiot.

I've been seriously hunkered down in my editing cave. Add to that my laptop dying a week ago and me shopping for a new one and restoring my files and reloading software and such, and I admit I haven't kept up on the latest news. I live in sunny southern California, where our weather has been consistently lovely, and I heard some vague news about a storm approaching the East Coast but didn't know the details. I worked for three hours straight yesterday morning giving my opening and query one last polish before sending it out to an agency. An agency in New York. Just before the storm hit.

Immediately after pressing "send", I ventured to my on-line news sites to catch up on the world. Wow. The storm was just starting to hit, and the rest of the day the storm went from bad to worse. I'm certain that agent will think I'm at least clueless and at worst completely inconsiderate. She is in a life and death situation, and I'm asking her to consider my book. :(

So...any advice for those of us ready to continue querying? How long should we wait before contacting agents in the aftermath of this storm?
 

PrincessofPersia

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I'm not an agent, but I'd say give it a couple days. I have friends in NY who were pretty much unaffected and are going to work today, and I have friends who have no power and got rocked pretty hard. Give 'em a chance to shake it off a bit. Someone might give you a more "seasoned" answer, but it seems like a common sense situation to me.
 

Polenth

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Judging from the messages on Twitter, the power is out in places and some email services are down. I'd leave it a week at least, because even if everything comes back on right now, there's a lot of clearing up to do.
 

JanetReid

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Don't worry. You can't know all the factors that affect how your query is received. I got queries yesterday and today. Since I have power and internet, I'm working. None of the publishers are open and lots of mail servers are down, so answering queries is one of the few things I can actually do that's productive.
 

Specval

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Call the agency you're considering querying. If they answer, hang up, you know their open. If they don't, you know they're closed and you wait a week before sending your query!

FYI, I'm absolutely kidding, although it's a very creative solution. It all depends on where the agency is located. I know of some companies in NYC that are open today and others that won't be open for weeks.

And I don't think that it's rude to send in a letter as a storm is approaching. Life goes on, and work is work. Also, it's very possible that the agents were working from home/not working at all that day. They might not even see your query until they get back into the office and things are fine.
 

c.e.lawson

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Thanks so much for your answers, everyone. I feel a bit better, especially hearing from agent J.Reid. I was rationalizing to myself that perhaps the agent I sent to was stuck at home, worrying, unable to travel in to work or communicate with publishers. What better way to pass the time/ get her mind off things than read my submission? ;) I wish I could send a few rugged Spartans out there to clear some trees. Alas, I can only offer a story.

Thanks again,

c.e.
 

Old Hack

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When you submit has little bearing on when your submission will be read. Submit when you're ready and trust agents to be sensible people who will get to them when they can, and won't think ill of you because you might have submitted at an inconvenient time.
 

calieber

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My instinct -- backed up by what everyone else said -- is that, I mean, you did this by e-mail, it's not like she has to drop everything and deal with your query immediately. The amount of inconvenience to which you have put her is, by my estimate, approximately 0.

If you called her to read your query over the phone, or, um, sent it by carrier pigeon, that's different.
 

Vomaxx

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And by the way, in case you missed some other trivial bits of news while in your authorial cave, there's an election coming up in a week. :)
 

Phaeal

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I can't imagine any agent penalizing a submission that arrived peri-Superstorm. Still, give it a week or so before continuing.

When the Weather Channel stops hypercovering NYC, you'll know it's time to QUERY ON!

:D
 

Jamiekswriter

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I have to share a story. I was on the phone with my agent in NYC *during* the hurricane. I was standing (fully clothed) in the bathtub of my CT house and she was home looking out the window wondering why all the fuss.
 

c.e.lawson

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Ack, just saw a Tweet from a lit agent saying it's not a good time to query during a work-stopping disaster, and that one of the reasons is that by the time they get back to work, the inbox is freakishly large and that makes them nervous. So yeah, holding off for now. Thanks, everyone! I'm off to work, but reps all around when I return.
 

jclarkdawe

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There's the overflowing inbox issue, but I have a bigger concern.

A significant number of internet servers are located in the NYC/New Jersey and a significant number of them are down. This is both from flooding of their facilities and no power. In theory, emails should be stored until such time as they are up again, but ... Further, there is the question of data damage, which is still not being predicted on its extent. See Cell Phones, Internet After Hurricane Sandy: What You Need To Know; Superstorm Sandy wreaks havoc on internet infrastructure

Bottom line is there are going to be some significant issues about whether emails go through to their intended destinations, especially where there is no confirmation of receipt. Although normally I can't find a reason not to query, this is the exception.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 

amschilling

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Agree with Jim. I did have one agent respond during the hurricane and ask for pages (on a query sent two weeks prior), but from what I've seen on twitter, his agency may have their servers elsewhere.

Unless an agency gives an auto-response, your query may not make it. And while in an ideal world you'd get a bounce-back message if it failed, each ISP is different and it might not reach you to let you know.

I'm personally waiting. Both to ensure the message goes through and to ensure that I'm not adding to a giant, overflowing Inbox. A week or two in publishing is nothing, after all. But if you can't wait, check twitter feeds. Most agents are posting whether they're up for emails and queries or not, or back in office. The feedback on that definitely varies (same with publishers, btw--some are telling agents it's okay to nudge, and others are saying it's in poor taste). If the agent you want to reach isn't tweeting, looking at feeds from someone else in their office may fill in that information for you.
 

c.e.lawson

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Those are excellent points, Jim Clark-Dawe and Amy.

I wish I could say my query hadn't been received by the one agency I sent it to the morning of the storm, but I did receive an immediate auto-response thanking me for my submission. I've since read that their location was hit very hard, and they have had no or very intermittent electricity/internet. So I expect their inbox to be staggeringly large when they're up and running. Darn.

Thanks so much,

c.e.
 

Bushrat

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Don't beat yourself up over it. I'm sure that inboxes also overflow after holidays and sick leave. They're professionals and sometimes this happens for unhappy reasons.

If I were an agent, I'd rather find more potential sales waiting in my inbox after having to maybe spend major money on home repairs because of a disaster that be greeted by polite emptiness.
 

Jamesaritchie

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If you wait, you'll be in line behind all the writers who didn't wait, and a great many will not wait. This is always the case.
 

mrsvalkyrie

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And by the way, in case you missed some other trivial bits of news while in your authorial cave, there's an election coming up in a week. :)

I know this is not writing-related and I'm sorry, but it's something I have to say-- and I mean it with the deepest respect. I'm not criticizing you nor am I angry with what you said, but I just wanted to point out that this hurricane was not "trivial," as it appears you were implying. But you may not have meant it like that, which is why I'm not jumping to any conclusions. Some people were not hit, but the ones who were, were hit hard and will never recover. My cousin went to pick up her children and when she returned home, her house was gone. It had been pushed right off its foundation and floated away. My sister is still without power and probably won't get it on for another week according to PSEG. She has no heat, no stove to cook on, and the hundreds of dollars of food and meat in her fridge had to be thrown out.

I was lucky to have not been hit extremely hard, but that doesn't mean my town does not have its own devastation. Streetlights are still not working; there's looting, gas shortages (well, it's not really the gas that's on shortage, but the fact that there's no electricity means many gas stations are not up and running.)

I'm sorry to bring this up in a place where it's not related, but it just really hits home when people say it's not that big of a deal. I'm not saying you're saying that, because it may have simply been a poor choice of words, but I just wanted it to be said. :)
 

Pyekett

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I'm not criticizing you nor am I angry with what you said, but I just wanted to point out that this hurricane was not "trivial," as it appears you were implying. But you may not have meant it like that, which is why I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

mrsvalkyrie, I cannot imagine that anyone reading your post would not have a tremendous amount of sympathy and wish you and yours the best. I also think Vomaxx is in agreement with you. As I read it, the comment was meant tongue-in-cheek; the humor derives from the absurdity of calling such a disaster "trivial." It's actually a way of emphasizing the tragedy when read in the spirit intended.

Like, hmmm, somewhat like huddling downstairs in the middle of a tornado and saying, "Well, it isn't quite ideal picnic weather, but I do have a couple of lint-covered raisins in my coat pocket, and we might be able to find an ant or two down here."

I can see where it may not come across as intended, but I do assure you that I think it was well-meant.

I'll be thinking about you and your family today.
 

juliatheswede

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I know this is not writing-related and I'm sorry, but it's something I have to say-- and I mean it with the deepest respect. I'm not criticizing you nor am I angry with what you said, but I just wanted to point out that this hurricane was not "trivial," as it appears you were implying. But you may not have meant it like that, which is why I'm not jumping to any conclusions. Some people were not hit, but the ones who were, were hit hard and will never recover. My cousin went to pick up her children and when she returned home, her house was gone. It had been pushed right off its foundation and floated away. My sister is still without power and probably won't get it on for another week according to PSEG. She has no heat, no stove to cook on, and the hundreds of dollars of food and meat in her fridge had to be thrown out.

I was lucky to have not been hit extremely hard, but that doesn't mean my town does not have its own devastation. Streetlights are still not working; there's looting, gas shortages (well, it's not really the gas that's on shortage, but the fact that there's no electricity means many gas stations are not up and running.)

I'm sorry to bring this up in a place where it's not related, but it just really hits home when people say it's not that big of a deal. I'm not saying you're saying that, because it may have simply been a poor choice of words, but I just wanted it to be said. :)

You're absolutely right about this, Valkyrie. This storm was anything but trivial.