Multiple submissions

Queries are not submissions. You may send out as many queries as you like. All agents know you will do this.

And even with simultaneous submissions, I've heard from quite a few good agents that the less said, the better.
Julian Friedman, for instance, is a top agent in Britain, and he says: if you call up the agency and ask if they mind sim subs,they'll say yes, we mind. But, he says, just don't ask. If the agent doesn't mention it, go ahead and do it. If more than one agent agree to rep you, Julian says, then that's a very nice position to be in.
So unless an agent expressly forbids it - in which case you must play fair and not do it - just don't ask and go ahead.

And in any case, agents tend to multiple-submit to publishers all the time. So as Aruna says, when dealing with an agent, don't agonize over it, but don't advertise it either.

...and while we're on the subject, agent007's blog says the following:

Send a one-page query letter to every one of them (snail or email, based on each agent’s preference). Do not offer exclusives. If an agent responds and asks for an exclusive, don’t give it unless a) that agent is your first choice anyway; b) the other agents all turned you down; or c) you really like the agent and s/he is only asking for two weeks. [Can you tell I'm really opposed to exclusives?]

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If you don't allow an agent to have an exclusve look for a reasonable time, you're limiting the number of agents who will work with you. Exclusives are just part of the business, and I don't see why writers are opposed to them.
The length of time you grant an agent should be limited, but you aren't harming the agent by saying no to an exclusive, you're just eliminating one more chance you have to find good repreentation.

You shouldn't be submitting to agents you don't want to represent you in the first place. And two weeks is not enough time for most agents. If it were, they wouldn;t need an exclusive. You might as well just say no and move on.

Writers get in an awful hurry to get rejected. Better a slow acceptance than fifteen fast rejections.

I had bad experiences with exclusives. One agent asked for one promising a quick read; didn't read it in that time, even though I had withdrawn it from another agent for her, and then other agents didn't want to read it becasue she still had it.
Every other agent who did have an exclusive, read it in two-three weeks.
This time, I'm doing it on a one-by-one basis, starting with my top choice and moving down.
Voluntarily exclusive.

Jamesaritchie said:

Exclusives are just part of the business, and I don't see why writers are opposed to them.

Writers get in an awful hurry to get rejected. Better a slow acceptance than fifteen fast rejections.

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Because the query process favors everyone but the writer. Querying is laborious at best, and we want to maximize our chances of finding decent representation.
We spend the time and energy on the work iteself, then must shift gears (or keep the car running) into marketing mode. We get a yes, do some edits, then we get to forget the marketing for a little while and leave it up to someone else while we go back and write.

Slow acceptance? Time favors rejection, in my experience. Calls for additional material don't take months. Rejections often do, though.

I'd have to agree...my acceptances have always been swift. I suppose someone could drag their feet responding to something they're interested in but it doesn't make good business sense.

I'd also have to agree with the "if they don't ask don't tell" philosophy when it comes to simultaneous submissions. If I do grant an exclusive, I try for 2 weeks but will agree to a month.

Beth

The thread title is a misnomer; multiple submissions = several stories to the same agent/publication; simultaneous submissions = one story to several agents/publications.

When it comes to simuls, I recommend doing it. Always. Give yourself the best shot at getting published. Unless you're 18 and have 50 years to wait.

aruna said:

And even with simultaneous submissions, I've heard from quite a few good agents that the less said, the better.
Julian Friedman, for instance, is a top agent in Britain, and he says: if you call up the agency and ask if they mind sim subs,they'll say yes, we mind. But, he says, just don't ask. If the agent doesn't mention it, go ahead and do it. If more than one agent agree to rep you, Julian says, then that's a very nice position to be in.
So unless an agent expressly forbids it - in which case you must play fair and not do it - just don't ask and go ahead.

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Aruna, that cleared things up for me. I was planning to submit to several agents, but hesitated. Thanks.

Anya Smith said:

Aruna, that cleared things up for me. I was planning to submit to several agents, but hesitated. Thanks.

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My strategy is to handpick my very favourite agents, the ones I know something about, the ones I'd kill for, and send in my partials - if they are reqiested - in batches of two. Usually nobody complains about simultaneous partials anyway, so that two-at-a-time thing is voluntary.
If no-one bites,I move on to the next two. And so on, till I reach the stage (hopefully never!) where I have very little information on the agent apart from who he/she represents. Then I will go on to several sim subs. As agent007 above says, it all depends on how much I want THAT particular agent.

What's it called when you query more than one agent in the same agency?

Please don't say obnoxious.

CaroGirl said:

I'm far from sending queries out for my novel, but I was wondering if, in the query, you're obligated to say that it's a simultaneous submission. I know that for short stories to literary journals they strongly discourage simultaneous submissions. But with the snail's pace of industry and the fact that it's a novel, they would surely allow for you wanting to send it to several places.

I hope all that makes sense. I'm sick with the flu at the moment.

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Actually, just for the record, it is QUITE acceptable these days to simulataneously submit short fiction. I read for a very well-respected literary journal in Georgia, and almost 95% of what we receive comes with a cover letter explaining that it is a simultaneous submission, and that we will be notified if it is accepted elsewhere. It's true that it used to be frowned upon, but more and more journals have had to come to accept it as standard procedure. With an average of anywhere from 3-6 months response time, it just isn't fair for any journal to tie up a writer's work for that long, and thankfully, most publications have now come to realize this.

What publications do appreciate is letting them know upfront. It's when you don't tell them, and then try to pull the piece once they've already acceped or are considering accepting it, that rankles with them.

Baywitch said:

What's it called when you query more than one agent in the same agency?

Please don't say obnoxious.

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Well, it could be smart, depending on the agency, or it could simply be redundant. The risk is the appearance of shotgunning or desperation. Not that ANY writer here would ever be desperate, eh?

Perish the thought!

aruna said:

My strategy is to handpick my very favourite agents, the ones I know something about, the ones I'd kill for, and send in my partials - if they are reqiested - in batches of two. Usually nobody complains about simultaneous partials anyway, so that two-at-a-time thing is voluntary.
If no-one bites,I move on to the next two. And so on, till I reach the stage (hopefully never!) where I have very little information on the agent apart from who he/she represents. Then I will go on to several sim subs. As agent007 above says, it all depends on how much I want THAT particular agent.

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OK, so I'll submit to two at a time. Still better than one. The only drawback is that I don't know much about any of the Agents as yet. But I'll research.

Thanks again, Aruna.

Baywitch said:

What's it called when you query more than one agent in the same agency?

Please don't say obnoxious.

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Ok, how about redundant, desperate, waste of time and stamps, silly?


I've read and experienced that one query per agency is enough. They pass them around I guess. Three of my rejections came from a different associate than the ones to whom I addressed the queries. It's kind of like the junk mail addressed to resident; it's everyone's mail.

As far as short fiction is concerned, yes, there are more and more literary journals that are accepting Simultaneous Submissions. Most of the high-paying literary journals still don't accept them though. And to my knowledge, most (read virtually all) of the high-paying consumer magazines don't accept simultaneous subs. And even many of the high-paying genre mags don't accept them either. But the trend appears to be slowly reversing in favor of the simultaneous submission, at least in literary magazines. You'll just find relatively few high-paying ones that are willing to take a gamble on choosing a story.

BS

I just found some wonderful advice about simultaneous submissions/exclusives on another agent's site. This is the best and most sensible advice I've ever read. It's the second post down (January 30th) on this site:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_pubrants_archive.html

I especially like this comment:

You should have agents fighting over you and your project. That way you can interview all the agents and find the best fit. You can’t do that if you allow one agent an exclusive look.

Now, if you are 100% positive that one certain agent would be the best person for you, then fine, do it. Otherwise, I don’t see how granting one is beneficial to your career.

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simsubs

blackbird said:

Actually, just for the record, it is QUITE acceptable these days to simulataneously submit short fiction. I read for a very well-respected literary journal in Georgia, and almost 95% of what we receive comes with a cover letter explaining that it is a simultaneous submission, and that we will be notified if it is accepted elsewhere. It's true that it used to be frowned upon, but more and more journals have had to come to accept it as standard procedure. With an average of anywhere from 3-6 months response time, it just isn't fair for any journal to tie up a writer's work for that long, and thankfully, most publications have now come to realize this.

What publications do appreciate is letting them know upfront. It's when you don't tell them, and then try to pull the piece once they've already acceped or are considering accepting it, that rankles with them.

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It's still frowned on by at least 90% of the magazines I write for, and the bette rthe magazine, the less likely it is that simsubs are allowed. Part of the reason it takes so long for many magazines to respond is solely because of simultaneous submissions. They really make very little sense. The more writers who do this, the slower response time gets everywhere because the writer is adding to many slush piles, rather than to only one slush pile.

Thinking that simultaneous submissions speed things up may seem logical, but the more writers who follow this practice, the slower response time gets everywhere.

And there's another big problem. Simultaneous submnissions mean your story better be good enough to sell as it is. You lose chances to take editorial suggestions into account before submitting the story to the next magazine because you've already submitted the story to the next magazine.

A story that's any good doesn't need to be simsubbed, and a story that isn't any good is only going to be harmed by simsubbing it.

aruna said:

I just found some wonderful advice about simultaneous submissions/exclusives on another agent's site. This is the best and most sensible advice I've ever read. It's the second post down (January 30th) on this site:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_pubrants_archive.html

I especially like this comment:

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Most of teh agents I know are not going to fight over your manuscript, once they learned it's been simsubbed. They'll just say "NO," and anything else you submit will be ignored.

And even if fighting over it worked, this would only matter with novels good enough to fight over. With those novels not quite at this point, you just lost the chance to make it this good by following any advice one agent gives you before you submit it to the next agent.