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Hi all. I know it's mid-January already, so I'm delinquent. Again. But I've finally compiled my stats for queries received in November and December. I'll do them month by month as not to muddle the numbers.

Trends:

• Numbers were down overall these two months. I feel like November makes sense because of National Novel Writing Month. And then December took a dive at the end when the holidays hit--which I think is 100% okay with me. I'd much prefer that that a sharp spike with novels that were just finished and not ready for prime time. Plus, we're all lazy around the holidays.
• I am seeing lots and lots of dystopians again. I know it's in the water. I've sold 4 of them already. So it's not that I don't love them when I turn them down...it's just that it's crowded.
• In spite of stating quite clearly that I don't rep picture book manuscripts and you must be the illustrator also, I am getting quite a few queries to that effect anyway. 

But here are the numbers...

November:

• Total: 204
• Requested: 5
• Categories of Requested: 4 YA (2 contemporary, 1 dystopian, 1 sci-fi) and 1 MG (historical/comedy)

December:

• Total: 175
• Requested: 1
• Categories of Requested: contemporary YA

So...I'm leaving the numbers simpler this month. Not going to get into funny numbers with weird stats. Obviously, these two months combined were about what I get in an average month the rest of the year. So take all that for what it's worth. I've been seeing more strong YA than middle grade, and don't really know what that's about.

But...onward into January!

And in case you missed it, I need an intern. Send them to this link here!

My submission holiday paid off. I have been able to start from Query Inbox Zero and stay caught up. I'm now answering all queries within a week. Hooray! So I'm sure everyone's curious how my October queries went over. Did I get a bunch of good stuff? Or did I just get all the stuff that had already been passed on while I was closed? Who knows, really.

• Total: 337
• Requested: 6
• Categories of Requested:  5 YA (2 contemporary, 1 fantasy, 1 dystopian, 1 historical), 1 MG (sci-fi)
• Queries with attachments: 7
• Queries with a book cover: 1

I think I requested all of those manuscripts in the first week. It was down hill from there. Otherwise of note in the pile this month is that I'm still getting just lots of queries for genres that I don't represent. Lots of memoir, a good chunk of adult fiction, and MANY picture books from authors-only. If you're not an author-illustrator, then I'm sorry, but I'm not interested. 

I can't stress enough the need to research your agents. Interestingly, this was also the month I got a very unpleasant phone-call from a man who runs an agency research site, where he charges users for information I give away freely and then accuses me of being a crook because I don't want my phone number listed. Go figure.

But please, research. I update my info on this site regularly. I post my deals on Publisher's Marketplace, and we have an agency page there. I just checked AgentQuery.com. Everything is good there. I still can't control my information on querytracker.net, and have to request changes when I find errors (which there always are), but whatever. So where the bad information comes from? Who knows. Tips are welcome. 

Keep the queries coming though. I'm on the hunt for good stuff! Just really great middle-grade and YA with concepts that really pop, and a fresh voice in pretty much anything. Try me!

Hey querying world,

I am taking a summer break from submissions. The pile has grown way up above my ears, and I'd like to be able to catch up on everything, and requested manuscripts, AND client work. So...

From August 1st to September 1st, I am not accepting queries. I'll update this on the submission page as well.

What will happen if you query me during the month of August?

Easy. You'll get a nice auto-response and the query will be moved to the trash. Please feel free to resubmit in September if you still think I'm a good fit for your project.

Thanks!

So I'm going to do a little Q&A now about offers of representation. Obviously there are going to be a lot of permutations and probabilities of these scenarios so I won't be able to cover everything, but after asking for the main questions on Twitter, here we go:

MY END

1. How do I know when I want to offer?

 I know I love a manuscript when want to tell people about it the minute I finish reading it. But I don't always know if I want to offer until I talk to you. Sometimes the manuscript is great, but I have notes. Sometimes I want to make sure you're not crazy. Usually I get to the end of the phone call before saying, "So, I'd love work with you and offer representation."

2. Do I pass the manuscript around to the agency first?

Often enough. We're a small agency, so that's really only one other opinion. But it's nice to have a second thumbs-up, especially if I'm a little on the fence. If I'm 100% in love with it, I might just want Caren to read it so she can be equally excited about it. But we also work on different kinds of projects, so if I want to sign a picture book, or Caren is signing a new romance author, it doesn't make sense for us to share, since we're not really qualified to judge. Ultimately, my list is my own, and those are my choices.

3. Do I always revise before offering or revise after offering?

There is no "always." Sometimes I see potential but not enough to use up more hours. Sometimes I know the work isn't that much, so I should grab it. I go with my gut on this one. No hard-fast rules.

YOUR END

1. Can you query more agents if you have an offer on the table?

Well, this is a funny one. Suppose you're only part-way through querying and you start to get responses faster than you thought. But you still wanted to query a few more agents that you like. Can you rush a query out to them? The short answer is: sure. It's a free country. I've advocated before for letting even the agents who only have a query know that you have an offer--more options are always good.

But you have to do it understanding that those agents might not get to it in time. If I take 2 weeks to read, then I might not see that email until you've already made a decision. 

Now, agents sometimes do this with editors. We start to get interest, so we submit more widely to create MORE interest. But I have relationships with those editors. I can call and say, "Hey, can you read this quickly? It's going fast." Because you don't have a relationship with those agents, you can't exactly say that.

And you also have a problem of not wanting the offering agent to wait too long. But...if you think you stand a chance at getting more interest, do whatever you want as long as you understand the risks.

2. How do you go about talking to an agent's clients?

This is easy. You ask the agent who is offering if you can speak to his/her clients. They will likely say yes, and if they don't, then that's sketchy. In this situation, I will consider which client of mine would be the most helpful to speak to, based on what they write and their overall situation. (Every case is different after all.) Then I'd put you guys in touch. 

What you shouldn't ever do is go behind the agent's back and get in touch with clients without asking first. Those clients have their loyalty to me first, so they'd say "Uh, is this person legit?" And you also look like a creepy if you're looking for contact info through back channels. 

It's a different story if you already have a relationship with an agent's clients already. In that case, it's a little more fluid, and hopefully the agent knows about t

Another month, another stat blog post. I'm clearly a little farther behind schedule than I'd like to be also. But most notable in May was the drop in volume. It looks like it's perked back up now in mid-June, but...May is a mystery. Here are the full stats:

• Total: 261
• Requested: 9
• Categories of Requested:  2 picture books, 1 middle-grade fantasy, 2 contemporary YA, 1 paranormal YA, 1 dystopian YA, 1 YA fantasy, 1 adult non-fiction
• Queries with attachments: 10

So compared to last month, I got about 100 fewer queries. That's a big drop. Where did people go? I will say that there are 166 queries in the queue for June so far, so I should be back up to the 300+ level for this month. Yay.

Still, my request rate was up again. So qualitatively, things seemed better. And I had a few referrals of manuscripts that I requested as well, which don't really count as slush pile submissions.

Otherwise, I don't think there was anything truly notable worth mentioning. The usual array of misspellings, calling me the wrong name, derivative books...

If you have questions, definitely let me know. 

A few months ago, a lot of you guys yelled at me for switching things up on you by saying that I wanted to be notified of an offer even if you'd only queried me. The rational (I believe) for why so many people were pissed at me was that so many agents want things different ways, and how on earth can you be expected to get it straight? (I still think that's lame, by the way.)

Well, today I was contemplating adding another form rejection (I have a few I use for different reasons) that would be sent to all queriers who seemed to have missed the boat on how to submit to us properly to begin with. But I am hedging on this one. Mostly because I'm not sure it's my job to do your work for you.

I think I'm part of a group of agents who goes ABOVE AND BEYOND the call of duty in terms of educating the writer community. We blog, we Twitter...we go to conferences galore. But is this good will or genuine responsibility? I think it's a little from Column A, a little from Column B, personally. More from Column A though.

So I am going to ask YOU, my faithful readers, and hopefully some not-so-faithful readers who like having opinions to answer the following questions:

1. Whose responsibility is it to make sure you submit properly? Mine or yours?
2. Where does my responsibility end? 
3. And more specifically: should I bother with an extra form rejection for Those Who Do Not Seem To Get It?

I promised. So here we go...

• Total: 351
• Requested: 8
• Categories of Requested: 3 MG, 3 contemporary YA, 1 YA fantasy, 1 narrative nonfiction 
• Queries with attachments: 15
• People who wrote thank you notes: 18

So compared to last month, I saw a 22% increase in queries. My request rate also went up a little. But...it's still only just shy of 3%. (Isn't that scary?) And again, there were some spam queries that all the agents I know, and some I don't, were CCed on. I delete those right away, mark as spam, and don't count them. 

My thoughts...

Style

There were a few notable events in the query pile this month that show me how little people must research ahead of time. There was one email in a pink font on a flowery pink background. My eyes hurt just opening it, and I didn't even care what the content was. Had it been on paper, I'd have expected glitter and perfume. There were also several letters that barely qualified as letters. Either incredibly casual, like "Hey there, can I send you something?" or just reeking of "I don't know what I'm doing." Those are hard to deal with, but by and large I try to find what the book is somewhere (if it's there) and send a rejection.

There's also still that weird syndrome of a lack of sample pages. I really think every listing of mine says: please include the first 3-5 pages of the manuscript in the body of the email. If it doesn't somewhere, can someone let me know? 

I included the number of thank you notes I got for my form rejection letter. It's nice when people are polite. It's less nice when they also ask me if I can recommend another agent. I don't write back to these.

But at least compared the number of people who are still sending me attachments, there are more polite people than sloppy people. The number of unsolicited attachments I got DOUBLED this month. Probably a fluke, but it goes to the point that a solid 10% of people just aren't paying attention AT ALL. And many more just plain don't get it in the first place.

Requests

I seem to be on a middle-grade kick, which is good. I'm looking for good middle-grade, so my requests fit that bill. The concepts on each of these seemed promising, hence the requests.

Obviously the narrative nonfiction was an exception, since I so rarely do those books, but I loved the writing. 

As for the YA, the contemporary YA seemed to be stronger this month in terms of writing and premise. I may also be burned out of dystopian and fantasy. Bear in mind, I already represent 3 authors who have published or about-to-be published dystopian novels. As much as I love them, I'm going to be picky. I don't want to be a one trick pony.

And that's April! Time to dig into May...and I enjoy this now, so stay tuned for the next installment next month.

I promised a few weeks ago that I'd do an experiment. So instead of deleting after responding, I moved every March query and its accompanying response from me into a new folder, so I could do some analysis. Here we go:

• TOTAL: 286
• REQUESTED: 3
• CATEGORY OF REQUESTED: 2 YA, 1 MG
• QUERIES WITH ATTACHMENTS: 7
• CATEGORIES I DON'T REP: 24

Other items of note: 

Numbers:

The actual number of emails I received was a bit higher than 286. That number does not include anyone who emailed me a second time (almost immediately) with a correction to their prior query. I would guess there were a good 10 of those. And then there were a few cases where the querier CCed the entire industry on the email. I don't respond to those and they get deleted.

I should add also that while my request rate is always low, this month was very low. This is because I happened to sign 2 amazing new projects right in the middle of the month as I was beginning to read the March 1st queries. So as the ebb and flow goes, I was going to need to be really wowed to want to see something.

Genres:

If you think about how many queries were not categories I rep in relation to the total number received, that's about 10%. 10%! The bulk of them were for memoirs. I don't really do those. The remainder were largely for some non-specific type of adult fiction. And a minority were still for...vampires! Is there a listing for me anywhere that doesn't say "No vampires"? If there is, please let me know. 

Addressing problems:

• ADDRESSED TO "Dear Agent": 3 
• ADDRESSED TO "Ms. Johnson": 3
• ADDRESSED TO "Elana Johnson": 2
• SPELLED MY NAME "ELENA": 9

We're a small agency, peeps. There are 2 of us that work here. And only one of us is even open to submissions right now. That would be me. So these 17 queries that just didn't even know who I am are kind of annoying. And look how the misspelling of my name trumps the letter being addressed to someone other than me. Please read carefully. Double-check spellings of names. For your own sake. You look sloppy otherwise.

Miscellany:

This was the first month I got a query sent from an iPhone. Yep, "Sent from my iPhone" signature at all. And it was one of the categories I don't rep. So that person's tactics probably need some re-evaluation.

I also got a decent number of thank you notes and/or people asking me who else I'd recommend they query. Needless to say, I don't reply to those either. A rejection isn't an invitation to conversation, unless I indicate as much. You're responsible for your own research. I'm not doing it for you.

And then of course is the ever-rising syndrome of "just plain unprofessional" letters, that show me people are querying somewhat casually. Several other agents have commented on this on their blogs this week, so I'll just reiterate their points. Whether it's just that the internet blew the lid off the filters, or that people are lazy, it is definitely too easy to send off those letters. Whoever I'm railing against probably isn't reading this post, but at least I can hope that those of you who are will be better prepared.

Should I do it again for April? I think I might. I'd like to see if there's a rise or fall in any of the numbers.

Dear readers,

After the balagan (Hebrew for "utter madness") that arose this week after I suggested it might be nice to let agents with queries know you've gotten an offer, I thought it might be helpful for me to give you a rundown on how I tackle my query pile. Especially because several people mentioned that my 2-3 response time on queries just isn't fast enough if I want to stay on top of the hot projects. (I think that's totally unfair, by the way, but I'm not arguing with you anymore.)

So the first thing you should know about how I read is: I read everything in the order it comes in.

There are almost NO exceptions to this rule. It's the only way to make it fair and democratic, and to keep myself organized. This way I don't lose track of requests, I can easily label things, and clear things out by date. (Sidenote: We here at CJLA use Google Apps, which has the BRILLIANT label & filter system of GMail. I have distinct colors for QUERIES and REQUESTED. Every email with the word "query" or "submission" in the subject gets automatically filtered into the QUERIES folder. And emails are threaded, so I know if I have responded.)

  The only time I will jump ahead is if I see a name that is referral, or if someone is letting me know that they have an offer on the table. Those are special circumstances. Everyone else goes exactly in the order in which they came. Everyone gets treated the same.

When I had fewer queries coming in, my habit was thusly: every morning, over my cup of coffee, I would read the queries from that same day a week earlier. So on a Monday I would read last Monday's, etc. Now I'm a bit busier so this doesn't happen as often. But I'd like to get back to it since it kept me timeline. Now I most often read 30 in a batch, which is a little more draining. But I am still within 3 weeks on response on queries, and nothing exceeds that. If it does, then it got marked as spam because you did something silly like send it to me and 50 of my nearest and dearest agent friends. 

When I open your letter, I usually do a quick eye scan for both format and keywords that look interesting. These are speed reading tricks. The more cleanly formatted emails are more pleasing to the eye and are usually more inviting for closer reads. The jumbled ones are less so. If there is an attachment, you are most likely going to get a rejection letter, because I explicitly say don't do that, and it's 2 extra steps for me to read what you sent, plus you could be trying to poison me or my precious laptop.

Once I kind of have that initial sense of what I'm looking at (and haven't seen that it's clearly not for me), I read the letter more closely. Unless it's a genre I don't handle in the slightest, I move down to the sample pages. (Unless there are no sample pages.) The sample pages are a real deal clincher for me. If the concept looks good, those first few pages better match up. And if there are no sample pages, well, that concept better be freaking AMAZING for me to request it. It has happened.

Every now and again, there's something interesting about a query, but I'm not sold, so I set it aside for a few hours or another day. But I hate seeing lingering things, so I get back to those quickly.

Now, once I request something, I smack that extra label on that email, so those are tracked also. And I tackle those by the same chronological order as the queries. The timeline is less strict here, because my request-rate varies, but if I see that a manuscript came in 2 weeks ago and I haven't looked yet, I'll speed up. 

I have a feeling you would probably like some stats. I do not have any at the moment. I am, however, doing the following: I am keeping all March queries and responses, and I will do a round-up of one month's worth of queries and detail stats in early April.

Cool?

~Elana