E G Logan
Full Member
- Nov 11, 2018
THIS RELATES TO U.S. QUERYING
I have just discovered that in cases where U.S. agencies list the the items they want to see in your email query subject line AND the form in which these are wanted, this can be more than frivolous nit-picking. If your email query subject line is not in the required form, the query/submission may not be received at the agency. (Goes into Spam, I suppose.)
A recent poster on Publishers Marketplace (sorry, no, it doesn't have an apostrophe...) pointed out that two separate queries to Agency X had received no acknowledgement, despite the agency having undertaken to send automatic receipt confirmation messages to every query received. A rapidly following identical query with the email subject line EXACTLY as described on the website had, however, received, by return, an automated message.
I had seen that on several agency websites the text said something like this:
"The word 'Query' must be in the subject line, plus the agent’s name, i.e. – Subject: Query, Annie Smith, women’s fiction."
I vaguely thought, "They must either be a very literal-minded lot, or they think we are all very thick.." It never occurred to me (yes, thick) that they did in fact require this information EXACTLY as specified. All of it, nothing more, and not accidentally in a different order, or maybe in capitals...
Obviously when agencies ask for different things – like old UK favourite double-spaced 12pt Times New Roman – different length excerpts, and must all be in the body of the text and NO attachments, it has always seemed wise and diplomatic to do as asked. Now it seems it's absolutely imperative.
BTW, also noticed some U.S. agencies have almost shouted "And NO title pages". Makes sense, I suppose, if you only have 10 – or particularly just 5 – pages to play with, not to waste one.
I have just discovered that in cases where U.S. agencies list the the items they want to see in your email query subject line AND the form in which these are wanted, this can be more than frivolous nit-picking. If your email query subject line is not in the required form, the query/submission may not be received at the agency. (Goes into Spam, I suppose.)
A recent poster on Publishers Marketplace (sorry, no, it doesn't have an apostrophe...) pointed out that two separate queries to Agency X had received no acknowledgement, despite the agency having undertaken to send automatic receipt confirmation messages to every query received. A rapidly following identical query with the email subject line EXACTLY as described on the website had, however, received, by return, an automated message.
I had seen that on several agency websites the text said something like this:
"The word 'Query' must be in the subject line, plus the agent’s name, i.e. – Subject: Query, Annie Smith, women’s fiction."
I vaguely thought, "They must either be a very literal-minded lot, or they think we are all very thick.." It never occurred to me (yes, thick) that they did in fact require this information EXACTLY as specified. All of it, nothing more, and not accidentally in a different order, or maybe in capitals...
Obviously when agencies ask for different things – like old UK favourite double-spaced 12pt Times New Roman – different length excerpts, and must all be in the body of the text and NO attachments, it has always seemed wise and diplomatic to do as asked. Now it seems it's absolutely imperative.
BTW, also noticed some U.S. agencies have almost shouted "And NO title pages". Makes sense, I suppose, if you only have 10 – or particularly just 5 – pages to play with, not to waste one.
