Funny You Should Ask: When to Nudge an Agent
Literary agent Barbara Poelle answers readers questions about when to nudge an agent and what to do with a book you’ve published through a hybrid scam in this Funny You Should Ask column from the Sept/Oct 2022 issue of Writer’s Digest.
Dear FYSA,
An agent requested my full manuscript, and their website says to nudge them if they haven’t responded in five weeks. I waited six weeks and then sent the nudge email. It’s been a week since then and I still haven’t heard anything. Other agents’ sites say that no response means a rejection, but this agent’s doesn’t. I don’t want to annoy them with more emails, but I’m also unsure what the protocol is here!
Please help!
An Anxious Author
Hey Anxious,
Yeah. I get it. Response times are catastrophic these days. Time ceased to exist in an accessible measurement somewhere around March of 2020. It’s not like it is “slower” or “faster” or “sideways,” it is “pickles” and “canoes” and “the letter K.” And we keep hoping we’ll slip ’n slide back into the space-time continuum like it was all a dream. So, we email each other like, “Per our June 9th conversation, below …” and “May I hear from you on …” and “HAVE YOU DIED? ARE YOU LITERALLY GHOSTING ME? BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY EXPLANATION HERE.”
I too am trying to wrap my head around it.
The only thing I can compare it to is gifts. Now, I love giving gifts. Love it. On my birthday, I give gifts to people. That is what makes me happy. One time I gave someone a gift of a massage, like a really fancy one, with a whole day spa experience and dipping pools and steam room, sauna—the works. This person, let’s call her Janice, was delighted to receive it, surprised, grateful, all of it. A few weeks later, I ran into Janice and excitedly asked, “Did you get a chance to use the gift card yet?” “Not yet!” she said brightly, “But I am really looking forward to it.” About a month later, we were chatting about something else, I tossed out there, “Hey, did you get your appointment at the spa yet?” “Nope!” she said, and the convo continued. I think you can see where this is going … two weeks later, casual convo, I drop in “You have got to make that appointment, Janice!” and with what I can only describe as a soupçon of hysteria, she said, “Yup. You bet. Top of the list! Can’t wait. Looking forward to it!”
Then Janice kinda avoided me for a while?
So, I keep learning the idea that I can control my actions and my reactions, but I cannot have expectations on outcomes, especially when gift-giving. And I think this might be a horse of the same color.
When you have done the work, followed the guidelines, accomplished your side of the expected exchange, it might save you time, effort, and sanity to then release expectations. Listen, it is so exciting to have your book out to publishing professionals where you can finally get boots on the ground responses to your creative gifts. And as the one who responds, I am just as hopeful and excited for the opportunity with this gift. So as much as you want to go to Janice’s house and pull her away from making eggs for her kids and shove her arms through a robe, drive her to the spa, and lock her in a sauna and scream, “I GOT YOU THIS! ISN’T IT SO GREAT?” that isn’t our role in this contract. We do everything we can to place something of delight in the world, and then we release the expectation on what the response to that worth might be. You did the work. You wrote the novel. You submitted. You nudged. Your book is grateful to have you in its corner. You can absolutely nudge again, if you would like, but definitely set aside an expectation of an outcome. There are so many other things to lie awake and think about—new plotlines, if culottes are coming back, Janice’s restraining order—so set down anything you can’t control whenever you can control that.
Dear FYSA,
Embarrassing to admit, but I fell for a hybrid publishing scam that put me out an insane amount of money and led to my book’s editing and formatting being very low quality. I’ve taken some time to recover from the horror of that process, and I’m furious that my project—that I still really believe in—looks kinda crappy. Would an agent even be open to revisiting this book, or should I put my energy into a new project?
Sincerely,
Switching It Up
Get more mostly serious answers to mostly serious questions with Barbara Poelle's book, Funny You Should Ask, now available from Writer's Digest Books.
Hey Switch-Hitter,
I think I am a little confused—the only thing that happened here is a low-quality final tangible book? OK, then here are the questions to ask yourself before making that decision:
How was it distributed/how many copies did it sell?
Is it already up on Amazon and other vendors?
Is the only issue an aesthetic one?
If it was already distributed and made available through retail, you may have a hard time overcoming preexisting sales numbers. If you have boxes of books in your garage but no damaging sales track, you just have to reformat the book, even if that means starting over in a Word doc (you could probably pay someone to transcribe, but I would recommend doing it yourself so you can tweak what you want as you go) because you will not be submitting hard copies to agents.
However, if it was just me and you and Janice talking with our feet up drinking cucumber water? I would say to turn to something new. I can promise you’ve become a better writer in the interim, but even more than that, a better author—one who has eyes wide open in the business. I say give that hitter a shot at base.
Barbara Poelle is vice president at Irene Goodman Literary Agency (irenegoodman.com), where she specializes in adult and YA fiction.
