ThomasLitchford

If Part 1 is true, here’s the scenario: I send my query letters out, they arrive at agents’ offices and sit in the slushpile. One of the following things happens next:

1) It arrives when the agent is on vacation and accumulates with all the other queries until the agent returns and has to sift through an unusually large number of queries; it is perhaps reasonable to assume that my query will not receive the usual amount of attention because of the daunting number of other queries.

2) It is equally reasonable to assume that the agent is a professional and will still treat queries with the same level of attention as she always does because, really, it’s her job.

3) My query may also arrive before the agent goes on vacation and receive the same amount of attention as on any other day.

The other option is to wait until September. Then, the following are the possibilities:

4) The agent is depressed because summer is over and she has to wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas for another vacation, which will likely not be a ‘real’ vacation but will involve a family visit in the bitter cold of the Midwest. She is tired of the extra time she has put in knocking down the bloated slushpile, and my query is just one more thing she has to deal with on a hot Indian summer morning.

5) September and the imminence of autumn bring that old feeling of a new start that has been with us all since our school days. Our prospective agent is full of optimism and is eager to find the next great work.

The point is, so much of this process depends on the whimsy of a particular agent’s mental state. It’s sort of like a Catch-22. I could put my book out there now, when a lot of other writers may hold back for the same reasons stated above, and maybe I’ll catch a break. Or I could wait, along with everyone else who’s read the same crap I’ve read, and maybe I’ll just be one more annoyance in the regular workaday life of the prospective agent.

I think my course is clear. I’ll keep you posted.