What do you do if an agency wants to know who else/how many other agents you have submitted to and is it a waste of time submitting to them, if you put in your cover letter that yes, presently 5 or 10 other agents are viewing my work?

I'm not doing exclusives, but when an agency specifically asks in their submission guidelines to tell them this, i feel that i should - but then i'm thinking, will they bother reading it if i'm honest??

Any views appreciated.

Casey

I think I would feign ignorance in this situation. Come clean when/if it gets exciting, but not at the first post.

Hmm, maybe you're right. Probably too honest for my own good, sometimes.

Casey

Yes, I'd agree. Until they ask for the full MS, you're only sending stuff out speculatively. Once they do, you have to come clean if anyone else is interested to that extent.

Emma

Fair enough and hopefully i'll be in that position one day!

Casey

The agency I submitted to said they preferred exclusives and wanted to know if writers were submitting elsewhere. I told them very politely that I had submitted to a small number of others and would let them know if I got taken on by anyone. It didn't do me any harm: I got taken on by the one that said they preferred exclusives.

Naomi

As everyone else says, say nothing until they ask for full MS.

That's interesting, Naomi.
I know you're right, Sapphy

Casey

I had bad experiences with exclusives, and stopped doing them. My ms was out with one agent on an exclusive - a top agent (A), no less.

Two weeks later, another agent (B) asked for an exclusive, and I told her it was already out. She suggested I give A a deadline, and send it to her, and she'd get back to me within a week.

A happened to reject anyway around that time, so it was no problem to sernd it to B.
Two weeks passed, and I herad nothing,. IN the third week I gave her a nudge. Oh yes, she said, she liked the start of it and was reading on. I told her that I had other requessts for it and could no longer leave it with her on an exclusive basis. I then sent it out to two or three others.
I never heard back from agent B.

In fact, I never sold that novel.

A year later, I was querying for a different novel, this time in the US. This time, no exclusives - and in fact, nobody asked for an exclusive until the second round of submissions. I told her that I oculdn;t do an exclusive as the ms was already with several agents.

I think that excited her, for she said, send it anyway, and she'd give it a quick read.
Well, unlike agent B above, this one kept her word. A week later she signed me on!

If an agent asked I'd be honest but vague.
I wouldn't say exactly how many mss are out on submission, or to whom. But I would say it is not exclusive. Keep them guessing, and let them know that others are interested.