Although I have made a lot of progess since joining this site, I still have three questions (at least!)

1) Say you send out your partial MS to loads of agents and get them all back rejected (I'm not quite at that stage yet but just preparing myself ), what next? Do you revise the book and send it out again, or scrap it and concentrate on another MS?

2) When would you send out your partials to agents? As soon as you have finished three chapters? When the MS is half finished? When it's fully finished?

3) If someone wanted to write under a different name, should the agent be approached in the authors real name saying that they would use a pen name, or just send it in under the pen name? (This is to settle an argument as my friend says that you could just send it in under the pen name and I said not!)

I'm sure the answers to all these questions are somewhere on this site but I can't find them!

Thanks

Karris xx

Hi Karris,
I can only answer your second question. I won't be sending out my partial to any agents until I'm so close to finishing revising the whole thing that I know it's ready. I thought, when I finished the first draft, that it was pretty much done - in fact there turned out to be lots to edit, some to revise and re-order, some to rewrite and some to write from scratch! I want to feel I'm giving my novel the very best chance I can 'out there'.
Susiex

Hi Karris

1) I'd say it depends what kind of rejections you're getting. If you're up to - I dunno - say 15 or 20, and they're all form rejections, giving no hint of why, nor have you suddenly been visited by a blinding light about what doesn't work (presumably while it's out there you've been writing Two, which may make you see One with new eyes), then maybe you need to move on for now. If you're getting rejections which are individual but all saying the same kind of thing, then revising it in the light of that might well be worth it, if you can see how to do it(again, Two may have shown you). If you're getting rejections which are individual but are all saying different things, then it can be very baffling. Time for a trusted reader, perhaps, or an editorial service report.

2) I would agree with susieangela, and beg and plead with you not to send it out until you're absolutely confident those three chapters are as good as it can be, which you can't possibly be until you've finished the whole book and are revising it: who knows what will change in that process? You only, fundamentally, get one crack at each agent (yes, I know people re-submit, with or without asking first, but why take the risk of turning them off your work for good) so it's madness to send out something that's less than as perfect as you can make it?

3) I would say you should approach agents using your real name, unless you're actually an MI6 mole or there's genuinely a lot riding on you staying anonymous. It's a business relationship, after all. If you get asked to send in a full MS then you might want to mention that you want to publish under a pseudonym.

Emma

Ok, very generalized answers here.

1) Consider sending it to a editorial agency if you've had some personalised rejections, but if it's just dozens of form rejections I'd suggest signing up on a CW course, or reading a How To Write book.

2) Finish the complete novel and the redrafting/editing before you even think of approaching any Agents with it.

3) No idea.


- NaomiM

Just to add to the "when to send" questions: I've heard several agents give talks and every one of them said they only want to receive the first three chapters of completed novels. It's for three reasons:

1. The first three chapters aren't finished until the whole novel is finished, and all the editing, tweaking, changing, etc. has been done.

2. Agents only want submissions from writers who can actually complete and finish a novel, and having only written three chapters isn't evidence that a writer can do that.

2. If an agent likes the first three chapters they'll want to see the full manuscript straight away and not in a year's time.

Just to add to the consensus:

1) I'd keep sending out but only if you are fully sure that the chapters are as good as they can be, and the rest of the script is on par with them.

2.) Definitely don't send out before the whole script is ready. That will depend on how you work. Some people perfect as they go and only write one draft. Most rewrite once or twice. I have experience, as have a couple of people I know, of a good agent being keen on an unfinished script, and far from being an incentive it utterly blocked me, and the other writers I know who were in similar circumstances. You need to be confident not of a few thousand polished words, but of the structure, plotting, story arc.

3.) I'd use your real name. If and when it gets taken up by a publisher, discuss a nom de plume.

Nom de plumes are only worthwhile if you write in two or more genres, or if your real name may be difficult for the reader to remember when doing those all important Amazon searches, or similar to another authors' or famous person (like a porn queen or US president ).


- NaomiM

I have experience, as have a couple of people I know, of a good agent being keen on an unfinished script, and far from being an incentive it utterly blocked me, and the other writers I know who were in similar circumstances.

Yes, I think this is not uncommon, only you don't hear about it as you do the mega-deal-based-on-a-chapter stories. I actually know of more than one writer who did get said deal, and got so blocked they had to admit defeat, publication was cancelled, and they had to give the advance back. And even if it doesn't reach this crisis, who's to say which books agented or sold on this basis would have been better without this kind of pressure?

I know it's very, very hard to believe, but it's worth enjoying writing an un-contracted novel. It'll never be quite so simple again...

Emma

Karris, I would echo the advice you've had here about finishing the novel before submitting.

I have had experience of this, having sent out the first three chapters of my book when that was all I had - having been seduced by those stories of people getting lucrative book deals on the basis of a couple of chapters. I got interest from a publisher, but of course they wanted to see more, so I managed to produce another couple of chapters - but they still wanted to see the rest before making a final decision, and there was just no way I could churn it out fast enough.

In the end I took my time (boy did I take my time!) and ended up with something I was happy with and that I didn't have to compromise on. I've now got a better deal than I would have got from the publishers I first sent it to - and a better product than if I'd tried to churn it out in a rush.

So, I know it's hard, but I'd advocate a bit of patience. Take advantage of the positives about being uncontracted and not having to make any compromises.

C x

Personally, I'd say:

(1) Both. Never give up on book one until yolve tried every agent in the universe (that's what I did). ut at the same time you are writing book two, which will be better...

(2) Finish it first, definitely. Polish it first, too, if you can. The collective wisdom of WW says get it the best you can before submitting, getting crits here, maybe even paying for an editorial agency to look at it. It is almost certainy the best advice. I didn't - I rushed ahead and submitted. I didn't know about WW and similar places, and am also utterly cr*p at editing. Sending it out raw is riskier, but it worked for me. I found a wonderful agent who edited a complete mess into my first published novel. And I know for a fact I couldn't have improved it like that on my own, however long I'd spent trying.

(3) Real name, definitely. You'll often need to give a bio, too - your agent and editor deal with the real you, not your pen persona!

Rosy

Although not completely in answer to your original questions, I think there's another general point worth making here.

I would say that grabbing as many names as you can from agents lists and sending off loads of partials all in one go is probably not the best way to go.

Firstly it means the writer will get rejections from agents who simply don't deal with the type of book submitted, or their list is closed etc.

Secondly, this type of approach just worsens the slush pile situation for everyone - in my opinion - simply because writers aren't targetting where to send their partials.

Taking a bit of time to research agents, finding out what kind of books they deal with, what they are interested in at the moment, what authors they have and even which agents within larger agencies deal with the type of book the writer is submitting, is really worth the effort.

Doing some searches on the internet can equip the writer with some very useful information and ensure that you are sending the MS to the right person at the right address in the right format.

It's certainly worth doing some research, but if you're writing, say, high-end commercial women's fiction that still leaves an awful lot of agents to try, specially if (like me) you haven't the faintest idea of what writers your book is like, so you can't target their agents.

FWIW, I used to send out in batches of ten.

The list closed thing is always hard to call, because no agent's list is ever closed to the really, really amazing manuscript if it comes along. Sometimes it's just a polite (wimpy?) way of saying, sorry, we're being exceptionally picky at the moment and your MS isn't good enough.

Emma

Research first is a great idea, Sibelius, and targeting. I'd certainly advocate beginning that way, first. But I agree with Emma: it only works if your work fits in a niche. The first time round (with a weird Victorian book that I wrote and had an agent for but never sold) I tried everyone because the ones who do commercial said it was too literary and the ones who do literary said it was too commercial... The second time round (with the one that did get published) it was (as Emma says) broad mainstream commercial and there are huge numbers of agents who handle that. My eventual (and wonderful) agent isn't one I would have found by targeting - not in a million years. He mainly does non-fiction. I say, cast your net as wide as you need to.

Rosy

Do finish before sending out. With my first novel, I didn't, I got an agent but it ended in tears.

Rosy what you say makes a lot of sense. I can think of specific agents who are partial to literary fiction - the hardest thing is finding more of those agents. But if you write something more commercial then your submissions don't need to be targeted so much. Targetting really works - I wonder whether that's because they get so many blanket submissions hat when they receive a query that acknowledges their clients/books they've sold it kind of leaps up at them? Having said that I found my first agent using a blanket approach (contradicting everything I've said above) - sometimes, it just gets too tiring to draft say 50 targetted submissions! Especially after a hard day's work!