After much faffing for a variety of valid and less than valid reasons, I have finally got round to finalising my next round of submissions, two and a half years after the last round. I have managed to lose the list of people I submitted to last time but I'm fairly certain that one of the agents that I want to submit to is the same person I wrote to two years ago, albeit at a different agency.

How should I approach this? Should I write to her and say that I may have submitted to her in a previous agency but the book has since been severely re-edited etc? I know you aren't supposed to submit to the same agent twice but she was in a huge agency and probably farmed out submissions to readers previously, so it is quite possible she didn't even see it first time round. What is the best course of action?

S

I think I would just go for it. What can you lose?

Good luck.

Sarah

I think after such a long gap, and a major re-write, and you say you're not 100% sure it IS her, I'd just submit and say nothing. I hope it's not rude to say that the chances of her remembering it are low - I mean it only in the sense that they read an awful lot, concentrate furiously while they're reading, and it's then wiped by the next thing they read.

Emma

I agree. Sub it without mentioning it. If the book has been reworked it may not be recognisable and there's no mileage in drawing her attention to the fact she once rejected it years ago.

Not quite the same thing, but occasionally when I worked as a short fiction judge a story would come back year after year. often nothing had been changed, but sometimes significant rewrites had been done to transform work that had been borderline and subsequently got shortlisted. That is to say - my guess is that she may recognise it once she starts reading but if it's better than it was, she'll realise that and respond to it as is, not as it was.

Glad you are all saying what I'm thinking. I actually found a list (of sorts) of the agents I was going to submit to last time and although her details were down, I don't think I got as far as actually sending anything so I am definitely going to give it a go. Thank you for your help!

S