Hi,
As I think I might actually complete my MSS with something worth selling and have no reason to move my target completion date of December; I am thinking about timing of submissions to agents.

Currently, I have three competing theories as to how to choose the optimal time:

1. It doesn't matter a damn when I send out submissions as there will be a dauntingly huge and unread slush pile on the desk of every reputable agent at any time of the year.

2. Sending out at the wrong time will dramatically reduce my chances of being read with any degree of interest as it might be at the bottom of a pile several metres thick and, with the benefit of Christmas hang-overs and post-bookshow exhaustion, is much more likely to be kicked behind a radiator by disgruntled readers than if I left it a month or two.

3. I am wrong about the whole god thing and have already been singled out for divine retribution in the form of automatically generated rejection slips that, nonetheless, will take a sizeable portion of my remaining life to be posted.

My gut feeling is that the first hypothesis is the one to run with... but...

Thoughts?

G

My only advice - based on personal experience - is not to submit in December because (it seems) they clear the decks for the expected avalanche of submission in the New Year/Spring (writers keeping to their New Years Resolutions).


- NaomiM

If you do submit in December you could try wrapping the package in gold foil with a red ribbon and get opened before the rest of the heap.

My own view is that it's all hopeless at any time (more or less your option 1)

Rod.

I suspect it makes little difference - that it's just one more thing for anxious writers to fret about. have so little control over the whole process, so we obsess about the tiny things we can affect - from what typeface to use to which month is optimal for sending off the envelope....

Good luck, whatever you decide to do!

Rosy x

I suspect Naomi may be right about December - the most devastatingly prompt rejection I ever got was about a fortnight before xmas a couple of years ago. It was three days after I submitted - I was surprised they had time to open the envelope.

I suspect that it's right about December to a degree, in that things are relatively quiet, so they get the chance to work their way down the slushpile. Which could mean you get read quickly...

But fundamentally I agree with Rosie: if it does make any kind of difference, and I'm not sure it does, then it's completely impossible to second-guess. Not least because every agency does things differently.

They don't give anything much chance to grab them, but they don't want to miss the next... whatever. So it's in their interests at least to look at it, whether it comes in in August or February. I tend to think that the only way the timing makes a difference is in how quickly it's read, not whether it is.

Even Frankfurt makes less difference than it used to. My agent made the Bookseller last year because she didn't go, saying it costs the earth and makes a huge bite out of her work time, and she can do better by staying put in London.

Very best of luck with it, whatever you do.

Emma

Thank everyone, think I will stick with theory 1 but toss a coin after consulting a magpie and a rabbit's foot to choose the date I send out...
G

I suspect Naomi may be right about December - the most devastatingly prompt rejection I ever got was about a fortnight before xmas a couple of years ago. It was three days after I submitted - I was surprised they had time to open the envelope.

Snap! - and not just one, but half the batch.

<Added>

tbh it makes you appreciate the 3 month wait to hear back from agents, because then at least you know it's made it into their slush pile and been looked at by someone other than the receptionist.

I always think that late January/February is a good time. Maybe because that's when I did it. I do genuinely believe it has things in its favour though - late enough for the Christmas backlog to have been cleared, but still in that "new year" mindset of looking around for the next big thing, and shortly before the run-up to the London Book Fair, which can be a good time to sell. I definitely think the timing speeded things up for me.

Of course, this could all be bollocks. Still, you've got to keep some kind of faith eh?

One thing I do know: don't submit in the two weeks or so after the end of NaNoWriMo (it takes them that long to print out and buy the stamps...)

Emma

Lol, Emma!