Finding Your Voice

I have been invited to three writers’ conferences so far this year.  I have accepted one invitation.  Let me explain why. 

The reason why I attend conferences as an agent is to connect with writers who may now, or in the future, develop an excellent nonfiction book idea (or write a great novel).  That’s it.  I don’t go for the atmosphere or the food or because I have nothing better to do on weekends.  (Although if anyone wants to invite me to Maui, I could be persuaded.)  I like to share what I know, that’s true, but I can do that on this blog as easily as I can in a workshop.

Taking three or four days off to attend a conference requires a great deal of  effort, organization and expense on my part.  I have a personal life; going to a conference necessarily infringes on that.   Weigh those negatives against the positives — potential for clients and the chance to hang out with writers — and it’s never a sure thing that I’ll go.  I can get clients sitting here at my desk. 

So here’s why I accepted one invitation and not the others.  The organizer for the “yes” conference had a clear idea of what she wanted me to do and when she wanted me to do it.  She proposed her plan, and stated her intention of paying for travel and lodging.  She gave me a sense of what the conference was going to be like, and how many people had attended in the past.   All in all, the conference seemed well organized and the invitation was gracious, welcoming and sent in plenty of time for me to make plans.

In contrast, I was invited to attend another conference but with no expenses paid.  I love writers and I even enjoy attending writers’ conferences, but if you’re going to ask me to work all weekend, the least you can do is pay my travel and lodging expenses. I’m not paying out of pocket for the privilege.

The third conference was an invitation that was apparently sent to everyone in the universe who calls himself/herself an agent or an editor.  We were invited to submit proposals for panels that we would give and we’d be informed if our panel was selected.  No word about expenses paid, but I can guess.  Frankly, I have many better things to do with my time than beg people to consider having me work their conference.  Most legitimate agents I know feel the same way.   Now, before someone says, “But that’s the way RWA has always done it!” let me reassure you that I’m not talking about RWA, which is a conference unto itself; I’m talking about a regional conference someone put together without seriously thinking about what they were doing.     

If you want your conference to be taken seriously by agents and editors, you will want to build in a method for paying the expenses of the professionals who’ll attend, and you’ll want to invite them specifically and individually.  I can promise you that you’ll have a lot more success that way.

Since the Salkind Agency has expanded, the agents here are running into a situation where some authors are querying all of us at once.  This creates a problem, as we share queries with one another anyway, and we don’t like to spend time considering the same work someone else at the agency is considering.  As you can imagine, our inboxes are full enough as it is!

For this reason, we’ve developed a new policy: we request that authors query only one of us at a time.  Note that we’re not saying you can’t query agents at other agencies simultaneously to querying one of us.  We’re just saying that you need to query agents at the Salkind Agency one at a time. 

In general, if any of us gets a query that isn’t quite right for us but could be right for someone else at the agency, we will pass it along.  However, if that doesn’t happen, and you receive a rejection from one of us, you’re free to query someone else here anyway.  But please don’t query all of us — or more than one of us — at a time.  We all respond very quickly to queries, so you will have an answer quickly.

Thank you!

When I first started out as an agent, I was able to respond almost immediately to query letters and to respond within a week or two to partial manuscripts and non-fiction book proposals.  This was because I knew most of the people who were querying me, and I did not get as many queries each week as I do now.   

So, my response times have changed.  For queries, I now generally respond within a week of receiving them, but do allow two before e-mailing me to ask if I received your query.

I do accept unsolicited proposals (for non-fiction) and the first chapter/30 pages of a novel manuscript as long as they are accompanied by a pitch.  The pitch (query) should be in your e-mail to me, and the proposal or manuscript pages included as an attachment.  I need to emphasize the importance of sending your query in the e-mail itself, not as an attachment.  I don’t open attachments to read query letters. If you send something more than a pitch letter to me (i.e., a non-fiction proposal or partial manuscript), expect it to take me about a month to respond. 

If I request a full manuscript (for fiction), it will take me 2 - 3 months to respond.   

You are free to e-mail me to follow up, but please allow some time for me to respond, as outlined above.  Following up is professional and admirable, especially considering that e-mails don’t always reach their intended recipients; displaying impatience, annoyance and a tendency to ask, “Have you read it yet?” every thirty-seven seconds is not. 

Please note: I am NOT representing children’s and young adult.  Feel free to pitch me practically anything else.

Also, please note: I don’t respond to queries I can make no sense of, queries that are copied to every agent in the known universe, and queries that aren’t queries but are requests for instructions on how to write queries. 

Phew.  Thank you for your time.