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This community is full of wonderful, supportive people offering all sorts of great advice for new and veteran writers.
However, I think it's important to be careful about how advice is offered when it comes to something like querying, which has norms that shift a lot.
However, I think it's important to be careful about how advice is offered when it comes to something like querying, which has norms that shift a lot.
I queried from 2014-2016, and have been back at it for a year and a half now, and things have CHANGED.
Advice that floated around when I was querying the first time, about good request rates and things like that don't apply the same way.
Advice that floated around when I was querying the first time, about good request rates and things like that don't apply the same way.
Agents have had to change the way they approach responding to queries and fulls. And this is, please know, not a criticism of agents. I GET IT. I can't even imagine dealing with the volume of their inboxes, especially now, mid-pandemic.
But it means that advice I used to see all the time (and still see) like 25%+ request rate for fulls/partials is a positive sign, or that you should definitely nudge an agent about materials after 3-4 months is not always applicable anymore.
Agents are taking more time with materials (for good reason, hello pandemic, & life, & everything else) and aren't always able to respond to every MS (again, for good reason).
This means request rates don't always have meaning, beyond 'Hey your query works!" (which is great).
This means request rates don't always have meaning, beyond 'Hey your query works!" (which is great).
And nudging at 3-4 months probably won't yield much in terms of results if agents need more time these days to consider materials.
These are just two of many examples.
My point, before this thread gets too long, is just to be careful about offering advice on things like querying if you haven't been out there in the trenches in a while.
My point, before this thread gets too long, is just to be careful about offering advice on things like querying if you haven't been out there in the trenches in a while.
While some advice is always applicable, the experience is VERY different from even two or three years ago, so advice meant to help could accidentally make querying authors feel worse.
