Your Literary Agent Submission Strategy For Multiple Projects
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
If you write in more than one category or genre, you need to figure out a submission strategy that’s more complex than the usual. Some writers believe that having multiple projects for different markets means they’re more likely to get a “hit” one way or another. This is actually not entirely true. Writing multiple projects means you need a more robust submission strategy. If this thinking sounds familiar, read on to find out more..
Your Submission Strategy If You Have Multiple Projects
Proceed with caution before submitting multiple projects to the same literary agent, or multiple projects to multiple writing agents! A submission strategy is crucial here. Unfortunately, nobody wants to see your entire portfolio of manuscripts dating back decades, and some in better shape than others. No publishing professional will sift through this much material, especially on an initial submission.
Do you have multiple projects that you're eager to send to literary agents or publishers? Are you wondering if you should send them all to one agent or multiple agents? Or maybe you're considering submitting several queries at once as part of your submission strategy? Well, if you have a lot of ideas at varying levels of completion, it can be difficult to decide how to proceed.
To begin, you might need to drastically pull back your submission strategy and be more intentional (and patient, as keeping publishing’s slow pace in perspective is a valuable writers tool to develop!). Out of your entire slew of manuscripts, pick the strongest ONE.
That’s right. One. How’s that for a submission strategy that you weren’t expecting? It's not a good idea to send even two projects to the same agent consecutively, especially if they haven’t responded to your initial submission. It’s better to let them consider one project and wait for their response first, before sending more stuff.
Not only is this a publishing best practice, but your submission strategy might change based on the writing notes, if any, that you get. When I was a literary agent, I really preferred to evaluate projects from the same writer, one at a time. If you don’t give a literary agent a chance to respond to your work, how will you know whether you’ve done your literary agent research correctly, whether they’re a good fit, and whether they’re looking for what you have to offer? You don’t.
That’s why you should submit one project, hear back, and only then proceed with another (if the agent sends you a writing rejection that’s even mildly encouraging, or a revise and resubmit letter). It’s unusual that a writing agent will send you a rejection that precludes you from submitting to them in the future, but this can happen, if there’s a significant issue of fit. That’s good to know, too, before you send more.
Less Is More In Terms of Submission Strategy
Querying multiple projects at once runs the risk of frightening your target agent away. If they haven't yet had the chance to read Project 1 and Project 2 just came in, are they already expecting Project 3? How many more are there? What kind of submission strategy is this? Does this signify what it would be like working with you, with new projects flooding their inbox each week? Talk about too much, too soon! They'd much prefer to work with someone who's dedicated and passionate about one project at a time, and strategic about their book idea and what to work on.
“But Mary, doesn’t the agent want to sell a lot of books, make everyone rich, and ride off into the sunset? Don’t they want a writer who is AMBITIOUS?”
The above reaction misses the point. Literary agents have to think about their own submission strategy to publishers, and their existing client lists. They cannot and will not submit ten projects a year to various publishers for one client. Most publishers will offer a book deal for, at most, one project per year for a single writer. If you’re writing eight books a year, you’ll need many publishers. Writing agents will have to put off submissions for other clients to send out your work because, guess what? Publishing house editors only like to consider one project at a time from their agent contacts. This is not a realistic expectation to have of a literary agent, nor is it a realistic concept of how the traditional publishing industry works. (If you have this many manuscripts in you per year, you can always explore self-publishing, where nobody is in control of your release schedule but you.)
Untangling Your Submission Strategy
Don’t try to query multiple projects simultaneously, either, even if they’re for different audiences or in different categories entirely. Avoid sending multiple submissions to different submission lists as part of your submission strategy. Nowadays, most agents represent more than one genre or category, such as children’s picture books, though some do specialize. If you submit multiple projects to different agents, you might have to navigate working with multiple book publishing agents at the same time, which is okay with some representatives, but not others. It’s possible to have more than one literary agent, but this is tough to pull off flawlessly. Bear this in mind.
If Agent A, who reps both novel and picture book categories, expresses interest in your novel and Agent B, who only works with picture books, wants your picture book, it's likely they'll find out about each other. Sooner or later, Agent A is bound to ask why you didn't send them the picture book. This could potentially sour the relationship with Agent B and make it look like you were trying to pull a fast one. All of this can be avoided by only querying one project at a time to a select list of literary agents—it's the best way to ensure a drama-free submission strategy. If you decide you want to explore other categories down the line, you can discuss this with your agent and proceed intentionally.
Concentrate on one task at a time, submit it and await the response. After that, you have the choice to refine your first submission or to shelve it and focus on a new project. Utilize what you have learned to elevate your next book idea and submission, and present it only when it is ready.
If you're eager to get your book out to the public quickly, traditional publishing is not the best route for you. Even if you manage to sell your book today, the soonest you’ll see it on shelves is two years from now, unless you are writing especially timely nonfiction. In terms of your submission strategy, remember that sometimes it's worth taking the time to do it right.
Click here to purchase Successful Query Letters, my book on query letters, including over forty examples with comprehensive notes on each one. There’s a ton of submission advice, best practices, and insider information in these pages, and you’ll really enjoy seeing what other writers are doing in the slush.