A Bad Time to Query
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Jan 16 2020
Authors ask all the time whether there’s a bad time to query, a time that might hurt instead of help their chances of being considered.
What is a bad period to send queries? With bad period I mean a period when an agent is really busy and my chances of getting my query through to her are lower than usual.
–From Questions for the Blog
Personally, I don’t think there is a bad period. You might notice that a lot of agents close during the summer or the end of the year, but just as many don’t. I know that BookEnds has made offers of representation right up until we close for the year.
In my opinion, the worst that can happen is your query sits a little longer than usual, but if it’s good, it’s good, no matter the time of year.
For more information, check out this video on our YouTube channel:
My advice, don’t use that as an excuse to procrastinate querying. Unless the agent is closed to queries, send! Good luck.
If you need to hear another opinion, you should read this post by Janet Reid 🙂
[…] And a needed reminder from agent Jessica Faust: there’s no such thing as a bad time to query. […]
[…] those following the traditional route to publication, Jessica Faust considers whether there’s a bad time to query; Janet Reid says you can schedule a call with an agent outside of normal working hours and responds […]
What is your take on querying now (late April) as opposed to waiting until June or July to send out queries for my novel?
Waiting for all the uncertainty about Covid-19 to die down (which it hopefully will have by that time) might make more sense.
What do you think?
Thanks!
We’ve actually done quite a bit on this. You can see our blog post: https://bookendsliterary.com/querying-in-the-time-of-covid-19/
and our Youtube: https://youtu.be/IYrTug3-cB0