When the Manuscript Differs from the Query
- By: Jessica Faust | Date: Jan 30 2012
I just started a second wave of querying, after a year of revising both the book and, even more so, the query (thank you so much for your blog’s direction on this, you were truly my best resource). This morning, I received my first agent response on the revised query: A request for the full manuscript! As soon as I sent off the full, I realized that a character I had renamed in my manuscript revisions was referenced by the old name in the query. Total bonehead mistake, I know. My question is, do I email the agent and let her know so that she is not confused?
First off, congratulations! A request for a full is cause for celebration. Great news. And lucky for you, there’s a very simple answer to your question–the agent won’t even notice. Don’t worry about it.
Now celebrate.
Jessica
Haha! I love it. Thanks for the honesty!
At first, I thought this was going to be about queries that misrepresent the novel. But this is a a very good question, and it's good to know that agents won't notice little things like that. Also a good reminder for all of us.
My editor/publisher made a mistake in my memoir but so far, nobody has noticed but her. She told me about it after it was published. We are all human. If it's well-written, so many things are overlooked by the reader!
I almost did that in the query letter I sent out last week. I caught it, but it's good to hear it wouldn't have mattered. I got one request for a full off it, two rejections and a few no responses (but it's only been a week!)
Still, best not to make mistakes.
Just curious; you say a request for a full is a cause to celebrate. I queried some 20 agents and received one request for full and the rest was formal rejections. I ended up with a formal rejection on the full as well. Is there anything I can 'assume' from that? If it's such a good sign to get a full request, maybe my writing isn't as bad as I thought? I would be grateful if there was something positive to deduce because for the last year I've second-guessed myself so much in all my writing and editing that I feel like I'm stuck in purgatory.
I've done things like this. And I agree, celebrate!! Congrats!