You think the manuscript can be greatly improved, but you won't know for sure until your friend finishes improving (or ruining) it? What a dilemma. What a fix you're in. And it's not your fault! How could you have predicted an agent would actually request something you offered? You reasonably believed that actual manuscript requests were the literary equivalent of UFO sightings, that any agent who would request your manuscript had to be a scam artist.
Which of the following scenarios is more likely:
The agent is sitting in his office twiddling his thumbs and thinking, Where the hell is that manuscript I requested?
She better not have sent it to someone else. That manuscript was going to put me on the map. My big break. Hell, Dan Brown's agent retired to Tahiti off fifteen percent of Code's take . . . Maybe it's lost in the mail. I should phone her, see if she sent it. No, no, that would look too anxious. Don't want to give the impression I need her. Maybe an email? No! It'll come. Just work on something else, think happy thoughts, maybe rearrange the office furniture. Oh, God, where is it?!!!Or, you send the manuscript the day you get the request and the agent gets it and thinks, Already?!! Does this woman have a life? Does she realize I've got six other fulls on my desk to read ahead of hers? Does she think I'm so desperate for her manuscript I couldn't make a move until I had it in my hand? Does she think I'm that desperate for clients? Screw that! I'm rejecting this one without even reading the first paragraph!
It's a fine line between these two scenarios. You have a two-day window during which your manuscript must arrive.
33 comments:
LOL, Evil Editor. I'm such a worrywart that the second scenario applies to me. I always figure that if I send the requested stuff too quickly I'll look like a loser.
Per the original question -- probably not a great idea to send queries out unless you're sure it's 'ready'. On the other hand, if it's good, it's good...
...dave conifer
"...a friend revises it and improves it?"
Good lord! I'd never let anyone revise my manuscript, and I doubt I'd call anyone who did a friend! Sure, suggestions are welcome, but I do the work myself because I want it done according to my version of "right."
Of course, I don't mind if a professional editor or agent makes changes. Note the "p" word. I assume they know what they're doing.
I'd allow the Ferrari mechanic to do whatever they felt was necessary to my FXX (if I had one), but I would never hand a friend a wrench and open the hood.
Wow, I never thought of it that way. Now my heart is breaking for all of those poor agents out there, sitting at their desks and feeling a gnawing emptiness inside. They may confuse this for hunger, but actually it's longing for my manuscript. They don't even know how much they want it.
And Ulysses, you never know. The friend could be a professional editor. Or a dog trainer. Which, if the book is about training dogs, is a good thing. If it's a paranormal romance, not so much.
You're having your friend revise it for you?
Color me confused. Or purple - I love purple.
But, um, why wouldn't you do the editing yourself? If you're going to turn this into some sort of career, you're going to have to do it anyway. Agents ask for changes, big and small, all the time.
I just don't get it.
Okay, now that my sort-of rant is over, I think this person is in a real spot. The time to think of revisions is BEFORE you contact an agent or a publisher. To have said agent/publisher wait until the revisions are done (which could take 2 days, 2 weeks, or 2 months)...well, said agent or publisher will probably forget who you are.
My suggestion, FWIW, is to just do a brief skim through your manuscript, and then send it out pronto. Don't leave the agent or publisher flapping in the wind.
You can let other things flap in the wind ;-), but this isn't one of them.
Good luck!
This is obsessing, and not good obsessing.
When you send the query, you've already made the decision to mail the partial or the full. So do it. And that's it.
You were so nice during the party that you're afraid the reputation will stick. So I guess that's why this is extra evil.
But you can't fool us anymore...
:-)
Your manuscript has to be the best you can get it, in every respect.
Even then, it will be riddled with errors you cannot see.
The only thing you can do is mail it off as soon as you're ready in the full knowledge that you're no more of a mind reader than anyone else.
The how and when and wherefore of its arrival as far as the Ed is concerned cannot be known to you.
Dot the last i, post and do nothing.
Send it!
How about: tell your friend that you got a request you didn't expect and ask for whatever they've done already. Approve what you like, reject the rest, and then mail it.
When I first started selling real estate, my manager encouraged us to call names from teh phone book and ask people if the would like a free market analysis on their house. This was before the mass telephone marketing craze.
He warned us we would call 100 people before we got a yes. I was prepared for rejection and wasn't going to take it personally. I started calling one night and the first person I called was thrilled as they had been thinking of doing that. I was so prepared for rejection it scared the pee-waddling out of me, when they said yes and I hung up on them.
The second couple I showed a house to, I worked for a contractor, fell in love with one of the houses in the tract. I wasn't really showing houses, I was bringing people along while I fell in love with each house.
I had never written a contract. Didn't know how to write one and was scared to death, so I tried to talk them out of it. The lady laughed and called out to her husband, "Isn't this cute? She's trying to talk us out of buying."
I'm prepared for rejection, but I have learned my lesson. Success will sometimes blindside you, just to keep you on your toes. Be ready for either.
My queries don't go out until the manuscript is ready to ship.
ah, the double-bladed sword of angst.
Hmmmm.
I feel for the author of this question- and not just 'case you skewered him/her like you did in the old days.
There've been a few times recently when I've thought about going on and sending a query letter out to see what happened.
So I don't think that's such a crazy impulse, because after you've written something, you both believe and you don't believe, at the same time, that a stranger, who is a professional reader at that, will actually say yes when you ask, via your query, if they want to see your work. So you want to see if you've really got it, or if you're blowing smoke up your, well, yourself.
Secondly, while I'm absolutely against what is known as a critique group, because I feel strongly that all the members in it begin to be like each other in voice and syntax and style and that's the kiss of death to good writing, in my opinion...
I do think having trusted readers go over your work before sending out is a good idea. Of course, their suggestions should be only that. Suggestions. But if two or three targeted, intelligent readers, see something and it pings wrong somehow to them, I thinl you'd do well to listen. And to have them in the first place, guarding you from stupid mistakes that fresh eyes can find.
EE, you're mean today.
Mean? I would rank this among the least "mean" A's to a Q you can find in two years worth here. Did you have a bad day?
I did have a bad day, as a matter of fact.
Then we'll have to have a cartoon caption workshop to cheer you up. Say, noon Saturday?
I didn't think EE was all that mean. I was stunned when I read the part about having a friend do the editing. I agree with Robin about the select feedback group, but if I didn't think I could write better than my friend, I'd probably try painting or drawing caricatures or something. And to query without a finished product to send strikes me as borderline foolish. I thought EE could have ripped the author to shreds but instead just lightly lashed them with sarcasm.
Ooooh, that sounds really good.
Yes, please.
I don't know if Blogger ate my last comment - but I think that sounds really good, noon Saturday.
I already miss the bantering with ya, and I could use some.
Maybe I'm mean then, because I thought it was hilarious and well put.
Mmm, yeah, I'm definitely mean. But only in type. In real life I'm very kind and non-confrontational.
Ooh, a workshop.
Aww, noon on Saturday.
Meh, have fun!
It's not like you showed up for our nighttime workshops. Besides, most of the captions we'll be discussing will probably be yours.
All the more reason for me to lurk and see what you guys are saying...
"after you've written something, you both believe and you don't believe, at the same time, that a stranger, who is a professional reader at that, will actually say yes"
Schroedinger's Manuscript.. it exists as both salable and insalable at the same time, and remains in that state until the receiver either stamps 'reject' or emails 'send me more'.
This was a good wakeup call for some of us: do not send out queries until the manuscript is as ready as you can get it. If you can still see how it could be 'greatly improved'... it's not ready.
Schroedinger's Manuscript.. it exists as both salable and insalable at the same time, and remains in that state until the receiver either stamps 'reject' or emails 'send me more'.
OMG. Jeb, will you marry me? Man, woman, I don't care. Call me super geek, but that's about the sexiest pickup line I've ever heard.
Well, well, well, Thumb Man.
Now I see where you were - you were over there playin' with somebody else when i was wondering where you went. Got it.
Huh?
I thought you were gonna keep talking to me last night, and I was sitting there waiting, but you'd moved on, is what I mean.
Bonded, my ass, boy.
Bonded, my ass, boy.
I knew that would get you.
A pickup line only a geeked writer could love, huh?
Also love watching things burn, so you're in.
I know. I'm shallow. I'm such a sucker for brains.
Phoenixes do that fire thing every 500 years. Come back around June 4, 2386, and I'll be happy to light your fire!
I figured you said that on purpose, Sparky.
Hmmmmph.
So there.
June 4, 2386
It's in my calendar.
We're meeting at the Crosstime Saloon, right?
Crosstime Saloon?
That's the one! Second nexus on the right.
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