RE-QUERYING AGENTS
STATUS: Rising like Lazarus after three days of the flu.
FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Karaoke is so often painful, but this takes it to new levels.
One of the questions I get a lot is whether or not an author can go back to an agent who has said no to them and try, try again. I guess the answer depends on the manner in which you re-ask them, and if you’ve worked at improving your book.
If you haven’t significantly altered (read: improved) your book, then don’t waste the agent’s time. If they said no to your book once, they’ll say it again.
But if you have edited your manuscript and if you really feel that it’s improved, then a second query might be in order.
But before you re-query, consider the following:
First, the timing. If it’s been a week since your last query, forget about it. You can’t revise an entire book in a week. You just can’t. But if it’s been a few months and you’ve been working diligently on it, then the door might be open a crack.
Second, consider whether or not you want to introduce yourself under the same title. If the book has been revised enough, you may want to tweak you query letter, change the title, and have the agent look at it with fresh eyes. I’m not advocating dishonesty here. The reality is that agents are swamped with queries, and they likely won’t connect your first query with your second. There’s no harm in that IF (big IF!!) you’ve worked hard on your book and revised it since your initial query.
Third, you may want to consider keeping the title and asking the agent, up-front, for a second shot. Write them a note and say you’ve been working hard on the ms and you would like another chance. Make it funny, or make it punchy, or make it engaging — but whatever you do, write it in a way that gets their attention and makes them say, yeah, this person’s worth another shot. (I personally have done this and it’s worked. Before I was picked up by LJK, I was rejected by an agency I really wanted to be with, then re-queried them a few months later with the same ms. They agreed to a second look and rejected it again. Ultimately, when LJK picked me up, it was on a second read. Susanna, my agent, was really, really gracious and nice and didn’t have to pick up my book a second time. She could have told me to get lost. I count my blessings every day that she did. But I had worked darn hard on making that second read worth her while.)
If you get rejected by the agent a second time, I wouldn’t advocate asking for a third read. You might just piss them off at that point. Instead, go back to the drawing board, figure out what needs to be done to make your book work (ha! If it was only that easy), and then maybe look at a different agent. If you can only imagine yourself with one agent in the whole world and you must get in with them, then write a different book and submit that. An agent reading a work twice is gracious. Three times … I wouldn’t push it.
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