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Many e-zines and internet publications want the writer to bring readers with him or her. They consider a blog or website as competition. And therefore, they consider posted on a website as published.
Even if only 200 people read your website a month, that's 200 less customers for an e-zine or internet publication.

In my many years of entering poetry contests (having fun and earning enough money to go out to lunch now and then), I have found that the consensus in such groups is that 20 or so photocopies passed around to beta readers or friends is not "published." More than about 30 people seeing it in printed form (or on a screen) is "published."
I'm guessing this would also be true of short stories.

How about putting stories on blogs for critique? I vaguely thought that was OK if they were up short term. But with rules in flux...

Neither the US Copyright Act nor the Berne Convention on Copyright defines when a textual work has been "published," even though whether a work has been "previously published" has some significant (ok, significant to hairsplitting lawyers) effects on rights, responsibilities, statutes of limitations, etc. Really.

If one wished to go with the historical definition, one would get a nasty surprise: for purposes of libel, a work is "published" if it is shown to as many as one other person. (That's yet another reason that "publishing industry" is such an oxymoron... and inapt/inept term.)

This is how Glimmer Train would draw the distinction with the book:
The question of what is considered “published” can be a tough one. If you’ve made 50 copies of your manuscript for classmates and friends, for instance, we'd call that piece unpublished. Heck, even if you had Kinko's bind them, we'd go for that. But if someone else put it out--say the school newspaper, or your writing group, we would look at that as published, especially if more than one piece of work (all yours, or yours and someone else's) were included in the pages. (Fifty copies of a collection of people’s writing in it just about qualifies as a “litmag” these days.) And if there is ANY advertising, no matter the number of copies printed, it will be considered “previously published” by anyone I know.

...

Thanks for answering this.

What I find funny is I've gotten more requests for fulls and partials through equeries vs. queries of the snail mail variety. It's almost as if the paper ones get opened and never read, the agent's assistant just using that SASE to send the good old standard rejection letter.

However, about half of my equeries have gotten no response whatsoever. I think with my 2nd round of querying, I may try the snail mail type with these folk (if they take them). Maybe they say equeries are okay, but really prefer snail mail ones.

Thanks for the answer, Miss Snark!

I would check a couple of things. First, what version of what software was the doc saved in? I wouldn't, for example, send a Word doc saved in the latest version of MS Word, but Word 2003 should be fine. Something that opens with a variety of programs, like Rich Text is even better.

If you're trying to paste readable text into an e-mail, and you want to avoid gibberish, first paste it into Notepad, and then copy and paste from Notepad to get plain text. If you get weird characters, fix them manually, and then send in plain text.

That happened to me several years ago. It's not just the email program that can cause that to occur. In my case, it was the internal battery for the clock that regulates the computer. It caused everything to be out of sync when email was involved so that attachments were toasted. Straight text in the email body generally got through, though not always.

Your advice on noting that with the resend is the best solution and exactly what I did for the ones I knew were arriving as garbage.

About gmail...I've had to be pretty vigilant about checking the spam folder for actual messages.

Ouch!

I had this problem some time ago with my Yahoo account - which is why I don't ust it anymore.

There's something to be said for having several free email accounts so if the request is to send it to Yahoo!, GMail, etc., the sender can also BCC themselves at an email address with the same service to see what they receive.

This is even better if you use one to send to the other, for example sending FROM GMail to Yahoo!

If what you send to their Yahoo! email account and BCC to your Yahoo! email account comes back to you as gibberish, it's a good bet your intended recipient got it as garbage too.

I've had repsonse on e-publications take from hours to seven months but they all got a reply.
So Miss Snark is correct, you should resend the submissions that never replied with an explanation.

A friend of mine got a "green friendly" rejection note on a piece of paper the size of a fortune cookie. It said, "We think not........." I thought you might find this amusing. Alas, the author did not.

I love my gmail account, I've never had any problems with the Spam filter or anything else.

And if anybody needs an invite, email me and I'll send you one. (Do you still even need an invite?)

I use a Mac because I need Mellel (fab wp program that lets you type Arabic, Hebrew, Hangul, you name it), and since nobody I write to uses Mellel I have to save files in PDF (easy on a Mac) and attach PDFs. One once arrived as garbage; I was advised to send it in compressed format. I now do this for all attachments, even the odd Word file (it's easy to save as a ZIP file on a Mac, don't know about PCs). It also helps keep the file size down, obviously, so fewer e-mails bounce back because too big for the mailbox. I assume everyone now has Stuffit Expander, so this might be a good practice for others (assuming PCs allow one to compress files without too much hassle).

As much as I'm all for conserving paper and saving money on stamps... i just don't trust electronic communication for submissions yet. Maybe it's just my mistrust of all things that need to be plugged in. I seem to have a mysterious chemical in my skin that makes electrical devices act kinda funny. It could just be me. But I don't think so after reading this!

Still seems to me like an envelope with the correct address and the right amount of postage is more reliable.

Gmail is amazing. It doesn't ever screw up like that, ever.

"There's a lot to be said for gmail, one of which is I don't think it fucks up like this."

If you are cutting-and-pasting from Word or its ilk, they all screw up more or less. It may not be gibberish, but there will be weird line-breaks, spacing issues, formatting failures, em-dashes that are changed to hypens, etc. I assume most editors/agents see these quirks a lot and have learned to live with them since, if they like the material, they'll eventually see it in a more palatable format.

But I like pretty things. Here's the only solution I've found: From word save the file in plain text format. Open the file in a text reader (Notepad is common).

Here's the painful part. You have to turn off "word wrap." Yes, your sentences are going to extend about 7 miles off the right hand margin but it is the only way to see where your lines are being broken--and they should ONLY break at the END of paragraphs. (Trust me.) Fix any obvious problems.

If you are a real perfectionist, you will now replace all of Word's newagebells&whistles with the oldschool equivilants (assuming you have not long ago disabled them in Word). Search and replace elipses with triple-periods, em-dashes with double hypens, etc.

Now, paste the whole thing into the body of an email and email it to yourself--at a different email address. Read it when it comes out the other side. Problems? Fix them. Rinse. Repeat.

What was the original offending word-processing software, and platform? Would be good to note, so others who read or Google to here won't have the same issue.

december quinn - Gmail no longer requires invites, although those of us who use it still have the capacity to send them.

A word of warning about Word:

I've recently learned that files created in the newest version of MS Word when saved according to the defaults cannot be opened by Word for Mac. Windows users can download a converter to open the new file formats, but no converter is yet available for Mac. You need to save your Word 2007 files in a backward-compatible format.

More info: http://apcstart.com/node/4755

Gotta love Microsoft....

As much as I love gmail, it has developed a problem for me in which attachments others send to me often come through corrupted.

Two things need to be said here.

1) Word is barely compatible with another copy of word. Sending .doc files is asking for trouble unless you know exactly how the receiving machine is set up. Fortunately the ISO standards people have realised this and come up with an open standard for document interchange. You can download OpenOffice free from www.openoffice.com, it can read most .doc files and write both .rtf and open document standards.

2) Once upon a time there was ASCII, a simple code for plain text that used 94 printing characters, space and some controls for things like tab and end of line. It's perfectly possible to encode a story in ASCII, in fact my first published SF story was edited that way. ASCII is the base character set used by e-mail, and anything in ASCII goes through unchanged. The .rtf format is a method of encoding complex formatting in ASCII, and hence it usually goes through without too much trouble as well.

Begin Rant.

To Heidi and all her friends. You are not stupid. There is nothing wrong with you that stops technology working. But speaking as someone who has spent their entire working life in the computer business I can say just one thing. You are being ripped off. You are being told to buy technology without understanding it and live with the problems. This is wrong. Things like character encoding are dead simple, and readily understood by anyone with 2 or more working brain cells. I love my industry and I get very annoyed when I see people suffering because of poor software quality, much as Her Snarkly Holiness does over publishing scams.

End Rant.

(Apologies if this appears twice.)

Oh I'm so glad I came back to read this comment trail again!!

don't worry, I'm not spending loads of money on techonology that I don't need. I'm on a 7 year old Mac PowerBook and it does me fine. Every day my 10 year old son teaches me more about how to use it. I'm getting there. I'm figuring out how to wrangle the whole document-email- format thing. Still don't trust it completely but maybe I will when I get my other brain cell working!!!

Twas me who had the problem (hi everyone!) It was *dumdumdum* Thunderbird that was doing it. Any text file (doc, plain text, RTF) would get embedded as gibberish in the email instead of attached. Other files (like pictures and pdfs) were fine. I almost always (unless noted by the guidelines) submit as a RTF. I used webmail to send myself a mail and discovered that it was indeed Thunderbird that was the problem.
I was going to just ditch it, but instead I found that there's a 2.0 version out and updated to that. Problem fixed. I think my program just got stuck on a glitch or something.
BCCing a copy to myself is a fantastic idea!
Now to go figure out who I have to resend to....

Yes, every cool person uses a Mac. In publishing and design, I don't know anyone who uses PC. That's for corporate cubicles and Flyover Land.

RTF should by readable by anyone with any word-processing program on any platform. But if you're nervous, there are free programs available on the web that will translate your RTF files to M$Word format, so there's no need to shell out the big bucks for the brand name product.

I might be way off, since I don't know much of this kind of thing, but couldn't you just put it in a .txt file if other types don't work?

I love Macs, but I've had some problems with editors opening my stuff up. I do have MS Word on my MacBook, but sometimes it opens in a big font, formatted improperly, etc. Usually it's not *too* big of a problem, though.

I use Macs exclusively for my writing. I also use Nisus Writer Express (a fantastic word processor that beats the pants off Word). I have not had any problems whatsoever sharing manuscript files created in Nisus with others critiquing my work (mostly in my Creative Writing classes) who use Word. Like everything Mac, it just works.

I also want to throw in my own Apple Akhbar! and say congratulations on graduating from the tinker toy computer to the world of real computing, which is all things Macintosh!

Have you looked to see if there's a student teacher edition of Office. I'm sure there's one for PC so maybe for mac too. Yep. Here's one on amazon http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-Student-Teacher-Macintosh/dp/B0001WN16M for $129.99 You'll have to do more digging to find out if it will work though. Also, ask around. Someone might have an older version of Word for Mac that will work. That's what I did and then you can upgrade it on the internet. Try ebay. I would do my best to try and get Word somehow. Then you don't have to worry about it.

That's for corporate cubicles and Flyover Land.

And people who like to play computer games.

.rtf files are universal, and I can't imagine anyone having a problem opening them. I've never had a problem with my PC files opening with any Mac users. If you need .doc files, there's probably a converter somewhere online.

Try NeoOffice. It's fully compatible with Microsoft Office. Best part? It's free.

http://www.neooffice.com

I would like to suggest OpenOffice at http://www.openoffice.org.

It's free, and it can open and manipulate Word files. I used it for two years when working with a magazine, and never once had a problem.

Take a look. And yes, it's free. And it's legal.

Another option: all Macs have the ability to print to PDF from pretty much whatever program you're using that prints anything, and PDF is a pretty darn common format that can be read across all platforms, MS Word or no, and almost everyone has the software to do so.

Granted, they won't be able to edit the file--but do agents need to do that for electronic submissions?

Macs may be cool, but I feel they're overpriced. And, no, I'm not in Flyover Land :-) (but I am in Corporate America).

I learned on WordPerfect, and I've always thought MS Word wasn't worth the extra dough (I have to use it at work, unfortunately). What I use at home is Open Office, a free word processing program. It does everything Word does - for free (including saving to RTF). I recently picked up a notebook computer for a nice price; that has WordPerfect on it (yahoo!).

If you can do a Save As within your Mac programs, I don't see using one as a problem.

~JerseyGirl

There's always Open Office, which I hear is very good, although I haven't used it.

Cool people may use Macs, but people who want to do things easily (and play games) use Windows PCs. I have both, and I'd choose a PC any day.

Open Office is what you should be using if you can't afford Word. It's the biggest, most well-known open source office suite out there. It will open all Word (and other format) documents, and you can save your documents as Word and they'll be openable by anyone with Microsoft Office. You also get a spreadsheet program and a Powerpoint eqivalent. Miss Snark's advice to email the doc to yourself to test this is good, though.

But seriously. I don't even know why people bother to buy Microsoft Office anymore.

Students and teachers version of microsoft office is only $99 at most college bookstores or computer stores. The only thing it doesn't have is access which most people don't use.
I don't know if you are a student or teacher but it applies to ANY student OR teacher even part time cuz I called MS and asked...
just a thought...
Macs ROCK.

If you don't have the $$$ to drop on MS Office (or simply don't want to) you can try Open Office (www.openoffice.org). It's a multi-platform freeware suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, etc.

FWIW, Nisus is an okay program. I used it for awhile, but their coding crap finally bugged me too much.

If you're using the free version, I'd suggest you check out Apple's iWorks package before paying Nisus. Decent price (apple's), and the document program in it can save .doc formatted documents.

Macs rule; PCs wish they were evolved enough to drool

I sent sample pages, partials and fulls as Word docs - "name.doc"

Only one agent out of about a dozen couldn't open tha attachment and asked me to send her a hard-copy version.

Let's face it, there are agents who aren't tech savvy but they're not the future leaders of the industry.

In publishing today you've gotta be net-savvy and computer-savvy.

So why don't agents just use Linux?

Just get Open Office. It's free and basically the same as Word. And you can save your files as word documents so you won't have any problems with compatibility.

http://www.openoffice.org/

You can get MS Mac Office Student Edition for about $140 -- and believe me, MS doesn't make a house-to-house search for student IDs or anything. It includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage (Outlook for Macs).

The thing with Word (grinding teeth) is that it really is the standard for editing. It's complicated and over-elaborate, but the change tracking and commenting are very powerful.

Nisus Writer is a good program. If you save in RTF, you should be fine but check your doc as Miss Snark suggests to make sure your indents and line spacing survive.

from a microsoft certified professional:)

please your snarkyness, the upgrades are ridiculous as are the constant request for pc users to download the latest windows update.

I have and use several versions of MS Office. the best one they ever made was office 97. office 2003 is a real stinker and 2007 will offer you little more than office 97, other than a few missplaced icons and functions.

so please don't think you need to upgrade each year Oh-Great-One.

Mike

If worst came to worst, as a strategy of last resort, you could turn your document into a pdf file. There are some freeware pdf writers out there.

Welcome to the glory of GNU Freeware:

http://download.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

It doesn't cost a penny, operates on a Mac, saves documents in the latest 2007 format, and works just as good as Office.

Gotta love them software hippies keeping freedom free in the free world.

There's also a program called Open Office, which is available for free download on a Mac. I have a full version of MS Word, but I use this to open everything not supported by Word. Best part? You can save in .doc format, and choose the option to "Save for PC" which means no screw-ups!

I use a PC because it's not the computer but the software that counts. But that's not why I'm commenting.

I'm not sure why you, Miss Snark, feel you need to upgrade your software just because a new version comes out. If software does the job you need it to do why change?

I often use software that's a few years out of date. New versions are rapidly approaching a plateau where the developers will struggle to add in any new features.

I'm a Mac person too - and I've found Apple's iWorks programs to be a wonderful Office substitute. Pages, the word processing program, has opened every ".doc," ".rtf" and ".txt" extension I've ever encountered - and I can "export" to those formats as well.

FYI: This isn't as relevant to publishing, but the Powerpoint substitute is a little trickier to "export" with. It will open and read Powerpoint slides and "export" slides with blank backgrounds, but I've found they need some cleaning up once they're into Powerpoint. (Pages, I've found, has better compatibility with PC versions of Word than the old Mac version I used to use.)

I think iWorks cost me something like an extra $70 when I bought my computer. It was well worth it. And not one annoying little anthropomorphized paperclip cartoon in sight.

The Appleworks program that came with my Mac also opens many (but not all) Excel spreadsheets.

May I suggest CopyWrite by Bartas Technology. For $30 you can get a application especially designed for writers -- this thing is great (I have no affiliation with them, just a very satisfied customer). No page formatting distractions just a clean canvas on which to create. Check it out:
http://www.bartastechnologies.com/products/copywrite/

Find someone who works at a university or is a student.
You can buy an educational stand alone of Word for around $120.00

Now, if you're not a student, then you can also order it online through the apple site. They'll ask you which school you go to. Just say you're a high schooler.


If I were you, I'd buy the student pack and take one less thing off your mind.

I love Appleworks for putting together chapbooks. But often I e-mail chapters to people in my writing group, and if they have PC's, they only thing that really goes through is Word.

Use OpenOffice. Seriously. It's free, it works, it does almost everything Office will do. It works on all platforms.

My laptop is Ubuntu Linux, my Mac is OS X, and my PC is XP (soon to be Linux, however) and OpenOffice works on all of them.

And don't worry about compatibility. I work as a contract technical writer and all of my clients are Office addicts, but I have never had a problem opening or saving in .doc format and no one has ever had trouble with my files, this holds for spreadsheets as well as long documents with change-tracking and page numbering and all kinds of more complicated features.

So that's my long plug for OpenOffice.

"Miss Snark uses a Mac, as does anyone with style and savoir faire."

YES!

I am getting the hang of Pages and I really like it. I will never touch Microsoft again. EVER!

My smart guy husband tells me that I can always send PDF if a PC user can't open my document.

I did write the Novel That Won the Agent on a free downloaded program. I too worried that there'd be some kind of reading problem, despite all assurances.

My solution?

I slapped the '.doc' onto a CD adn took that to the library and used *their* MS Word to save a true copy.

I was right to worry. When I opened my 'fully compatible' version, my page numbers only showed up on every other page!

FYI to all: NeoOffice is the Macintosh-ified version of Open Office. That's the way to go. (OpenOffice does work on a Mac, but requires some extra software to run. NeoOffice doesn't, plus looks more Mac-ky.)

And both are free. Plus have spreadsheets to keep track of your money spent on postage, and a database for tracking agent submissions... heh.

Some of this advice is overly complicated. I use a Mac and the iWork suite that includes Pages. When you're ready to send it off to someone, just export it to a .doc format and ship it off. No fuss, no muss!

Those looking for a Mac word processor might be interested in Mellel:

http://www.redlers.com/mellel.html

There's a free demo. I've been using it for around five months, and while it takes some getting used to, I'm very happy with it. It has its own file format, but you can export to .rtf or .doc.

I tried Nisus Writer Express as well. I almost got it instead, but I missed the footnote and outlining features too much.

the trick for mac to pc is that you have to name your file with .doc (if you're saving in word) or .rtf (if you're saving in rtf). the PC can still open the file without an extension, if you specify the program with which to open the file or detach and rename to a file with extension format, but most PC users are too novice or impatient to do this.

May I say something about being a professional.

When I worked as a professional engineer, I didn't use a slide rule whan a calculator or computer would do. I didn't use a pencil and straightedge when the computerized drafting programs for flowsheets were available. I didn't use a 1950's reference book when the current version was 1999.

If writing is your life and is putting bread on your table, then get the proper tool. If that's MS Word with it's very good track changes and comment features, so be it.

You can use a typewriter and get free e-mail from a library, but you are cheating yourself.

PS. I don't care which you use MAC or PC.

I use iWork's Pages, and it rocks! And also, I create every file in PDF format, so it is readable on any computer. Macs may not be "easy" if you're used to Windows computers, but after a little time, you quickly learn that Macs can do SOOOO much more out of the box, and generally better.

Another free option is Google Docs & Spreadsheets:

http://docs.google.com/

As part of Google's plan of world domination, they set up a word processing program that works in your web browser and can save .doc, .pdf, .anything files.

I have two Windows PCs, but as soon as one of them dies (or I sell something for a nice chunk o'change) I'm buying a Mac because thier commercials are so freaking cool.

Way to go, marketing!

I have MS Office 2002. I deleted it from my computer and installed elements of the old Office 97. I like it better.

I do not use Word when I write. I use Word Perfect. It's much easier to use and format. It will save to Word or RTF (and a zillion other formats). It's a better product.

No one cares what program you use for word processing as long as they can read it in theirs. There's probably someone out there that remembers and uses WordStar. I think there is still an active user group .... Who cares, as long as it can be read on other programs?

Apple? No thanks. Don't like 'em. Don't use 'em. Neither Pixies nor goats like apples as computers. Apples are much better as food.

I'm going to add to the chorus of people praising OpenOffice. I've never had any trouble with it that wasn't caused by me forgetting to save in the correct format.

But I'll also point out google docs. It seems to open and save to most formats, and has saved me more than once when I've saved a file as a .odt, then gotten to the library and needed a .doc Google docs does mess up formatting a bit, but can be a lifesaver.

Mac vs PC parody
at YouTube

Mac is a cult. But it's a cult that has made me a bundle of dough from my Apple stock. Why anyone would want a computer where all peripherals and software are controlled by one company escapes me, except for the fact that some people just like to "think different." Talk about monopolies. The software for Mac is very limited, while PC software is abundant.

I do like John Hodgman, though, PC in the commercials, and author of "The Areas Of My Expertise: An Almanac Of Complete World Knowledge Compiled With Instructive Annotation And Arranged In Useful Order."

I hate Mac's. The only time I used them was writing for the college paper, where I had some files disappear after saving them on the drive. Apparently it didn't take. I don't like the goofy icons that expand like you're suddenly on acid. I'm sure the creators were, although I don't, ahem...hold that against them. I've actually lost reporting jobs because of them i.e. taken on old versions, fumbling with the menus and such under time constraint.

Real writers do use manual typewriters although I can't abide those either. Generally my Compaq PC and Word 2000 does fine.

As with many other people...go for OpenOffice. I use it and it is very, very similar to Word and it's free.

You can save it to word documents and so you can open it with MS Word etc. Which is very good cos then you can save it to an MS Word doc to send to your agent and no worries there.

From someone who uses it, get it because it's better then any other free word Processor out there. Plus it comes with many useful thigns - Spreadsheets, PowerPoint thingies and others. Very useful tool proving that you do not need to fork out a lot of money for Office at all - ever.

http://www.openoffice.org/index.html

Yes, Open Office is the go. It is 100% free, high quality and should be supported. You can get anything including word processors, spreadsheets, graphics and so on.

It will work with Microsoft or Mac. Strike a blow for free software lovers everywhere and subvert the military industrial machine at the same time.

TextEdit, which comes with Macs, has a "Save As" function that will place documents in Windows-readable Word format. The only problem is, TextEdit won't do headers, footers, footnotes or page numbers. AppleWorks will do all of those things but I'm not sure if it's readable in Windows.

If the "no soup for you!" standards of agents allow PDFs, you can generate those with OpenOffice including page numbers and everything.

The only thing OpenOffice seemingly won't generate properly is legal pleading paper (grr!).

I'll add nyself to the list of people suggesting OpenOffice. I use it all the time and quite freely exchange documents with clients who use word and excel.

The major advantage is that the format of an OpenOffice document is known and has been adopted as an ISO standard. Because of this we can reasonably expect documents in Oo format to go on being compatible for decades to come.

When you go and save the pages you hit the "save as" command. Then you give it a file name. Next, there will be a box below the "file name" that says "save type". This command allows you to save the pages in any formate and program you like.

Good luck. Don't let a little thing like money hold you back.

I find it amusing that someone would buy a mac and then neglect essential software that costs $250 when the premium you pay for a mac verse an equivalent machine is far greater then that.

In a perfect world I would probably buy a mac, but on my budget I can do a thousand times more on the best PC I can afford then I could on the best mac I can afford.

If you really do not spend money I to would suggest open office. I got it as part of a university course and whilst it took me a lot of getting used to, I found it sufficiant for my needs.

laura l, love the You Tube link. Thanks!

Just wanted to ring in as a PC user. When I worked in chemical research, there was no other choice -- Macs were for kids.

OK - so this is a blast from the past - I use a text editor to write (and edit), no fonts no headers, no frittering with styles and fonts and spacing and who knows what. My current editor is Smultron - it has auto spell-check - which I like a lot - but I also use just about anything depending on the computer/OS I happen to be working on. For output I use GROFF - which is a print processor - like in the olden days, I just add some simple commands to the top of my file - and bam - I've got a full-formatted Postscript file which I can print, or convert to a PDF. Best of all - changing the layout - font, spacing, indents, headers, etc - just means changing those commands - no changes to the file itself. Plus - the file is completely portable - I can work on anything - anywhere.

Too geeky for most - I expect - but for me much better for just focusing on writing.lkgydldp

.rtf will work for everyone. Don't covert it to a .txt file because that will turn it into a mess.

Miss Snark:

If you need to upgrade and already have Word on your computer, you can buy the upgrade version for a BIG discount. It checks to see if you have an older version on your disk. If you do, it loads the new one, which is indistinguishable from the full price version.

I upgraded from Word 6.0, which was garbage IMO, to Word97, which was crappy in my opinion, to Word 2000 which is great and do not anticipate upgrading ever again as in ever again. New versions of Word are backward compatible, meaning they read documents written with older versions, but they may not be forward compatible. So agents may in due course have to upgrade - or not.

MS Word does read and write RTF (Rich Text Format) files. There is no need for your commenter to send files in MS Word format. Agents and editors probably do not know the difference anyway.

For that matter, neither do I.

Wow. Some of you "PC users" certainly have a chip on your shoulder. "Macs are a cult." "Macs have no software." Why don't you give me a list of software that you have on your PC. I guarantee that I have something equivalent on my Mac. Plus, I can even boot natively into Windows (notice I said natively, not in emulation) if I want to.

That said, the vast majority of PC users' complaints about Macs seem to result from just not spending enough time with them. They are different. And Mac OS X is different than Windows. Not better, not inferior. Just different. It takes time for anyone to learn a new operating system.

I have my preference. You have yours. Can't we just accept each other's choices?

Actually, it'd be too geeky if you were using emacs with a fully personalized Lisp config file. But your setup is plenty geeky for sure.

First person to say they use a Mac, but go into the FreeBSD shell to launch Vim wins.

"I have my preference. You have yours. Can't we just accept each other's choices?"

Sure, as soon as Mac users stop telling PC users that they should switch to Macs, that Mac users are smarter and better and more stylish than PC users, etc., etc.

Two reasons I'd never buy a Mac: their lame advertising, which pretends that buying their product makes you cool and "different"; Mac users, who are insufferable in their constant evangelizing about their computers.

It's a piece of machinery, people! Nothing more!

"Mac users are smarter and better and more stylish than PC users, etc., etc. "

"It's a piece of machinery, people! Nothing more!"

Well....duh. Seriously, most people I know that are Mac users used to use Windows-based PC's. I don't see anything wrong with evangelizing about stuff you like. People do it with cars and beer brands all the time.

Oh, and to the other anon: Not wanting to buy a Mac because of Apple's advertising and other Mac users is lame. Just lame. Sounds a bit like you're the one with the superiority complex.

Macs are overpriced and hardly the tool of a struggling artist. If you have money to burn and like Mac OS, then great. It doesn't have so much to do with style and savoir faire as it does consumption habits and the amount of money in one's bank account. Personally, every one of my novels has been written on MS Word 97, which gets the job done just fine. Need a file that's in a universal format? Save as RTF. Yes, Word 97 can do that, as can word processors that are even older. Look for it on eBay. It can be had for about $10. Is that a lot of money? And no, you won't look as hip or sexy on your used $300 PC notebook, but since when is work supposed to be about fashion statements?

As per the upgrade game, don't buy into it. If it's not broke, why are you fixing it? I spend every day using a 10-year-old word processor that does everything a writer could need it to do. So then why is everyone constantly fretting about their computers? Just what exactly is the cause of this whole “I need to upgrade” mania?

I use a Mac. My editor has a PC. We haven't had any problems.

BTW... I think she's the coolest. Maybe that quality doesn't have anything to do with computer choice? Just a thought.

I'm a PC person, my friend and her husband have Macs, my son has everything. We all recently spent some time after dinner viewing the Mac ads online. Hilarious! I'd never noticed them before. Now I turn up the TV whenever they come on. My favorite (currently) is when PC is getting the camera installed with masking tape on his head and then walks away angrily when he discovers Macs have cameras built in. Too funny!!

"Why don't you give me a list of software that you have on your PC. I guarantee that I have something equivalent on my Mac."

Yes I'm sure for every ten choices PC has of a particular application, there is one for the Mac.

Mac is like a cool small town where, yes, there is an Ethiopian restaurant.

PC is like NYC.

"Feel like Ethiopian tonight?

"Sure, but which one?"

:Yes I'm sure for every ten choices PC has of a particular application, there is one for the Mac.:

True; and that one works better than any of the PC 10 - nor is it inimical to other software or the OS on the system. Can't say the same for your WinDozer.

You are paying tribute to the Barbary Pirates when you have any truck with Redmond, and they keep coming back to you for more. And more. And more. And they laugh at you while they do. How smart does that make you? How does that make you smart?

Wanna impress the rest of us, the poor toy computing people? Do what the bleeding edge gang has done, and run Mac OS on your plain vanilla Intel box. Go to the trouble to take charge of your machine. Make some choices. Then you'll have some bragging rights.

Anon said: "Yes I'm sure for every ten choices PC has of a particular application, there is one for the Mac."

Why would you need ten applications that all do the same thing? Crazy PC user....

Whoa. What's this? "I know enough not to send simultanious queries." And Miss Snark replies 30-45 days? What am I missing?

Of course you should send simultanious queries. Or does this example only refer to a specific case with two agents within the same agency?

This is such a hot topic right now, and one I feel strongly about. I wrote about you and this very subject on my blog just the other day. Tonight I closed shop for a while, but I'm tempted to reopen just to write some more. Actually, I'm more than tempted. Lord help me not to fly off the handle.

Equally troubling - 3 fulls out for about 6 weeks. A call from an agent for representation. After much discussion, I tell the agent I am interested and will cll her back within a week. I email the other two agents and tell them I have an agent who wants to rep. my work. Could they just tell me if they are still interested or what is the status. No answer after a week. What to you think?

If you're a publisher and you do this, same dealio.

Miss Snark says:If someone can't bother to reply to an email in 45 days, fuck em.

I say: Dog bless you, Miss Snark. You are a whiff of lavender scent in an otherwise shitty kitty litter box.

O Divine Miss S--

Thank you for arguing so eloquently the case for good manners. Fuck rude people!

Well, without the unneeded profanity, I'd just say, include your own time frame in your query.

The agent's policy is "I can't be bothered to reply if I'm not interested."

So you politely state, "Since your policy is not to respond unless you are interested, I will take a lack of reply by (insert date) to mean you have declined this project. Thank you for your attention."

Notice, you aren't even assuming he can be bothered to read your email header and count 30 days.

Depends on who you want. If you stop patronizing agents who take forever to respond, they'll speed it up. If you stop patronizing publishers....well, ooops. I forgot. It's their playground, so they make the rules.
Bottom line. Be organized, be consistent. There's more than enough excellent agents in the world to go round. You don't need some self-absorbed vunderkind.

Well this is good to know.

As for simultaneous queries, most agents just want to know who else is looking at it. This is what I've learned so far.

So today I'll go through my big black book and put a red X beside the ones I haven't heard back from in, oh, eight months!

quote: "Whoa. What's this? "I know enough not to send simultanious queries." And Miss Snark replies 30-45 days? What am I missing?"

I think the writer was referring to sending queries to agents at the same agency.

Brava! You can say that. Poor aspiring author's can't. We're stuck trying to be polite, not nag, follow the rules (don't call the agency, send an email).

I keep a spreadsheet of submissions, and it's depressing to see how many un-highlighted entries I have, which means I've heard nothing. Yes, I write them off and move on. But there's always that, "did you really get it?" question nagging in the back of my head.

I've had a requested full with one agency since last AUGUST. Have followed up with 3 polite emails. Not a single reply (and yes, I called the agency to see if she still worked there--she does).

I'd love to see if any agents reading your blog respond with their reason for behaving that way.

I have a feeling that some of the agents who are accepting e-mail queries are getting snowed under. It's a lot easier to lose an e-mail than a regular old letter.
For the past few weeks I've been sending snail mail queries, and I've had almost an 80% return. On e-mail, it was more like 50%. I also think that policy of "if we want it you'll hear from us" is a "cya" policy in case they lose something.

Just recently Lori Perkins asked: If I've had a query letter for months, should I bother to respond or do you just assume that you've been rejected already and get pissed off that I held on to it for so long and then rejected you?

I no longer send e-mail queries. Another writer in my critique group sent out a number of queries to agents, and used the same cover letter for all the agents. The exact same letter. With one agent's name and address, etc., details of the agency.
Dumb. Very dumb. But easy to do. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens a lot. Check your e-mails before you send them. Or if you're like me, use the mail.

Another thing that sucks is when someone gives a tentative yes to attending a workshop with the promise of getting back to you within the week. After six weeks, you e-mail a friendly nudge. No response. Another 2 weeks, finally a "I'm so sorry! I meant to write back sooner that I won't be able to make it after all!" Two months have passed and your workshop is in two months. To invite another speaker at this late stage makes it look like s/he is a last resort.
Not cool.

In this case it was necessary to invite one person at a time. I would've preferred a flat out 'no.'

If there's a next time, I sure as hell won't wait more than two weeks to get an answer.

Agents who blog have consistently said that their slush pile is way down their list of priorities.
Like, even below the blog.
There are so many agents out there, and the ones who are the least responsive are the ones who get the most: most of the notoriety on blogs, or conferences, or other forms of self-promotion. SELF-PROMOTION. They are busy because you've made them so busy, so try another route.
Get out a writer's guide and go through the entries. Google some of these people. You'd be amazed at how many really famous and successful authors are represented by agents you've never heard of! They're flying right under your radar. They don't need new business, but if something wonderful comes along it might be tough to pass up. They're established. Not starting out and building businesses.
These people are busy, but maybe not inundated with the tons of promotion-induced submissions.

After no response from an e-query (2 months), I re-queried the same agent stating in my cover letter that perhaps I had been stuck in a spam filter. A few days later, I got a request for a partial.
I believe that some e-queries become casualties of spam filters.

Never mind query letters not getting a response. A few days ago my son came in from school carrying a large envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting. Inside was a full manuscript I'd sent out per request of the agent TWO YEARS AGO!
Despite a few emails to the agent about status, no answer. I finally just gave up. Inside the return SASE (envelope - with some extra stamps) was a letter saying no thanks. You think I hung my hopes on that agent?

What is it with agents who request material right away, and then take forever to get back?

I had a fairly quick response on both my query and partial from a very well-know agent. The agent requested the full and I was ecstatic. But now, it's been ten months. Ten months! This is worse than when I was waiting for college acceptances twenty years ago. At least I knew then when the response would come.

I've still been querying, but I'd rather focus on my writing rather than marketing. Also, no other full requests. I would so love to pull it back!

Thank you! I've had the experience where 3 agents simply did not respond. Maybe this book will make it. Maybe it won't and I'll have to write another and start the process over.

But I know that I will be crossing off ALL agents that say they will only reply if interested.

If you say only snail mail - and I send email - then you absolutely can ignore it. But if you accept emails - you need to hit the reply button.

Maybe as more writers become frustrated by this practice - those agents will get their wish and have MUCH LESS EMAIL - ie - much less material to represent.

To quote Dave Barry, wouldn't "Arrogant Asswipes" be a great name for a band? --gk

I've had this happen a lot.

Testify, Miss Snark! I recently queried an agent through _snailmail_ who said NOT to include an SASE and that she'll contact me if she's interested. Yeah, why'd I send her anything? LOL.

I'm still waiting on a (paper) query that I sent out on Dec 20, making it a good 75 days of limbo. I've got several other people at that agency on my list, and I'm about ready to send to one of them. This agent may be kind of old, but his website and many listings say that he's still in business, still takes on new clients, and still accepts queries. He might be an established big shot but I think after 3 months, I shouldn't have to remind him that I am young and hungry and have a book to sell.

Hey, I thought Miss Snark said:

You don't have to inform anyone it's a multiple submission at the query stage (UNLESS the agency website specifically says you do). We assume you're querying widely.

Miss Snark may be arrogant, but never an asswipe. Sages are not asswipes; they know enough to avoid the excrement.

Wow. I found your blog a few months ago – seems to me you’d be equally at ease saying what you mean “in person” or “on blog”.
I like that.

I appreciate what you wrote - as it’s just common courtesy to give an answer – even simply a yes or no – especially as the recipient of a query email knows how very much that answer matters to the sender.


And- as for simultaneous submissions- I think in this case the reference is to simultaneously submitting to more than one agent in an agency, which I think is “frowned upon”.

bjh said... Miss Snark may be arrogant, but never an asswipe.

What in dog's name makes you think Miss Snark is arrogant? Let me see ... could it be that she's here every day, suffering nitwits? Could it be the COMS she runs for us twice a year? Could it be the way she's taught us everything there is to know about the publishing business? Her sense of humor? Her kindness? Oh, I know! It must be that she answers her damn query letters.

Here's a url to an online dictionary. Make it your friend.

http://dictionary.reference.com/

The agent who said not to include a SASE was saving you money and herself time so she can work for her clients.

Yours was a snail-mail query but regarding email - some agents aren't that good at it, spam filters get in the way, etc. Not everyone is as savvy as Miss Snark. Writers have to toughen up and consider this method like you do a lottery. If the writing is great and you've written a book that is sellable in today's market, you will hear back. Not all agents are right for all books. Move on and keep writing (and reading and taking classes, join a crit group).

I wonder if agents realize that many writers fear their eQueries are lost in cyber-space when they don't receive a reply. As a result, these writers query again.

I have put the agencies that can't be bothered to reply at the BOTTOM of my agent list.

I understand that my queries are unsolicited. I get that the agents are busy, even overwhelmed. I'm okay with waiting patiently for a few months for an answer. But not to respond at all is so frustrating. (All the agency has to do is hire a temp for a few hours each quarter to stuff SASE's or hit reply and cut-and-paste email responses.)

Plus, the IRS expects writers to have documentation that we are pursuing publication, and this will be a tad difficult if rejection slips become a thing of the past.

I think we writers have to take a middle ground here. Of course it is unprofessional not to reply, and it doesn't take much to do it.

On the other hand, these agents are in business, and if their business methods weren't working, they'd change. I am ignoring submission methods or the existence/lack of a web site as I develop and prioritize my list of target agents. But once I get to the stage of sending out the first 10-20 queries to the agents I have put near the top, things like a lack of response to queries will be one additional factor I consider. I don't see any devidence to suggest that agents that do this are not good agents, so I would be stupid to eliminate them solely on this basis.

We can certainly have strong opinions on agents and professionalism, and we can try to lean towards those agents that conduct themselves the way we feel is appropriate in this regard. But in most cases, using lack of web site, lack of email queries, lack of email response, and other similar attributes as a litmus test is not a luxury new writers can afford.

I'm one of those agents who only responds to e-queries if I'm interested. If you want an answer, shell out the 78 cents. If you don't care, send an e-mail. Seems pretty clear.

I used to respond to every e-query, and you know what? Over half of the authors I rejected wrote back to argue with me. If I sent a personalized letter, they argued with my comments. If I sent a form letter, they argued with my form letter. This is why I don't respond - because I don't want to start a conversation with authors I'm not interested in representing. I would think, that as aspiring authors, once you get an agent, you want that agent to spend their time on selling your project, not eloquently rejecting others.

After no response from an e-query (2 months), I re-queried the same agent stating in my cover letter that perhaps I had been stuck in a spam filter. A few days later, I got a request for a partial.
I believe that some e-queries become casualties of spam filters.

More likely, your original email slipped below the threshold of the screen the first time, and when you re-queried, the agent took the graceful 'out' you'd supplied him/her with. That's a nice way for everyone to be happy.

Kimber An said...

"I wonder if agents realize that many writers fear their eQueries are lost in cyber-space when they don't receive a reply. As a result, these writers query again."

The ones who decide they don't have to reply to e-queries simply just don't care. This is not the wonderful Lori Perkins or Miss Snark, but there are a few out there. And if you do re-query, even innocently, be prepared to receive the worst, brutal rejection you've ever had in your life...without mentioning any names, of course.

Thank you thank you thank you. I know agents are busy, but common courtesy must apply at some point. I made it a practice not to query agents with this policy. And in answer to the inevitable question, yes, I do now have an agent, one I'm very happy with.

Regarding the comments of the anonymous agent who wrote that the reaosn he/she no longer acknowledges rejections via email because-
"Over half of the authors I rejected wrote back to argue with me. If I sent a personalized letter, they argued with my comments. If I sent a form letter, they argued with my form letter. This is why I don't respond - because I don't want to start a conversation with authors I'm not interested in representing" -

I wouldn't like that either,if I were in your shoes. Common courtesy travels both ways - and this is rude behavior.

Someone said:
I'm one of those agents who only responds to e-queries if I'm interested. If you want an answer, shell out the 78 cents. If you don't care, send an e-mail. Seems pretty clear.


This is why I've given up the equery route and gone back to paper. Too easy for an agent to ignore; too easy to be accidentally deleted before read; too easy to spend a nano-second rather than the ten seconds a paper query would garner.

This is my career. I will spring for the 78 cents!

"Anonymous said...
I'm one of those agents who only responds to e-queries if I'm interested. If you want an answer, shell out the 78 cents. If you don't care, send an e-mail. Seems pretty clear.

I used to respond to every e-query, and you know what? Over half of the authors I rejected wrote back to argue with me. If I sent a personalized letter, they argued with my comments. If I sent a form letter, they argued with my form letter. This is why I don't respond - because I don't want to start a conversation with authors I'm not interested in representing. I would think, that as aspiring authors, once you get an agent, you want that agent to spend their time on selling your project, not eloquently rejecting others."

Oh, buck up and get over it. All you have to do is delete the annoying responses from disgruntled writers with a simple click. No one sane can fault you for that, and you are not obligated to communicate with any fool who can't take rejection, and you know it. And for the many who probably DID take your advice to heart, and thanked you silently for the response and the comments, you will always be remembered as the agent who gave that good advice...not the asshole who never bothered to reply at all.

A simple rejection, even a form, is all that's required. Most of us don't want to become your pen pal.

To the anonymous posting agent that doesn't respond to e-queries unless he's interested-

Do you state that in your submission guidelines? Because if you did, I would be absolutely fine with that. If, however, you solicit queries via email and don't respond with even a form rejection, well, I must agree on that being simply rude.

Thank you to the agent who took the time to comment here. This board benefits from agents participating. I understand how responding can lead to twice the amount of time spent on a rejection.

Writers who work hard to get an agent should appreciate that these agents are busy representing them, not acting as teachers for the multitudes of clueless wannabes. I'm not talking about people here, who have the sense to do their research and read Snark, but the vast majority of the slush pile out there.

Southern Writer - Thank you so much for telling me there are such things as dictionaries! Golly! What will they think of next!

I was responding to Miss Snark's comment that she doesn't need help portraying herself as an arrogant asswipe, which I didn't take seriously. I apologize if I offended anyone.

Another agent who doesn't respond to email queries chiming in here.

I list everywhere I can that you won't get a response from me unless you send a query by post along with an SASE. If you have to send it by email then I'll accommodate you and look at it, but I don't think this courtesy extends to a response as well.

You see, through experience I've discovered that when I reject an email query (whether personally or by form), this creates an easy link for the writer to ask for a more detailed explanation for a rejection or proceed to argue with me about my decision.

"All you have to do is delete the annoying responses from disgruntled writers with a simple click." Easier said than done my friend. Perhaps some people can easily cast off an insulting comment, but I've found that I get annoyed for at least a minute or two before moving on (and I'm thicker-skinned than many of my colleagues). And yes, this is time I could be spending working with other writers.

There are a lot of people out there who have to have the last word, and sadly email queries are a perfect medium for them.

For me the bottom line seems very simple...

It comes down to common courtesy and professionalism. If an agent can't even bother to send a form rejection letter [or doesn't want to open that line of communication] than an agent shouldn't accept e-mail queries! Most writers work years on their books-even going so far as to love their books like they would a child. So hitting reply and simply saying "no thanks" is the only decent thing to do.

p.s. Miss Snark, you truly are the snarkiest. Thank you for all you do.

bjh - I'm sorry! I realized that after I hit the send button. Of course, by then, it was too late. Consider me properly shamed. I was all riled up yesterday. Someone ought to take my keyboard away from me when I'm like that. My sincerest apologies.

Agents and publishers who ask for no simultaneous submissions need to maintain effective response times. If they ignore responding within a promised time, then we get to ignore promised exclusive submissions.

I'm still shopping a novel that's had a verbal offer on it because the contract hasn't been sent.

Last year I had three verbal offers that fell through so now I don't believe a word anyone says until it's written down and signed (altho I will 'pretend' I do, quite effectively on the phone). After all, if a publisher can't get a contract out how good are they going to be at getting a WHOLE novel out???

Thank you for this, Anon agent.

"All you have to do is delete the annoying responses from disgruntled writers with a simple click." Easier said than done my friend. Perhaps some people can easily cast off an insulting comment, but I've found that I get annoyed for at least a minute or two before moving on (and I'm thicker-skinned than many of my colleagues). And yes, this is time I could be spending working with other writers."


I guess from years of experience as a writer my skin is so thick there's not much anyone could say for me to give a rejection a second thought, or to bother with sending a mean reply. While I can't apologize for all the unprofessional moron writers who have sent you vicious replies and don't know how to handle rejection, I can say I think your comment may have been the best on this thread so far. It's shows us that not replying to an e-query isn't always based on arrogance. (I promise you, this isn't one of those have to have the last word "things" either :)

Southern Writer - Now I feel guilty about becoming snitty. (I'd say snarky, but I can't aspire to those heights.) Thanks for replying.

Miss Snark and Killer Yap rule!

Thank you.

bjh - I love the word snitty. And twit, too, which was just what I was being. Thanks for your forgiveness. Good on you.

Here's a twist: Sent an equery to an agent - nada, so wrote them off. Followed up with a second equery 6 months later just to be sure and still nothing.

Then a full year later, sent a snail + sample to the agent and they asked to see the full.

What are the chances of that?

"Danielle" Lazar is a man!

In other words, every agent assumes you're querying elsewhere. Just don't rub their noses in it.

I can't say enough good things about Dan. I queried him a while back. He replied that my writing was smooth and polished but not right for his list. Then, he suggested two other agents that I should query. THEN (before I could even follow his advice) I received an email from one of the agents telling me that Dan had sent her my query and she wanted to read the full.
What more can I say about the man?

At Publishers Marketplace Daniel Lazar writes in her profile:

Uhhh...and then there's the small little matter of Daniel being a MAN not a "her".

Mr. Lazar is a great guy with a fabulous sense of humor. I loved that line when I first read it on Publishers Marketplace.

This is happening because the internet has made the process so easy. Used to be you'd compose a snail mail query, change the names and addresses, and you were good to go.
Not now. People are so lazy (that's right, it's just plain lazy)to take the time to address an e-mail to a single agent at a time.
They'd rather cc or use one of those query blaster services.
In fact, I think snail mail queries are getting to be a rare thing(like snail mail letters in general), and that in itself makes you stand out.

I've had dinner with Daniel Lazar and he was indeed dressed like a man.

He even ordered steak.

So there.

Poodle Girl

Aaaaargh. The utlimate nitwitiousitude--I KNOW he's a man (Daniel not Daniele) and STILL I wrote "her profile." Thank Dog for editors.

I liked Dan's line "Don't pack your MS in bubble wrap. It's paper, not Anthrax." Although with the vitriole writers spew from time to time on these blogs an agent might do well to request the bubble wrap!

Anyone know if it's OK with Writers' House to send to another of their agents if rejected by one? I'm still a bit confused on this point.

Slap me with the clue stick!

My query was rejected by Daniel the same week I started his Gotham class. I had no idea he was the teacher. Small publishing world!

The trouble with multiple CC's is that it's impossible to personalise the e-mail. The only way to address it is 'dear agent', because you can't say 'Dear Miss Snark, John Agent, John Doe, Jane Doe and Agent Smith'; that would be silly. Which will raise one of the commonest cries of the overworked agent: 'If you can't be bothered to get my ***ing name right, why the *** should I be bothered to read your work?!'

Taking the time to find out and correctly spell the name of the agent you're approaching is a) a sign that you want to deal with them on terms of mutual respect and courtesy, and b) a sign that you've done a bit of research, which lessens the chances that you're sending a piece of violent erotica to an agent that only handles children's books.

A bit of personal attention to each letter is polite, and makes you look sensible. On the other hand, a mailshot is a sign that you're lazy - which much increases the chance that you're contacting the wrong agency because you didn't research.

And as a side-note: some people are wary of attachments because of the risk of viruses. Not everyone is, but if they are, then they're not going to change their minds.

WHAT ABOUT IF YOU CC A COPY TO YOURSELF? IF I SEND AN E QUERY, I'LL SEND MYSELF A COPY TO KEEP TRACK OF WHERE/WHAT I'VE SENT.

Do people seriously cc loads of agents?





Seriously?

To anonymous 3/07/2007

Please don't shout (type in all-caps) - it's rude.

I don't know if seeing a cc back to the original sender is a big deal or not, but you could always bcc yourself (blind cc - you get a copy but they don't see it).

Not all authors at PM are looking for traditional agents. It's also a way to showcase your work. For example, a Chinese agent noticed my first novel on my page, contacted me and the publisher and then sold the rights to a Chinese house. The Chinese edition was released in November.

Way to go Bonnie! I'm going there next fall and I'll look for it :)

I have an agent--and a PM page. I'm using it to showcase the manuscript on submission and my short fiction credits. Whether or not an editor sees it is a different story . . .

I do know a writer who had a big-name agent contact her after seeing her PM page. She's now with this agent.

I can't speak for everyone, obviously, but when I first put up nmy PM page I had 2 agents call out the blue, and it didn't seem like it was unusual for these agents to do so. Anna Ghosh, the agent I have now at Scovil Chichak Galen, wasn't one of them, but I found her through PM.

So would it be a nitwit thing to have a PM page if you are unpublished (except for a short story or two?) and looking for an agent?

Creating a PM page taints the artistic purity of your project.

You're supposed to write a manuscript, lock it in a fireproof safe, and wait for someone to recognize your genius.

If you debase yourself by doing this kind of shameless marketing and advertising, no one will respect your work.

Sheila,

I had a PM page as an unpublished author (actually, I had one publishing credit, but it was a foreign sale in Germany). I would certainly create a page, but only if you have a completed novel (or nonfiction proposal) polished and ready to go. I don't see the point of having a page before that, unless it's to network with other writers or blog.

So would it be a nitwit thing to have a PM page if you are unpublished (except for a short story or two?) and looking for an agent?

Of course not! That's what a lot of writers do. (Notice some of the comments about agents approaching writers with PM pages.) If you're paying for the subscription, why wouldn't you put up a PM page?

Of course, you can't expect agents to find you this way. You have to query them!

Sheila, not nitwit at all if you're looking for an agent. Go for it!

I'm with Dr. Hack. You have to be buried with your manuscript. Then, in some distant future where everyone speaks only in text-message language, an archaeologist will dig you up, pry the book from your crumbling fingers and finally discover what all the other letters on the keyboard are for.

Otherwise you just get rich and famous in your own lifetime. Honestly, who wants that?

He's right. Nobody will respect your work. They'll just keep on giving you money.

Oh, the humanity!

Does anyone know about the Rights Offerings" section. Do agents and editors look at that? Sometimes the offerings are posted by the author and often by agents. who looks there?

Interestingly, since we're on the topic of PM, Charlotte Gusay just updated her agent page over at PM.

A quick check on P&E reveals that she charges a fee and is Not Recommended.

Although PM is a great resource, it is no guarantee -- nor does it claim to be -- that a listed agent is above scamming clients.

I'd love to see Dave, Victoria, MS and the folks at PM weigh in on the above statement. Is it correct?

Thanks Michelle and Bonnie! I'm going to look into it :-)
Sheila

Charlotte Gusay charges a $35 "processing" fee for submissions. The temptation for abuse is obvious, and Writer Beware has gotten some reports that do suggest the agency may be using this as a money-generating device. However, Ms. Gusay has a pretty substantial commercial track record going back over a number of years.

PM does list a number of marginal/amateur agents, and has listed some scammers--for a while, Cris Robins of the fee-charging Robins Agency had a page on PM. I wrote to them about this, and they basically said that if someone chose to pay their membership fee, they weren't going to turn them away.

I can't think of a SINGLE agent listing or market resource that doesn't have some bad or at least dubious apples (including the AAR membership list and the much-praised Everyonewhosanyone.com). Don't assume that an agent's inclusion on any list is an indication of reputability. Always do some extra research.

I remember sending a screenplay to Gusay back in the late'90s. I didn't pay a reading fee for a verdict, but I would have had to if I wanted critical feedback.I declined; always a good move in my view.

"Charlotte Gusay charges a $35 "processing" fee for submissions."

I've heard about this, but don't know much. The only thing I ever heard was that she does have a good reputation...and didn't she operate a bookstore on Melrose for years? I could be wrong.

Okay, now I'm just confused. I looked at Everyonewhosanyone.com and thought it looked

- ahem - *stares awkwardly at keyboard looking for polite synonym for* - ahah! -

eccentric rather than "much praised". Was that a joke?

Or am I a clue target?

Good stuff to know. Thanks.

To "twill"

Whether or not you need the clue gun depends on who you are talking to about everyonewhosanyone.com.

Personally, I love good old G. over there just because he is eccentric, which I'm sure he'd interpret differently.

I heard that too anon i.e. store on Melrose. I remember an office on La Cienega, from the stationary but naturally I never went down there.

Um... Miss Snark has been gone for three days and I'm going into withdrawal.

Um... Miss Snark has been gone for three days and I'm going into withdrawal.

No, she can't be gone, because she's approving comments several times a day. So I'm assuming she's just really, really busy. Unless KY knows how to release comments from moderation, that is.

But I do have to agree that the withdrawal is getting painful.

Are you okay, Miss Snark? Is KY okay?

I hope you're very busy making oodles of sales :)

"Um... Miss Snark has been gone for three days and I'm going into withdrawal."

Ditto.

Me too. Now I've no excuse not to write.

A true public service is being done here daily.

Says me.

CP.

I'm going into withdrawal

Now I've no excuse not to write.

Oh dear... Has this been happening to you?!!

Hello, my name is A Naughty Miss, and today I rewrote two rejection-begging scenes into kick-ass tension page-turning mayhem, and I owe it all to this: [holds up shiny probably-ozone-destroying aerosol can] Anti-Internet-Distraction. [insert "happy" arpeggio]

One spray a day (okay, sometimes a few sprays), and it will fool your keyboard and monitor into believing you've been reading Miss Snark's blog, when in actuality you've been [dramatic pause] writing! [insert dramatic/hopeful chord. Queue rainbow effects, and...butterflies]

It really works...really! [add sparkle to annoying teethy-constipated smile] And I should know, because I'm not just the president of Snarkaholics Anonymous... Okay, okay, I'm not really the president; I'm not even a client, but whatever. [sprays monitor and keyboard with shiny ozone-destroying spit from aerosol can] But I am somebody. And I'll be even more somebody someday. Just you wait and see!

Oh, she's probably off with that Clooney guy.

Honestly, I just don't see what she sees in him when guys like me are around here all of the time. I mean, I know she doesn't represent my genre but still...

Have you seen this morning's "Squirrel Conspiracy" post on www.inkygirl.com?

The link, as originally posted, had one too many http sections and an extraneous period at the end. Try:
0036686.netsolhost.com/submissions.html instead

Heather

There's either a very good reason for posting that, or a perfect example of over-kill.

I'M IN UR INKWELL, STEALING ALL UR PROSE.

I'm guessing there's a very good reason.

Actually, Miss Snark, it applies to all submissions. But I agree it seems okay.

There's at least one dumb typo ("of the of the") & if I'd written it I'd have pointed out that all submissions are already copyrighted by the person who wrote them.

Some lawyers get like this--they protect their clients, but introduce overly-scary language in the process. It's not really all that much more effort to give the appearance of fair play as well as its substance. Too bad they didn't bother.

http://www.snopes.com/critters/gnus/squirrel.asp

Here's a link I thought you might like to try, MS, it's got squirrels.

I'm sorry, but I have looked and searched and changed browsers but I cannot find Miss Snark's email address in her profile so that I can ask a question. Help?

They also literally just did a 100% site update. Their site was very different last week.

sandyg, her email address is:

miss (dot) snark (at) gmail (dot) com

Thank you whoever put the email link back in the profile .... even if it was the internet Gods.

[email protected]

Copied and pasted from the profile page. (hope it's okay to give that out)I guess you'll screen it if it's not.

Their site looks great! It was sort of a quill pen style I believe - this version is fresh and inviting. I got a fanstastic reader report from Kim Witherspoon - a rejection, yes, but with much welcomed input. I think people look for reasons to dislike an agent or agency to soften the "blow of the no." Which is not the same as the "no of the blow." Ask my husband....

sandyg --

MS's email addy is on the complete profile (linked from the front page of the blog as "View Complete Profile") as a link that says "Email" (left-hand side, in a dialogue box marked "Contact.") Just click on "email" and the address will autopopulate.

Not to worry. Inkwell is not interested in this e-mailer's crap anyway. Their site makes it clear they want people who can write and be successful.

Thank heavens someone else couldn't find the email address for Miss S. Had me worried there for a minute. Is it me? The gin? Dementia?

Anonymous #3 said...
"Not to worry. Inkwell is not interested in this e-mailer's crap anyway. Their site makes it clear they want people who can write and be successful."

So glad you decided to become the spokesperson for Inkwell.

Anonymous "not to worry"--WTF with the obnoxiousness?

Is Miss Snark on vacation? Or am I lost in some electronic back-eddy?

kd

"Actually, Miss Snark, it applies to all submissions."

No it doesn't. They would like it to apply to electonically submitted manuscripts. And just because it says so, doesn't mean whatever they ask is valid or enforceable.

To say the least, their disclaimer is off-putting. Why can't they have normal business relations without a legal document? Are they in the habit of suing people? Is that one of their sources of income? If you have a simple disagreement with them, does it imply a potential lawsuit?

On the flip side, the only rational people who could risk dealing with this agency are those who can afford legal counsel. And, no matter how big of an author someone may be, that's not a relationship one would want to have.

Maybe it's paranoia. Maybe they got sold a package deal of legal services and this was one included.

Whatever the case, the disclaimer makes them look litigious in nature or not quite competent.

I'd say since she's updated the posts that need approval she's just on hiatus due to the long weekend. Probably up to her neck in gin!

I'm guessing vacation. The Queen Mary docked in Sydney this morning with the QE2 expected tonight. That's a lot of bars to work over...

Irrational Exuberance: to me, it actually sounds like the opposite. I read it as "Don't you dare try to sue us for 'stealing your idea' when we get plenty of ideas from our other authors, and guess what, some of them may even be similar to yours. People get similar ideas all the time, so live with it."

Too many people are quick to say "Hey, I sent you this idea two weeks ago, and now this famous author is making a million bucks a week on it. I'm gonna SUE!" these days. Sure, in some cases there's a legitimate concern, but in many others, it's just someone trying to cash in on the big bucks somehow.

What auntie penultimate said. I'm going to make a wild guess that some disgruntled querier did try to sue them. Once the lawyers are involved, they tend to prescribe long blocks of legalese as a preventative measure. No malice need be assumed.