About five agents a week is a good ratio. Try, if you can do it sincerely, to personalize each query--reference the agent's blog, a book or an author they represent, something you picked up from their profile.

Then a little more research. Are they members of AAR (Association of Authors Representatives)? AAR has a code of ethics. Look for them on Preditors and Editors, for example.

Most, not all, agencies have websites now. Look over their website, client list, etc. Usually, there will be agent bios as part of the website to help you select an agent within the agency to target your query to.

Another good one is agentquery.com. They list past sales as well, not sure if QueryTracker does or not.

If you use both of them you should be all set, then click on the agencies website, then the agent and submission process and you should have a good start.

To personalize check their websites, their blogs and their past sales. you may have to take time to pull up their past sales at Amazon or similar to find the actual type of stories they represent. A fantasy is not just a fantasy.

You don't have to accept immediately when you get an offer. Agents expect you to ask questions and think about it before you sign the contracts.

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The agent in question is Denise Little who seems completely legit, but I can't find any statistics about her. I heard she is unusually willing to look at manuscripts but I'd like to know who she represents before querying her if possible.

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Denise Little is listed on Preditors and Editors only as being an agent with Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. There is no further information about her there. No indication of sales, either. She may be a very new agent. Could be okay, as they're generally actively looking to build their client list.

A bad agent is worse than none at all.

If no agents bite, I plan to submit directly to editors.

I use Publisher's Marketplace to research editors (I'm not sending out randomly). It's 20 bucks a month subscription, but fully worth it in my mind because I can keep track of what is selling and which editors are buying which kinds of books. Plus it gives me contact information for most of the editors I want to send to.

On the plus side: you get to hear back from more people more quickly.

On the cons side: What? It's considered rude? Would an agent who wanted to represent you really be put off by the fact that you have other queries out there? I mean, if you like that agent, couldn't you just accept their offer of representation and ignore (or reject, in a twist of irony) any further offers of representation that may materialize from your other queries?

Since it's maybe 1 in 25 chance of being asked for a manuscript and then another 1 in 25 chance of being offered representation (I'm only guessing on those odds) what is the probability something bad could happen from mass querying?

• Each query should be individually addressed to a single agent and use that agent's name in the salutation.
• If possible, some personalization should be added to the query--a reference to the agent's blog, to another book they represented, etc.
• Frankly, researching the appropriate agents does take a little time.
• Querying a handful of agents at a time allows you to tweak and fine tune your query. If it doesn't work for the first ten or so agents, you can change it and try the next batch.
• Agents do talk to each other. Most of them expect you to query other agents. They don't expect you to wallpaper the entire industry with the same query.
  

Disclaimer: I hope my tone doesn't sound combative or confrontational or anything. I like to chase after ideas and that, for me, involves arguing and devil's advocating so I can explore an issue as deeply as possible. Meredith, you are obviously an intelligent and well-informed person on this subject, which is why I'm going to "argue" with you to gain greater insight. I suspect you are probably right in your recommendation to not query many, many agents simultaneously, what I'm testing for is to see what the risk is of doing so.

Sidenote: I found out about this ubb code and it's pretty cool

Continuation of Thread Topic: As for tweaking the query letter, how do you know how to change it if agents make no mention of what was off-putting? Maybe it didn't work on agents A-J but might have worked on K-Z. But my arbitrary changes to my query that may have made it a better fir for A-J might alienate K-Z. In other words, changes to a query that you thought was good enough to send out to A-J are pretty much arbitrary. How could one possibly know what to change?

From my understanding it is all a numbers game. If you don't get a request for a partial in like 1:5 agents, your query letter is not working.

As to know how to change it, read up on query letters on agent's blogs (like Nathan Bransford and pub rants), read over query letters at query shark. Change what needs to be changed, then post your query here or ask for volunteers to read it and send it through e-mail, whatever you are more comfortable with. IMO you really need feedback on query letters.

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As for tweaking the query letter, how do you know how to change it if agents make no mention of what was off-putting? Maybe it didn't work on agents A-J but might have worked on K-Z. But my arbitrary changes to my query that may have made it a better fir for A-J might alienate K-Z. In other words, changes to a query that you thought was good enough to send out to A-J are pretty much arbitrary. How could one possibly know what to change?

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You don't. It's all just shooting in the dark, whether you query agents or editors. Most of them will never tell you why they didn't warm up to your story. But if you've queryed say ten agents and none of them did, well, it could be the query.

IME, the query letter is going to be the single most revised, workshopped, revised, rewritten, anguished-over 250 words you'll ever write. More even than the beginning of your novel.

You can educate yourself on various websites. You can have as many other people as possible read it. You're still going to change it every month or two.

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Fads, what's hot, what the editors are buying, all change and the time it takes to write a good novel is too long.

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Usually, but not always. There's one fad that started years ago that still seems to be building, it has changed a bit, seems like someday it will reach a saturation point but so far as I said it's still growing.

And of course some fads stay around even as they drop off some. They are no longer fads than but a stable market that some can get into. Like space opera or streampunk. Well, that last is a smaller sub-genre that might be growing into a fad. I do seem to be seeing more books, anthologies, and magazines in that area.