To your left is an actual picture of the pile of proposals, sitting on my office floor, from early January 2010 (click the picture to see it full size). It represents about 30 days’ worth of incoming proposals during a slow time of the year. The stack of books next to the pile includes books sent for review (consideration) and recent publications that I want to look at.

Today, that has been replaced by email submissions, many of which ignore the request “Please do not copy and paste your entire manuscript into your email.” As of this writing, there are over 300 proposals awaiting my personal attention, all received in the last six weeks. The danger for authors is that the inbox for incoming proposals is “out of sight, out of mind” and lacks the visual impact of a literal pile.

Imagine how easy it will be to write “No thank you” to the poor soul who failed to proofread their email before sending this sentence, “I would like to send you my quarry letter ….”

Or the psychic who has an “amazing” personal story to tell … and by the way, also has two novels done and five children’s books ready and waiting.

I once received a call that went something  like this:
Agency: This is the Steve Laube Agency.
Caller: What kind of agency are you?
Agency: We are a literary agency.
Caller: What does that mean?
Agency: It means we represent books to publishers on behalf of our clients and manage our client’s careers.
Caller: Oh, good. I do comic strips … and they are really unique …  [caller’s voice gets faster and louder as they talk]
Agency: Well, we don’t represent artists or comic-strip artists.
Caller: But I’m a philosopher too! [further explanation followed]
Agency: Well, we [caller interrupts]
Caller: And I’m also a musician with over 500 songs to my credit.
Agency: Unfortunately, we do not represent musicians at this time.
Caller: But I was named rock musician of the year.
Agency: We’re sorry, but it does not appear that our agency would be a good fit for you.
Caller: You want to listen to my stuff for free on the Internet?
Agency: I don’t see how that would be a good use of our time.
Caller: Someday, someone will discover it and make millions.
Agency: We wish you the best in all your endeavors.

I know it is hard to wait. I get it. I don’t like it either. However, the work of a literary agent is only partially that of reviewing unsolicited proposals.

Each of us regularly deals with:
— reviewing cover designs and marketing plans for forthcoming titles
— wrangling with our client’s editors over any number of issues (everything from copyedit/grammar questions to someone at their publisher not returning a phone call)
— fussing with a publisher’s finance department over a missing payment to a client
— fussing with a publisher’s legal counsel over contractual language that had changed from the last contract we did with them
— general fussiness (I will often come home from work and tell my wife, “Today was an itchy scratchy day.”)
— reviewing new book ideas pitched to us by existing clients
— preparing client proposals for sending to publishers
— reviewing new contracts (an average of one new book contract every two business days throughout the year)
— Etcetera

Please don’t misunderstand. This isn’t complaining or saying we’re busier than you (which is unlikely). In fact, it is an enormous privilege to work in this industry and work with enormously gifted writers and brilliant publishers. But this post is for those writers who wonder why agents take so long to review proposals and then send seemingly dismissive rejections. I’ve written about rejection before, and no agent takes the process lightly. But a little understanding and self-education would make every writer’s experience while approaching an agent a little more tolerable.

I fully expect that at least 90% of the 300 proposals in the inbox are not ready yet. It doesn’t mean what was sent isn’t good. Only that it isn’t ready. The competition is fierce, and writers need to make a little extra effort to learn the industry, learn the craft by going to a good writers conference this year, and realize this is a marathon, not a sprint.