Q & A: "Are Simultaneous Submissions to Agents Acceptable?"

A new writer asked me if it was okay to send her book proposal to two different agents at the same time. I thought I knew the answer, but wanted to double check with agent extraordinaire Karen Hardin, President of PriorityPR Group & Literary Agency. 

I loved Karen's answer...


Question: Is it acceptable to submit queries to several literary agents at the same time?

Answer: Yes, as long as you let the agents know it is a simultaneous submission. Same courtesy we would give a publisher. I think all you need to do in the cover letter at the end is say, “I am very interested in obtaining a literary agent at this stage and as a result I wanted you to be aware that this is a simultaneous submission to other agents.” And then thank them for their time.

I think we all understand that this is a competitive industry and who wants to wait 6-8 weeks per agent just to start over again?

Q: And why is it problematic to query multiple agents simultaneously?

I get frustrated if it has taken me a few weeks to be able to review the proposal (not uncommon) only to find they have gone a different direction and didn’t communicate that with me. This becomes a mark against the author because I’ve invested my time to analyze on their behalf and it was a complete waste. I do keep names of those people that I won’t consider them in the future if they come back as they have told me what kind of team player they would be.

Karen Hardin

President of PriorityPR Group & Literary Agency

Over 25 year’s experience in the publishing industry

www.prioritypr.org

Karen@prioritypr.org

Thank you to Karen for this really helpful info!

*Stay tuned for Karen's savvy advice to writers who are building their platforms! It's golden.