I have the ability to be phenomenally stubborn. Good thing? Bad thing? It sortta depends on the situation. Either way I’m not usually inclined to toss my opportunity at gaining something, especially when waiting costs me nothing other than a bit of stomach lining.
Strangely enough, this brings me to another feature of the QueryTracker timeline, the ability to see when other folks withdraw a query.
Now there can be a veritable host of reasons for an author to withdraw a query. Succes is a great reason. Realizing that ‘this could be better’ is another possible reason. And, of course, there is ‘life happens.’
Sometimes I see a lot of people withdrawing queries. If there is a pattern to discern I would say the bulk of the withdrawn queries are closed because of their age. It appears that, if folks haven’t heard within a time frame, typically 90 days, they close the query. Makes sense.
Although I am inclined to leave a query out there until I have a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ I did just pull two queries out of consideration this morning. Why?
Well, both of them were on the old side. One was over 80 days old. And, while relative age wouldn’t usually be reason enough for me to recall a query, combined with another feature I thought, yeah, time to close shop.
What was the other factor? Experience.
As I have been doing more, and more, and more research into agents I’m discovering that I have a distinct preference for agents who have been in business for at least five years. Looking through Publishers Marketplace crystalized this thought for me. I need to see that an agent has had some success in finding homes for manuscripts. I think it’s just one of those security things that rattles around in my head.
Anyway, that is today’s news from the querying trenches. Back to researching and editing… and waiting.