How to Handle an Exclusive
Q. I need some advice. I recently went to a writers’ conference and pitched an agent, who told me to send her my full manuscript. When I got home from…
Q. I need some advice. I recently went to a writers' conference and pitched an agent, who told me to send her my full manuscript. When I got home from the conference, I sent some more queries out (because I didn't want to limit my options to just the one). I haven't sent the first agent my manuscript yet, because I was taking a few days to make a final proof-reading sweep. But just now I just got a response from one of my other queries for a partial, and the new agent wants a four-week exclusive on the chapters. What do I do?
A. I would tell Agent 2 that Agent 1 already has it. This is not completely true, but it's basically true (truthiness?) because you were about to send it anyway to Agent 1.
You can offer Agent 2 an almost-exclusive look at the pages. I would say she will take the pages anyway and you have nothing to worry about. Agents want exlcusive looks at pages, but they understand if it's already out.
Chuck Sambuchino is a former editor with the Writer's Digest writing community and author of several books, including How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack and Create Your Writer Platform.