An evil pairing of policies

[Tabris]

Over atthe Guide To Literary Agents blog:

http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/New+Agent+Alert+Kimberly+Shumate+Of+Living+Word+Literary+Agency.aspx

Agency says no simultaneous queries.
Agency responds only if interested.

I guess they figure that you need to clear your calendar, query them, and if you haven't heard back in three months, then you are allowed to query other agencies.

 

[bodwen]

    

That's hilarious.   

[MaryL]

 

[lisarogers]

Sure!!!  Who wouldn't jump on that?   

[Aiala]

Only one possible response, vulgar though it might be:

                                                                                       

~A~

[Tabris]

It's a really good way of making sure one's agency ONLY gets queried by people who consider you their first choice AND people who have exhausted every other choice in the literary world. And rule-breakers.

[bodwen]

And not necessarily in that order.   

[Axordil]

Now if it was snail mail only, they'd have the trifecta...

[Tabris]

Due to sick fascination, I visited the website (it's a wordpress page) and she claims to get back to you within one week if she's interested.

That makes it slightly better, but not reasonable. If she isn't the very first person you query, then effectively you have to wait until every other agent could possibly have rejected you and THEN send her a query. She's probably thinking she doesn't want to have to compete, but the fact is, it's going to have the unintended consequence of anyone with a really vibrant proposal going to some other agent simply because they're simsubbing.

So on balance, not evil, just misguided and unworkable.

[laurabdiamond]

Only one possible response, vulgar though it might be:

                                                                                       

~A~

I'm hijacking the thread, but I was wondering in what context this emoticon would be used! 

L