Okay, I have a question. I hear that you send your query letters to several agents, in hopes of getting a bite. Then you get a bite, but you're still in the queue at several other agent's palaces, maybe some you'd prefer over this one. If you tell these agents that you've procured an offer, the other agents will suddenly spring into action, reading your letter, and possibly making a counter-offer.
Now my question: What's to stop you from lying?
Why couldn't I e-mail some agents and say "Hey, you know {AGENT I LOOKED UP ON AGENTQUERY} has expressed an offer of interest. What about you? Don't you want in on this fine deal? And offer me some more cash why don't you?" Do they ask for evidence that Mr. Made-Up-Man has actually made an offer? Is there any way they could get counter-evidence that they did not send an e-mail? Or have I found a foolproof method of getting agents to look at your query quickly? I'm sure I could come up with enough details to convince the agent that this actually happened -- I am a writer after all.
I suppose there are some ways this wouldn't work. One being agents do talk to each other -- Agent X could e-mail Agent Y who would say "I have no idea what you're talking about." There's also the possibility that the agent will look and still say "Nope, not for me".
So maybe it's not a good idea to put this into practice, but it's just a flaw in the grand scheme of querying that I've found.Labels: agents, query letter