Today's entry is based on an entry in the new Guide to Literary Agents which I picked up down at Barnes and Noble last week. It goes hand in hand with an earlier post.
It seems the agent (I wish I'd bookmarked the page so I could tell you which one... I'll find it eventually) was explaining WHY they couldn't answer all their email queries. The entry said, "We receive 1000 queries a year."
Well, gee. We've already looked at numbers a whole lot more than that. A thousand queries in a year comes out to just 84 or so a month which works out to LESS THAN FIVE PER DAY! If you don't have time to answer five emails a day, then you're incompetent in the first place.
I teach four classes per semester. I have over 100 students. Since I teach writing, I have A LOT of reading to do. Not only do I read everything that comes across my desk, I RESPOND to each with comments and critiques. Don't try to feed me that line of bullshit that says five a day is too many! I get one assignment back from each of my students about once per week for about 15 weeks. That means I'm grading and critiquing 3000 papers per year (I'm guessing it's actually more than that). I do not have a teaching assistant, nor do I want one. If I was grading things like multiple choice tests or short answer tests, then I'd gladly let a TA handle that.
Am I bitching about it? Not in the least. I enjoy helping young people advance in their writing skills. I enjoy my work. If I didn't, I'd sure as hell find something I did enjoy.
Literary agents should take note.
It's not that the Literary Agents CAN'T respond to all the email queries they get; it's that they DON'T WANT to respond. Big difference.
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