In most cases, simultaneous submissions are OK and should be encouraged. This is one of the most common questions I get, and even though you now have an answer, it bears clarification.
You should only query agents who are specifically fit for your project, and many agencies have a “one agent per agency” policy. So how to decide who to send it to? You’re already on our website, so it’s easy to click over to our bios and compare. What are the favorite books we list? Who are our clients? You can also head over to Publishers Marketplace and see what we’ve sold. Or follow us on social media, where we’ll often put out a call for what we’re specifically looking for at that time.
The term “simultaneous submissions” refers to querying multiple agencies at a time, which is totally cool unless they say otherwise (most agencies will not say otherwise). So, as much as we’d like to be the perfect and only agency for you, we realize that it’s not always feasible on your end to make that a required practice.
Let’s briefly run through one example of the submissions process. Say you send a query for your novel to Agent A. You then wait until Agent A reads through all the other submissions ahead of yours. Agent A likes the sample in your query and asks for the first 100 pages. You wait again until agent A reads through those who are ahead of you. Agent A likes your first 100 pages enough to request the full manuscript. You then wait again while Agent A reads the other subs that are in line ahead of yours. This could take months, and it often ends in rejection. In some cases, they may ask you to revise and resubmit during that process as well.
If you only send one query to one agent and wait through the process of request, read, and response, it could take months, if not years before you get any kind of results. We realize this, and we want to make it as easy as possible for you, hence being open to simultaneous submissions.
Some outlets for your writing, usually independent and university presses, still have a “no simultaneous submissions” policy, and that’s ok. Everyone works differently, and many of those outlets have way more submissions than staff to handle them.
To further clarify, the term “simultaneous submissions” only applies to the type of publishing professional you are contacting. It’s OK if you send to multiple agencies, but don’t send to agencies and publishers at the same time. That’s another topic for another day, but just have that in mind when you go to present your work. With regard to agents only or publishers only, it’s usually a good idea to submit to several of them simultaneously.
