E-mail vs. snail mail

Agents are funny people. Well, to be truthful, people are funny people. But I just want to address agents at the moment.

Agents have all sorts of likes and dislikes and many of them are listed on their websites or on agent listings, both online and printed. And while it is rare that all of an agent's preferences will be so obvious __ and not knowing is a potential minefield __ it is always important to follow their suggestions based on their preferences.

I think it is civil to write "thank you for your time and consideration" at the bottom of a query because I really am taking up some of their time, if only marginally. But I know of an agent who expressly doesn't like that. She says she should be thanking the writer for taking the time to consider her. So, in my query letter, I didn't thank her for her time. (She rejected me anyway, but was quite nice about it.)

But the preferences that always confuse me is when an agent only wants snail mail queries or only e-mail queries. Why one and not the other? Why not accept either? Why be some funny about it?

Snail mail, of course, is more traditional, more time-consuming, costly, and less immediate. But it does give the agent something to put their hands on and allows the writer to show they can conform to the standard publishing format, i.e. margins, headings and such.

The writer doesn't know how his or her letter is going to appear on the other end if it is in an e-mail but that is balanced by its immediacy and the fact that if the writer is sending the query online then they probably have checked out the agent's preferences on their website. It will appear less of a form letter sent to the next agent on the list.

And rejections tend to come quicker, allowing the writer to emotionally move on quicker.

While I do send out snail mail queries, I prefer e-mail. Even when targeting for a specific agent, which is an absolute, e-mails are quicker to write or adapt and mistakes are easier to quickly correct.

But I always follow their preferences where they are stated. That's just basic business sense.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and keep writing.