Is There A Right Time Of Year To Query?

unpacking urban legends about gaming the slush pile

Hello my sparkling firecrackers! I’m back with one last writing craft newsletter for you at the very end of the year. I hope 2024 has been kind to you and full of memories worth savoring, and if not, thank God it’s done! On to the bigger and the brighter!

The new year often brings about a renewed fervor in folks to finally query that book, so I figured I’d throw my hat into the ring with my own hot take on if there’s actually a best time of the year to query and, if so, how to leverage that.

The Divination Game

Few experiences in publishing turn otherwise level-headed authors into manic oracles interpreting cosmic signs quite as much as querying (except, perhaps, going on sub). And honestly, who can blame us? While some best practices for crafting a winning query letter stay the same year over year (I outlined those best practices using my own query as a guide here), every agency has slightly different standards and expectations, and the industry is impacted by wider economic, stylistic, and timeline trends. Trying to figure out how to query properly, much less query successfully, can feel like a full-time job, one that is only made more stressful by watching other aspiring authors and self-appointed industry commentators whip themselves up into a frenzy on Twitter, or Threads, or whatever other microblogging platform is currently turning the wheels of discourse.

One of those cyclical talking points that gets rehashed over and over again is when the “right time” of year to query is. And I am here to tell you that some of that advice is sound, and some of it is moderately informed conjecture, and some of it is mistaking one instance of correlation for widespead causation. In short, Twitter knows some things, but not all things.

I cannot sit idly by and watch engagement bait get treated as fact, so here’s my unfiltered take on the matter.

But First, My Qualifications

I am in no way an expert on querying, but I did work in acquisitions for an audiobook publisher from 2016-2018, the successfully cold-queryed to get my agent in 2020, and then worked as a literary agent from 2021-2023. Also, I’ve written and published *checks Amazon listing* five books in that span time. This is just what I know, informed by those experiences, and by keeping tabs on the querying climate and landscape through my querying or re-querying friends.

A Disclaimer

I would be remiss not to point out that it doesn’t suuuuuper matter which month you query in, because agents read queries sporadically year round, and because every agent has a different time of day, week, or year that they like to dive into the slush pile. (If you don’t know what slush pile means, no stress! It’s just what we call the stack of unread, unsolicited queries that agents or their assistants work their way through looking for gems.)

Some agents used to be (or still are) incredibly transparent with their reading schedule and decision process on platforms like Twitter — for better or for worse — but generally, you’re not going to have access to that information. And usually, no matter when you query an agent, there’s going to be at least a little bit of a wait while they read the queries ahead before taking a look at yours.

A Second, More Unpopular Disclaimer

Alright, here’s the other thing: agents don’t always read chronologically. Some do, religiously! Others do not.

Some agents, especially if they have access to filtering tools like the ones available on Query Manager, may jump around based on genre, age group, or word count, depending on what they feel like reading and what editors are currently asking for. So if you’ve ever submitted a query in March just to check Query Tracker to see that folks who queried in June are getting their responses before you, the tracker isn’t broken, you’re just still waiting. It could mean you’re in a maybe pile! Or not. It could mean the agent’s assistant has passed your query along to the senior agent for a closer look! Or not. What it certainly means, however, is that you’re still waiting.