Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
A lot of people wonder when it’s okay to call an agent or editor on the phone. The simple answer is: When they’re YOUR agent or editor.
Let me start off by saying, if you’re my client, I love talking to you! Don’t be afraid to call. Don’t be thinking “I don’t want to bother you” or “I don’t want to be a high maintenance client.” If you need to call, call. If I can’t answer, I won’t. Leave a message, I’ll call you back!
If you don’t need to call immediately but want to schedule a chat, so much the better. Shoot your agent an email and set it up, so that you both have it on the calendar. This will increase your chances of connecting when it’s a good time for both. We agents spend a great deal of time on the phone, talking with clients and editors, and often these phone calls are long. So if you call, you might not catch us.
For anyone who’s not represented by an agent and not contracted with a publishing house, then it’s almost never okay to call an agent or editor on the phone. I say “almost” but honestly, I can’t think of an exception. This is why God created email, right? Don’t call to ask questions about submissions, definitely don’t call to follow up on a submission, don’t call to chat or pitch your project.
By the way, the millennial generation seems to prefer NEVER to talk on the phone. And in general, they don’t like voicemail and many confess they never check it. Email and text messaging are increasingly becoming the way to communicate. So while most agents are happy to have their clients call them, you can never go wrong with email.
What about you? Do you prefer phone, email, texting… or what?
Image copyright: massonforstock / 123RF Stock Photo
It all depends, Rachelle. My preferences carry over somewhat from my pre-retirement days.
*When there is a lot of detailed information to convey or when it might be important to have a permanent record of who said what, I prefer email. If I’m on my computer instead of my phone, it even allows spell checking and editing before sending. For long-distance friendships (like opposite sides of the world where time zones never work to your advantage or working people who have to fit friendship into limited free timeslots) e-mail is great. Much faster than letters, and if both of you can be on at once, you can have a conversation almost like talking on the phone but very much cheaper.
*When it is an issue with potential to make emotions flair, I prefer phone. You can hear the inflections and get a better read on how the person is responding. (Face-to-face is better still, but often not possible.) That allows for adjustment of what you are saying as you read the other’s emotions and immediate clarification of things before minor misunderstandings turn into major conflicts.
*If I want a quick touching base to let a relative or friend know I’m thinking about them or to convey very short messages like time and place of a meeting with my millennial kids, texting is very handy. If I need to say a lot or ask a broader question, I text and ask them to call.
I think that texting is a wonderful way to schedule a meeting. It is an unsatisfactory substitute for a meeting. In-person is best, followed by telephone. Email and texting lack tone and body language. The old-fashioned letter has “keeper” advantages (my great grandchildren will never read their parents’ love letters).
* I heard an interviewee on the radio, whose name I missed, say he feared that our newest generation will grow up illiterate to body language. It breaks his heart to see toddlers with their eyes focused on a screen instead of their mothers’ faces.
With email or text you don’t get the tone of the message from the sender. You can imagine it’s worse than it really is.
If somebody doesn’t know me well, they may not understand the tone of my message, either. But I do love to text message. It’s convenient and saves time.
I think each has their place in different kinds of communication. One of my closest friends in this world lives in another state. We connect via phone call almost every week. Being able to hear her voice, get caught up on what’s going on in her life fortifies me for my weeks. Phone calls are also good for connecting when issues need to be discussed that could be misunderstood in an email or text. Or they are too in-depth to be adequately covered in email or text.
*Emails are great for conveying longer pieces of information, for a quick catch up with someone or to let groups of people know information. They also, in my opinion, have their place in connecting with people on not-too-sensitive matters. Or, when there needs to be a little distance to convey information.
*Texts are great for quick communication or conversations, again, the kind that don’t have to potential to flare or for someone’s feelings to be hurt by not hearing the tone of voice. I pretty much only text our babysitters. Can’t remember the last time I called one to set up a time for them to watch the kids.
My dear Mrs. Gardner,
* I hope and trust that this missive finds you well,
* First, if I may, many thanks to those who offered prayer in my behalf. Things have not been going well, and I find myself cursed by circumstance, yet doubly blessed by friends.
* In pondering your most interesting question, I find that I am compelled to reply that my preference is for handwritten correspondence; I value exquisite penmanship (which I do not, alas, possess), fine stationery, and the gently formal courtesies that their use engenders.
* The use of modern methods of communication seems to have brought about a coarsening of discourse; this began with the telephone, whose infernal braying, which might occur at any time of the day or night, began the corporate shattering of the nerves, the results of which are all too apparent in that which we behold around us, and in our own souls.
* Email has continued this, with the customary omission of any sort of salutation save the bare stating of the recipient’s name. Appalling.
* The much-maligned SMS protocol does have deeper roots than the text message; its antecedents can be found in cuneiform inscriptions, and it was a staple of both telegraphy and nautical signalling (the shorthand of which found its way into a specialized language of naval wireless signalling). (The BZ flag hoist, or Bravo Zulu, means ‘well done’, and its opposite can be conveyed by NEGAT BRAVO ZULU.)
* Perhaps the most appealing example of pre-SMS-protocol abbreviation was coined by an Air Force pilot, who, when told that he had just volunteered for a ‘secret’ unit that was being formed to act as bait over the missile batteries of Hanoi, spoke the words that have come down to us as the official WIld Weasel motto, YGBSM; “Ya gotta be s*****n’ me!”
* But In closing, I believe it behooves us as a community of writers to re-introduce the personal and tangible quality of written and sent letters. It is nearly as much legacy as courtesy, for who will save romantic emails; and who among our grandparents threw away love letters?
* I am,
yours in Christ, and your friend,
Andrew Budek-Schmeisser
SO good to find you back here, Andrew. You were sorely missed.
*I like hand-written letters, too, but I’m guilty of doing mostly electronic. I don’t even have the street addresses of many of my good friends.What used to be standard in the old print phone books isn’t even easy to find on line any more.(unless you pay money for it.)
Andrew! Welcome back. We’ve been praying.
So good to hear from you, Andrew.
Andrew! What a beautiful note – I can picture it in handwriting, most likely done with a fountain pen. 🙂
We are also glad to see you back here. We miss you when you’re gone! We’ve been praying.
And I love your thoughts on written correspondence!
Andrew! Hello, hello a n d h e l l o! So very good to see your name come up. “We was worried”.
And we wouldn’t have even known if not for blog posts, so while I treasure a hand-written letter, appreciate the phone call and enjoy the brief text check-in, I’ll take whatever communication someone sees fit to gift me with.
Andrew, so good to “read” your voice again!!
Missed you.
I hate texting–you can’t always say what you really mean, and you can never convey the tone that goes with it. Same with email, except it’s longer. I’ll ask questions via short emails, but usually I prefer to send an email asking when would be a good time to talk. Talking on the phone…sometimes I think it’s a lost art.
The lost art is letter writing, not talking on the telephone. E-mails are letters, just sent differently. I’m so glad that, when we lived in Saudi Arabia in the early 1980s, we didn’t have a telephone. We wrote numerous letters to family, who kept them, and who gave them back to us years later. I have an incredible record of our life there that I wouldn’t have had if we had a phone to talk on. Every phone call I ever made is lost forever, gone into wires and perhaps satellite beams. At least some of the letters I wrote have been preserved for history.
Hi, Rachelle. I prefer an email to set-up a phone meeting. My personality benefits from having some time to consider the topic of discussion and form expectations. My nerves often rattle if the phone rings with an unexpected caller. Such is especially true when the person on the end of the line is a potential agent who might have good/bad news for me. I believe my affinity for email favorably marries my need for forethought/drafting/editing my remarks and writing. I agree with Andrew’s comment that emails tend to be too casual these days. I prefer my emails to have a salutation, carefully considered message, and closing. With all this said, when a phone call does happen, it’s a refreshing chance to discover–through tone of voice, etc.–the person’s mood, personality, and of course fill in details an email doesn’t allow through a live back-and-forth conversation.
I like some personal touch in my emails, but I will defend the use of minimal e-mail pleasantries for others. I had some mid-level and upper managers who received several hundred emails a day. They wanted the absolute minimum necessary for the business at hand. No greetings, no friendly banter, no closing unless the email address didn’t convey the identity of the sender. I made every communication with them as short as possible out of respect for their time limitations.
Great point, Carol!
I like all 3.
Phone, for those long convos with my BFF who lives near San Francisco. And for equally long chats with my parents who live near Vancouver.
Or quick calls to arrange things, pass on information, or other “I need you to HEAR this” situations.
Email for paperwork, etc, or complex things that I need to save.
Text for “where are you and will you be home for dinner?” Or? “No, go left. Look up. I’m under the third pillar. LOOK UP. I’m waving at you. Please don’t ever get a job as a navigator.”
*Even if it were possible to get past the administrative assistant, I can’t imagine cold calling an agent or editor. “Hey you don’t know me but…” Talk about setting yourself up for embarrassment. *I do like the connivence of email because it gives me time to think about what I need to say and the opportunity to change my mind or make corrections.
*And Rachelle, you’re right about the millennial generation never making a call or checking voicemail. However, I do insist that my kids phone me if my text response requires me to type more than a couple of lines. At this point I want vocal communication.
I remember one of my very first writer’s conferences featured a young editor who paused in her lesson, thought a moment and then said: “My fellow editors are going to kill me for this, but if the editor is new to the house they may be actively looking for new books and so I recommend that you cold call them.” She landed a best selling book that way. But she also had to edit that book heavily as it wasn’t quite ready and she said that only a young editor, working hard to get new books who wasn’t overwhelmed with titles could have taken the time to field cold calls and edit books that didn’t start until page 50. I’ve never called an editor or agent, but I do remember that class in detail as she spoke on this and I figured out from her sheepish expression that most editors would totally hate for you to call although it worked for her author.
Kristen, that’s an interesting possibilitiy. What a fortunate break for both parties.
No cell reception in my area. Texting is definitely out. At least we have internet now. 🙂 Email and old fashioned phone calls are pretty much the only options for me.
Elissa, I can’t get a signal at my home, either. I got a smart phone in November, but have only used it a few times when I was away from home. But the internet works fine here. I wish I could text from my computer, but I understand that’s only possible if you know the other person’s provider and brand of computer.
Janet, I can text my kids iPhones from my Mac, which is very handy if I’m working on something. I’d still prefer a phone call from them!
I’m definitely an e-mail guy.
(Ironically, much of my day job consists of writing about the telephone!)