You ask, we get someone else to answer: Querying during the holidays
I didn’t know the answer to this question, so I asked Kara Gebhart Uhl, managing editor at Writer’s Digest magazine. Thanks, Kara, for your help! [lf]
Harriet writes: “I am ready to send out queries in the next few days and wonder what happens to them as they arrive in an editor’s email or get delivered to an editor’s desk at this time of year? Is it a disaster to send queries between now and January 1?”
Kara answers: While I can’t speak for other magazines, personally I don’t think it’s a disaster at all. Your submission will still arrive in the appropriate inbox and will, eventually, be read. However, note the word “eventually.” If you choose to send queries around the holidays, know that it’s probably going to take a couple weeks longer than normal to receive a response. Many of us take vacation time around the holidays both because we want to and because we have vacation time to use up before the year ends. And if we’re pushed for time, we’re going to do what we need to do to get the next issue of the magazine out before we tackle that pile of submissions.
That said, some of us have used up all our vacation time already and, are, unfortunately, stuck in the office the day after Christmas when hardly anyone else is around. That’s a perfect time to go through that pile of submissions. And, personally, I like to leave a clean inbox before a long break. So I do what I can to get to all of them before I go on vacation. In fact, I went through about 75 submissions today to prepare for four days off during the Thanksgiving holiday. So send away. And while you might be pleasantly surprised with a same-week response, you’d also be wise to tack on a few weeks to the length of time the magazine says it will take them to respond.
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Nov 16, 2006 Advice, Query letters, You Ask, We Answer
