Well, that was fun. Thank you for everyone who participated! The results are as follows, out of 35 votes:
A plurality of 15 (43%) respondants said it’s okay to include sample pages as long as the submissions guidelines don’t specifically prohibit it.
29% (10 votes) disagreed and said only include if they specifically ASK for it.
A similar number, 26% (9 votes), said it couldn’t hurt.
And one argued that this should only be in place for agents.
I think most are in favor of sample pages, though it’s tough to tell how many of the “if they don’t prohibit” people are *also* “hell yeah” people. 🙂
A commentator in the agenting field said she’s mainly interested in the writing, so she’d rather see 5 sample pages than 5 synopsis pages, and one writer said that many agents already ask for three sample chapters and cover letter, rather than a lone query. Another writer argued that you should really send them what they ask for only, and a third was like, rules schmules, it’s just five pages.
I advocate ALWAYS FOLLOWING SUBMISSION GUIDELINES. If they get specific, then by all means, send them what they ask for. When I was querying agents, I made a list of what they each asked for. Many did indeed want the first chapter or the first three chapters straight off, and I was happy to send it. (Interesting aside, all of those who wanted partials straight off rejected them, but all of those who I queried and from whom I got a partial request ended up requesting the full. Same partial. I have no idea what that means, but it’s interesting. I guess because they already knew the TYPE of story was something they wanted to represent?) But I also think that if they don’t say “Don’t send me sample pages” then I’d go ahead and send them. However, I’m biased, since I also know that I sold a couple people on my story from the first two pages. 😉
I’m loving these polls. I’m goign to do another, inspired by a recent discussion and Julie’s comments in the previous post.
