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Should I Send Queries During the Holidays? — A Timely Mailbag Question

Carol Tice

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The Holidays and Query Letters Don't MixHi all —

I know. I don’t ordinarily post on Tuesdays. But I got a question from Christine Champ that can’t wait!

She wrote:

Do you think it’s a bad idea to send out new pitches during the holidays? Like with Thanksgiving coming up, would you not send any new pitches until the following week? I have a few pitches I planned to send out [Thanksgiving week}, but then thought should I wait ’til after the holiday.

Quick answer: I’d wait.

Editors’ schedules are crazy enough on a normal, five-day week. On the short weeks, they’re really nuts. I think it ups your odds of just getting passed over.

I actually wouldn’t send any out the Monday after a long holiday weekend, either. If I don’t miss my guess, editors will spend the entire day just digging out of email and putting out fires. So I think that’s not a good day either.

It’s frustrating to hit these periods where you have a story idea you love, but you need to sit on it. But I think it’s probably the right thing to do.

I’m sure there’s another school of thought, that a lot of workaholics tend to sit and catch up on email during the holidays, and maybe that means in a weird way they might be more likely to take time to read yours. But I guess I don’t want to encourage workaholism, so I don’t add to the pressure by sending queries in a holiday period.

Finally, if you’re snail-mailing queries, go ahead and send them out — they won’t look at them until next Tuesday, but that should work out fine.

Are you sending out any queries during the holidays? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.

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Photo via Flickr user hurricanemaine

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