Thanks for getting back to me, I appreciate it as I know you are busy.

Naturally your priority will be your existing clients, that’s only right and fair. I will keep an eye on the site and just hope when the next submission period does roll around, the novel will be at a point where it’s ready to be submitted.

Thanks again.

Ryan.

Thanks for your question – but I’m afraid it is almost impossible to adequately answer – I don’t have a clue! The short answer, if there is one, is that we’ll reopen when we reopen!

The longer answer means examining what is, I guess, an issue for all small agencies. We, of course, *must* find new material to survive – that is our Raison d’être! On the other hand, we must finely balance our time in order to give our incumbent client list the time it deserves and to keep up our admin. That means doing all the things this job entails, from reading delivered manuscripts (two major clients have delivered their new novels within the last two days, and these must take priority), submitting material to publishers, following up those submissions, chasing money, seeing that money we receive is paid out to clients and accounted for (this means doing a fair amount of paperwork!), attending meetings, managing the web site, going to the post office, the bank, answering the phone … and the million, billion other things that must be done to manage a small business. There are only two of us to do all this stuff and this basically means that only the smallest part of our available time can be devoted to reading submissions.

I appreciate that this is tough from the point of view of writers out there with material ready to go, but we really do want to be able to give that material the best consideration we’re able. In order to do that, we need to have enough time freed up to read through submissions properly, and that’s why we only ever open when John and I feel able to cope with the inevitable deluge. And it is a deluge, believe me! Right now we’re extremely busy and thus unable to do so – the best I can offer therefore is keep an eye on the rss feed.

All best,

JB

At the time my novel was not ready (i’m about 2/3 through the 1st edit and don’t want to send it out before a 3rd edit in any case) but i’m just keeping an eye on this space and thought it worth asking since you mentioned above that it would re-open eventually.

Thanks for your time.