Hey, all. Okay, I went and googled House of Secrets (I know, I know, total ego thing) and your great conversation hooked me. BTW, guitarbabe, your notes were great. Wish my own had been that organized when I spoke. And thanks for not mentioning that I was ten minutes late.
Just a couple of comments.
First and foremost it's all about the writing. Tough to sell a bad product. But many good writers never get looked at because they think a query equates to a business letter. You are trying to sell your work. Be professional and include things that help showcase your complete offering.
On the SASE debate. Not including a SASE with a query for a novel isn't going to affect your chances of getting published. My feeling is, why pay $0.40 to have someone tell you they don't like your writing? I've talked to dozens of published novelists, both national and LDS and not one has recived an acceptance via SASE. And I've yet to talk to an agent or national publisher who will reject good writing because there's no SASE. If you want to keep track of the rejections (in in a perverse way it's actually kind of fun at first) feel free.
If you are going for a national agent though, DO include a photograph. Again, if your writings not great it won't make a difference. But you are selling a complete package and the big five publishers--along with many regionals--are very focused on how well you can market your book after it comes out. The fact that you know how to look presentable is a definite plus.
This particular presentation was focused on novel submissions to agents and publishers.
On the mulltple submission question, again the focus was queries. I would never recommend that you query only one agent or publisher at a time. That will take you forever, and has no appreciable benefit. A good friend of mine just sent out 5 queries for a national YA fantasy using the four page query. So far he has received two e-mail requests for the first 50 pages. At that stage, the agent may or may not request exclusivity for a limited period of time. Or they may wait until they request the full ms. Either way, I would never recommend ignoring that request. You want a professional agent, so acting professional w/ them only makes sense.