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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42205
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42205
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Trilogies are rarely, if ever, published back-to-back. Instead, first one book is published, then, if it is successful, the second one, then the third.

What this means is, **when you query an agent, you have Book 1 finished to a T** (as you would with a stand-alone book, when querying an agent). You also mention that you already have books 2 and 3 of the trilogy outlined. ("Outlined" is a flexible term, but since you're planning it to be a trilogy, you definitely should have _something_ - you can't just realise mid-way that things aren't working and you'd need to scrape the whole thing.) Since querying an agent takes a lot of time, you will be making progress on Book 2 while attempting to get Book 1 published.

Why mention that Books 2 and 3 are already in progress, when you're only querying with Book 1? Because you intent to write a trilogy, so the agent would need to know that this intention is not an amorphous sort of intention, but an "already started working" intention. From the experience of now successful writer Jim Butcher:

> [editor] was wavering until she heard that I had three books already finished, and then she was a lot more interested. ([source](http://www.jim-butcher.com/jim))

(To clarify, Jim started querying agents when he had only the one manuscript. In the time it took him to find an agent willing to represent him, he had finished two more, and had the outline for several more to come.)

So, since you need to have Book 1 finished to a T in order to start querying agents, **edit it now** , start writing the second book after you're completely 100% finished with the first.

Original score: 6