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I just made my goals post, and I'm wonder if it's realistic, or what people usually do. I plan to have a final draft of my novel Stones of Cilean by April, and the final draft of my novel The Second Generation by May. Is it realistic to be querying both of them at once? Is that too much work? And what if I get an offer on one and get a publisher or agent, what do I do with the other?

Also, and kinda changes the situation completely - Stones of Cilean is part of a series, and I know publishers are skeptical with first-time novelists and series. Should I wait until the trilogy (maybe, I dunno, haven't planned it out that much) is finished, so if The Second Generation is published, I can present the series to an agent/publisher/whatever? Or if The Second Generation doesn't get any bites after a while, I can step away from it to work on getting Stones of Cilean published?

I don't know, what do you guys think? Thanks in advance!

What I've picked up from pretty much every agent blog I read is that you should query the first novel only, and *don't* pitch it as part of a series. Let it stand on its own merits. It's okay to indicate that you hope to write further novels in the same world, but don't query your series - query your novel!

Can Stones of Cilean stand on its own -- is the main story arc resolved? If not, I'd advise either reworking it so it does, or else querying the other novel first. Agents (and publishers) don't like taking chances on first-time novelists whose story arcs aren't complete at the end of one book, in case that book sinks and leaves readers hanging. (Look at the first Harry Potter book -- the threat of Voldemort is still there to pull readers on to the next book, but the immediate mystery is resolved.)

Aside from that, I would also advise querying only one at a time. Like Lily says, a query is for one novel only, which means you'd have to send two queries to everyone in quick succession (assuming both novels are the same genre...), and you'd get confused and they'd get annoyed. So work on editing one while you're querying the other -- it will keep you from obsessing over the one that's out on submission!