If you got an agent - how long did it take them to get back to you after submission

[AdmiralButterfly]

I submitted a YA novel to about 20 agents last week. Now just refreshing my inbox the whole time. Obviously I know that their submissions pages say they'll take 8-12 weeks in most cases, but those people who did get requests for full manuscript - did that happen quickly?

I submitted to about 9 agents (this was 2019) and I had requests for the full from 5 of them within about 4 weeks but then another 8 weeks of radio silence. And the agent I now have is one I had already met at a writers conference so she'd already seen the first 3 chapters and had asked to see the rest so was ahead of the game so to speak.

I had one 2 hours after submitting, a couple about 4 weeks after and one 5 months after!

All agents work in slightly different ways and have different workloads so you can’t always tell much from timescales.

@CakeRage how's it going? Your staying sane thread was epic...

Yes @cakerage I'd like an update that was such a great thread! I lived through my own submissions hell within that thread.

Everything’s going great these days, thanks! My debut is publishing in a few months and I’m busy writing “book 2” (actually the fourth full novel I’ve written) which will be out next year. I absolutely love the team that I’m working with now - they were definitely worth the wait.

Maybe I should do a part 2 thread so we can see where everyone ended up!

Submitted to about 50 agents

Had 6 requests for the full. All of those came within a few days except one who was a couple of weeks.

Didn’t get taken on because they ‘love it but wouldn’t know how to market it’

Self published 🤷‍♀️

My now-agent, within a week. One of the rejections, 18 months later just as the book was actually coming out

@CakeRage congratulations! A part 2 thread would be perfect.

Oh yes @cakerage a catch up thread would be great! I'm going to be looking at all the new releases this summer and wondering which one is you!