Waiting on agents

[Hazelwood63]

Hello. I'm just looking for company on this long waiting game. Anyone else waiting to hear back from agents at the moment? I sent out five initial submissions at the end of January. So far I've received a really encouraging rejection and two requests for the full. Nothing from the other two so far. It's coming up to a month since I sent off the first full ms, and just over three weeks for the other one. Has anyone else waited over a month for a response to a full and been offered representation, or is it maybe time to think of moving on?

Are you in the UK, @NewWriter? If so, I'd be inclined to hold off on sending any more submissions out for a little while. You often see advice to send out 30 - 50 queries initially - but that relates to the US. The pool of agents in the UK is much smaller.

It's not an exact science obviously, and it's hard to work out the best way forward, as response times are so slow. There's also the problem that 'no answer means no' has crept in, meaning authors are often left hanging for good. For a first round of submissions, I'd be inclined to stay under 10, give those ones time, and start work on something new.

The risk of sending out a big first batch is that if you get several responses with consistent feedback, those agents are then off the table, since most agents won't re-read, unless it was a very near miss. If it was a smaller batch, you can then decide whether to work on whatever has been flagged up, and then submit a - hopefully - stronger project to the next agents on your list.

The downside of that is, of course, that you could sit around for weeks or months and finish up hearing nothing at all, or just a scatter of form rejections. Or you could get nine full requests and detailed, thoughtful feedback! I do think, however, that it's worth taking a bit of time in the early stages. I don't know how many UK agents are now using Querytracker, but I had a look at some stats/comments on there when I was changing agent, and it's quite useful to see how long each agent typically takes, and whether they have any patterns.

Have you looked at getting any form of feedback on your writing? Unfortunately, personalised rejections - which used to be rare, but not hens-teeth rare - are very much hens-teeth now, with some people even getting form rejections on full requests. It's worth looking at other ways of getting eyes on your work - both manuscript and submission package - rather than holding out for some tiny fragment of feedback from the submission process.

Hi @InfiniteTeas thank you for the detailed and thoughtful response!! I am in the UK and funnily enough over the bank holiday weekend I also came to the same conclusion about holding off sending out any more submissions. I am feeling a little down about not getting a single response (even though it's very early I saw on MN others getting replies just the day after they started sending out queries and I have had nothing). So I'm going to try to sit tight for a bit longer before sending out any more queries - if I get nothing after 4 weeks then there must be something wrong with my cover letters/synopsis/manuscript.

I have had feedback on my writing but only from one person. I should look at getting more!

Out of curiosity do you remember how many agents you queried before landing yours? I know that it's not an exact science but just curious!

If it's any reassurance @NewWriter a quick response often doesn't mean anything. I had two pretty quick full requests. One in particular was very, very enthusiastic about my writing, so I really got my hopes up. Both of them turned it down and I'm still querying six months later.

Thank you @Moonflowered , amazing you got quick responses and had someone who has very enthusiastic about your work. I'm sorry it didn't lead to anything though and hope you land your ideal agent soon. This querying process is quite demoralising and I've only just started it...

I’m waiting on a reply at the moment. It’s one I wrote a few years ago so has gone ‘cold’ so hopefully it would be easier to revise than when it’s still alive in your head!

@NewWriter Please don't feel down about no immediate responses. Quick responses aren't the norm these days. I had a quick look at my own agent and her colleagues on Querytracker, and at a few other agents I know through author friends, and it looks to me as though some of the 'big' agents are actually surprisingly quick - but they will almost certainly have an assistant filtering queries for them. So, while a one day turnaround could mean that something about the query has caught the eye of the agent and bumped it up the list, it's considerably more likely to mean that it's been looked over by an assistant with very tight guidelines or a very clear idea of what the agent will like.

In terms of the 4 week wait, you really can't assume that there's something wrong if you haven't heard anything within that time. In fact, if you hear nothing from any of the agents in a month, it's far more likely that there's nothing that jumps out as wrong - your submission simply hasn't been read yet. I would say that a batch of very fast form rejections is more likely to indicate something wrong at a very basic level, eg an issue with the covering letter, a very niche story that would be hard to sell, a first page that isn't strong enough, poor choices of agent for the project etc. If you think about the volume of submissions that an agent/agency assistant is wading through on a daily basis, they're going to be going through an inbox fast, doing a 'yes, no maybe' sort, and they'll have to be ruthless about it.

Who was the person who gave feedback, and did they look at your covering letter or just the manuscript itself?

Re my submission process, I didn't really go through the traditional process. I had just started submitting when I had a bit of luck/success in relation to a particular event, which got me some fast offers of rep. I did submit to multiple agents after deciding to leave my first one, but you do have a big advantage as a published author seeking new representation, as you can flag that up in your email header which does bump you right up the queue - it doesn't really bear any resemblance to submitting first time round, so not much help I'm afraid.

Happy to answer any more questions on submitting as best I can. I'm not an expert by any means, but I know lots of people who have been through it - some multiple times - and I've chatted to a lot of agents about how they deal with submissions.

I appear to have been auto-reverted to my old user name. No idea why. I changed when I started posting about writing stuff as I couldn't remember whether I'd ever posted anything that would make me identifiable to any other writers who knew me! Oh well!

@kungfupannda that's all great context, thank you for sharing! Will try to sit right and not despair 😂😅 Great that you got noticed from an event - was it a writing competition? I'm thinking about entering some... I loved writing my manuscript so much that I really do want to keep on writing. Not loving this querying process at all.

It was my husband that I got to review my work - he's actually very honest and brutal with his feedback! And he did look at my query letter and synopsis too. I should look into beta readers though - he definitely wants me to share it with others for feedback. But I wrote my whole manuscript in secret so not sure who to ask 😅 I guess I've wanted to write a book my whole life so I didn't want to tell anyone in case I didn't do it...

Aaand I have my first rejection. Ouch!

Solidarity! Mine came a couple of weeks ago. Having said that I would quote welcome one at the moment. The silence is bloody awful!

It was a writing competition, but one attached to an event. Some of the big novel writing competitions seem to be really good for bringing listed work to agents' attention.

I would definitely try to get eyes on your work. The best free way used to be some of the online writing forums, but I think most of those have lapsed or gone downhill in terms of the quality of engagement/feedback. Local writing groups are obviously ideal - as long as you can find one that actually offers decent feedback, rather than just 'I liked it' or 'I didn't like it.'

If you can invest any money in it, I would look at one of the writing festivals that offer feedback sessions with industry professionals. Or you could approach one of the literary consultancies. Some of them offer various packages if you're not ready to commit to a full manuscript assessment. There are also various online courses - from consultancies, agencies and publishers - that offer feedback and have a decent success rate. Jericho Writers have a couple of popular ones, as do Curtis Brown and Faber. There's also the Cheshire Novel Prize which offers feedback to all entrants, but has just closed for this year, unfortunately.

Regarding the rejection, do you have any idea whether it's a form rejection or personalised? It's not always obvious, but if there's any reference to the actual content of your manuscript - not just the title which could easily be copied into a form email - then it's tailored. Otherwise it's probably form. The form rejections often say something like 'While there is much to admire in your writing, we won't be taking this forward' or 'Although you write engagingly, this isn't suitable for us' or words to that effect. You can sometimes find text of form rejections in the comments attached to agent entries on Querytracker. A personalised rejection this soon would be interesting - and quite possibly positive. A single form rejection could mean anything or nothing!

I have a question that you may be able to answer @kungfupannda. Is there any professional drawback to entering the novel prizes? I mainly get paranoid as many of them publish extracts of shortlisted entries. Would this hinder attempts to get published after the competition. I know they all have success stories of books getting published from the short and even long-lists. But I can't help feeling paranoid that I'd end up shooting myself in the foot by entering.

I'm not sure what sort of problems you are worried about. Do you mean copyright? Or do you mean agents/publishers already having seen it and not been interested at the point when you come to submit?

Copyright would be an issue for short stories - once they're published, you couldn't generally submit elsewhere. But for novels, a short extract being available shouldn't be an issue, and being able to flag up a competition listing is a positive when it comes to submitting.

This is all such helpful advice @kungfupannda thank you for sharing. Are there any writing festivals and competitions that you think are particularly good? I'll put them in my diary to keep an eye out for them. I mentioned earlier in the thread that I've wanted to be a writer my while life but it's only these last six months I've properly pursued it and it feels great to do it and I don't want to do y. (Even if the querying process has been horrible)

I'm 90% sure it was a form rejecting 😞 said that they enjoyed reading it but just didn't feel strongly enough to go further with it - nothing specific about the story.

@splothersdog I know what you mean, I really want to get more responses and hope I don't just get ghosted by the others!

I'm not worried about copyright, I own the copyright of lots of poems and stories I wrote but can't get them published in most places as they've already been published somewhere else. Most publications want original work, regardless of any issues around copyright in my (limited) experience. So the Bridport anthology worries me. As it posts a fairly large section of the novel.

Sorry, I conflated two separate things in my post. I was asking about copyright in the first paragraph as there has been a lot of online discussion recently about plagiarism and I wondered if you were worried about that. You obviously have automatic copyright in your own work. In terms of publication rights, that's definitely an issue with short stories and poems as, once published, the whole work is out there and has no ongoing sale value. That shouldn't be an issue for novels as it's not the whole work. You quite often have extracts of books available online as teasers, and some of the creative writing MA courses produce anthologies with extracts from work that their students are trying to get published. I would say that the benefit of being in the Bridport anthology vastly outweighs the tiny chance of a publisher deciding they don't want something because a very short part of it - that may not finish up being in the final print version - has been published in a publication attached to a prestigious competition that exists mainly to showcase the work of aspiring writers.

I think the Faber novel course does similar right? I think I've read somewhere of people getting their agents through them liking the extract in their anthology. But something in me is resistant to the idea of having a chapter or two of my novel out there before it's published. (Probably silly of me as I can go on Amazon and download the first few chapter or two of almost every novel out there and I usually buy the whole thing after I do.)

@GhostImposter and @kungfupannda those are such informative posts! I'm so green and have only just started pursuing my passion I didn't know about all of this. I'm going to focus on querying for now but when I'm done I'm going to start entering competitions. The radio silence and rejection so far make me think I'm not going to get anywhere with this manuscript, but onwards!

@GhostImposter I really don't think it would be an issue, but the vast majority of writers find agents without ever entering or being listed in a competition. If it doesn't appeal, focus on other things.

Honestly, it's far too early to try and read anything into the silence/responses. One rejection is nothing when it comes to submitting. I would crack on with whatever you're going to do next and try not to think about the submissions process until the next response comes in. If an agent does express interest, one inevitable question is going to be 'and what are you working on next?' so it's a good idea to have something on the go.

I honestly think you shouldn’t read into anything until 3 months have passed. It’s going to be a mental struggle to fight the urge to self criticism but really and truly, unless you’re lucky, it often take months before an agent get to go through your query package . But definitely use query tracker if
you’re looking at early responses. Some agents listed there definitely have a policy to respond within 2/3 weeks and some even commit to respond within a week. I’m not sure if it’s any indication of the quality of your manuscript though, as a rejection could as well mean that the agent is looking for a different kind of material or genre altogether.

Thanks @kungfupannda , you're right. I did start the outline for my next story a couple of nights ago. Am just proofing the rest of my manuscript on the off chance that someone does ask me for the full thing then once I'm done with that and also once I've queried a lot more people I will crack on writing that. The writing part is the most fun bit anyway!

@HelloEverybody it is SUCH a mental struggle not to just think that what I wrote must have been rubbish (I did actually really enjoy what I wrote until this querying process began...! Otherwise I wouldn't be looking for representation yet!) Will try to resist the temptation to just beat myself up though and get on with the querying/writing - I'll probably query a few more agents towards the end of this week since I've only done 9 so far. It's probably very annoying to hear people panic and beat themselves up especially so early in the querying process so I'll try to stop doing that so much!

@HelloEverybody also I will have a look at query tacker, I haven't used that yet!

Hi @kungfupannda @HelloEverybody @NewWriter
i hope it’s ok to join the thread to share the joys of waiting for agent responses.

This is my second time querying and I had forgotten how horrible it is. The endless waiting for almost certain rejection…

Ive got around ten queries outstanding and one full manuscript outstanding. I’m not feeling especially hopeful as I recently received a rejection from another agent who had requested the full manuscript.

Hoping this week brings some good news for everyone.

The thing is they do appeal. In fact, my plan was to experiment a little with which chapter to start the book with as I've an opening chapter that I'm not sure is necessary. I figured I could try the different competitions with and without it and if I managed to LL one way and not the other I'd know. So I entered Cheshire with it in and was on the Bridport page about to submit to them with my chapter 2&3 as 1&2.,when I had second thoughts due to the anthology.

I swing over and back about entering Bridport because of it, but deep down, I don't want that big a chunk of my book out there that way before it's fully ready. I will go ahead and enter Bath and First Novel, and then Novel Fair, but Bridport is ideal to experiment with due to the 5000-8000 word entry and the length of my 2nd and 3rd chapters. I've decided to just re-write parts of chapter 1 for now.