How long with partial

There is no average.

It can be hours, days, weeks -- or months.

And, yes, that's for requested material.

Better cultivate patience. Publishing houses can take even longer to make up their minds.

Can't give any better answer than Cheshire did

It sounds like the issue for you might be that you sent a partial to an agent on an exclusive arrangement with no time limit. Note for the future: Never do that! When you send a partial, say something like, "Enclosed are the first three chapters of THE BEST NOVEL EVER for your consideration. Because you asked for it exclusively, I won't query any other agents until [a date a month from that one]."

If you sent the manuscript without a time limit, then IMHO, you shouldn't be on the hook indefinitely. I'd nudge the agent after a month (On such and such a date, I sent you X. Have you had a chance to reach a decision yet?) and at the three month mark, I'd send a note saying you appreciate the agent's consideration but if you haven't heard back by such and such a date, you're going to start submitting to other agents.

I personally wouldn't give an agent 3 months exclusive on a partial unless that was the deal you agreed to when you sent it out. I'd give the agent a month, then politely ask for a decision. Depending on the agent's response, I'd start querying other agents. I'd consider no response a no.
Worse case scenario would be that you get multiple offers and the original agent MIGHT not get your business. Yes that would be bad, and agents talk, but authors must eat too.

I like RJK's answer better than mine. Three months on a full maybe, but a month on a partial. That's reasonable.

Never give an exclusive on a partial, IMO, not that you asked. The whole exclusive thing rubs me the wrong way and I don't believe in giving them at all. As for average turns on partials, I doubt there is one. I'd follow up after 3 months of you don't hear anything before that. And then again, it's not uncommon to get NO response at all. Yeah, sux rocks, but that's how it is sometimes.

An exclusive on a partial should not be more than a month.
Please tell me you agreed a set period of time for the exclusive.

You should e-mail the agent asking for a status update, stating that you intend to restart querying other agents at a given date (something like 2 months from the date the partial was sent)

Ask the agent for clarification. If it's exclusive (I tend not to grant exclusive for partials), give a time frame. In general (from my experience), 6 to 15 weeks seem about right. It shouldn't take 6 months to read 3 sample chapters.

Like Karen, I don't believe in giving an exclusive on a partial, although I guess there can be an exception every once in a while. If I did give exceptions on partials I would limit the time frame to one month.

Ignoring the exclusive aspect (should have a date certain), if you go to querytracker.net and look up agents, you can see what their average response time in the statistic section. If you go through my experiment with a query, you'll see that most of my responses on partials (very limited sample size) are within a month, but I do have one that I have never heard back on.

With an exclusive, you're definitely within your rights to contact the agent, and if you don't receive an immediate response, to start sending out queries, IF YOU DON'T HAVE A DATE CERTAIN. I'd double check all of my correspondence on that issue.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe

how long for partial

billyf027 said:

Would you ask for a status update after a month?

Click to expand...

One month is a pretty short time. I think 6-8 weeks is the soonest. But what do the guidelines say?.