HELP! Agents are being STRANGE! Need advice

Hi everyone. I'm a newbie here and really could use some help deciphering some strange behavior from non-fiction agents.

I sent a query out about a month ago. I had about 10 agents ask for the full proposal. Of these, about 7 asked for a sample chapter. I sent it off.

One agent turned me down, without any explanation.

Another emailed me several times, saying she liked the proposal, though she wanted to make some revisions to the chapter. She finally said, "We should talk". I gave her my phone number. That was about a week ago. She has never called.

Another agent emailed me on a Friday saying "I am looking forward to reading the chapter this weekend." That was almost 10 days ago. I haven't heard anything further.

A fourth emailed me and said he wanted to share the chapter with his colleague. He emailed me back within a couple of days and said he recevied "good feedback" and wanted to think about the editors who might be receptive for the proposal/chapter. He said he would get back to me within a week.

Okay-- so what is going on here? Should I assume that the agents who have never called are never going to call? Or am I jumping the gun, expecting a decision too quickly?

And is the agent who wants to think about the editors to whom he may submit the proposal still interested, or is this a sign that he may back away? Does this mean he doesn't think many editors will be receptive?

Any and all insights/ similar experiences would be very, very welcomed! I can't figure out if this is normal, unique, or somewhere in between! I know each case is different, but I'd love to hear from anyone who may have experienced something like this.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks for the words of advice, Talia and Popmuze. I was excited that agents even wanted to LOOK at the sample chapter. But it seems like they got all excited and chatty, and then they just disappeared. It makes me wonder if my sample chapter is really awful!

Do you really think I should call the agent who said "We should talk"? I assumed this meant she wanted my phone number, so I gave it to her. Do you think it would be rude for me to call her? I don't want to be so pushy that she gets off the proverbial fence and a maybe becomes an "R."

Has anyone out there had similar weirdness with an agent with whom the ultimately signed? I mean, do agents seem to get all excited and then disappear for a while? It just seems like the most logical reason is because they don't like the sample chapter.

Should I expect those who read the sample chapter to actually give me some feedback? Or is it more normal for those who aren't interested to just never contact me again?

Thanks everyone!

Oh, dear! Really, Popmuze-- an agent who says "we should talk" wants you to call her/him? I didn't realize that! I just assumed that if someone says "we should talk," that's their way of saying "I want to talk to you, so please give me your phone number." I feel pretty stupid.

I guess I should just sit tight. I do have an offer of representation from someone, but they're not my first choice, though they are legitimate (genuine deals confirmed by Publishers Marketplace). I'm not sure they are actually excited by my proposal, though they think they can sell it.

Which raises another issue: How do you know when an agent is excited about your book? Seems to me they would at least call you!

Scope, you asked a great question, so I wanted to respond. The agent who has offered to represent me is somewhat new and I think he's trying to build his client list. He has some good solid clients and one six-figure deal. But he doesn't seem super excited about the project because he keeps suggesting that I write THIS kind of book rather than THAT kind of book. And although I'm totally open to revisions, I want to write THAT kind of book. The other kind of book may be a future project, but it's not the same as the current one. So I kind of get the feeling he's willing to take me on as a client, with the hope that eventually I will write another book that has a greater chance of success. I told him some of my ideas for future books, and he really likes one of them in particular. But it's not a book I can write now. It's in the future.

So.... this is why I think he's "not really all that into" my current project. He also has communicated a vision of the current project that I'm not 100 percent on board with, trying to peg it into an ideological hole that I'm not sure is accurate.

Does this make sense? Don't agents (especially new ones) try to find clients that may have future potential, even if their current project isn't all that hot?

Okay, this is kind of funny. So the one agent who said "we should talk" actually called me on Monday, leaving a message on my business phone. Well, I'm in another state for the summer, doing some research, so I didn't check my voice mail until yesterday (Wed.), when I found her message. In the meantime, she had emailed me Wed. and asked if I had received her voice message.

So... turns out she did call, pretty promptly, though she called the wrong number. And it's weird because, in our last email exchange, I had given her my new landline and told her to call me at that number. Why she called my business phone, I have no idea. Whatever!

So we talked for a while on the phone and she likes (not sure I'd say "loves") my sample chapter, EXCEPT she thinks it needs more of a "story." She said editors will want a "real" story to make the ideas seem more compelling.

Alright-- I get this. But how on earth do you take a chapter and write a "story"-- much less a "real" story-- when the chapter tackles a wide variety of issues? This isn't the story of Uncle Ed's Great Adventure, it's a story about a specific area of law. This area encompasses an array of important issues, so there's no one magic case out there that illustrates it.

If anyone out there has any ideas or has run into a similar problem, I'd love to hear how you tackled it! Right now, I'm at a loss....