I am currently working with an agent that I have no doubt is legit. I know she has placed several sales in the last few months to major publishers. I signed a contract with this agency in July (they are a contract agency, though, as far as I can tell, require no fees. At least in my case, no upfront money has been asked for. They do charge for things like excess photocopying, etc., but these expenses are allowed to accrue and then taken from my percentage after a sale). I'm just having some concerns because she keeps putting me off about when the manuscript is going out to publishers. Now, you have to understand the whole situation. This is a really big novel--1300 pages--and she and I have spent most of the summer trying to come to an agreement about how best to market it. But, having finally come to that agreement in late August (she said she is going to send out about 100,000 words of the manuscript as a partial, in hopes of hooking the interest of editors who may be intrigued enough to want to see more), she still has not sent the manuscript out. Initially, she said she would have it ready to go out by late September; then it was the second week of October. Needless to say, that timeframe came and went, with no word from her until I sent an email inquiing as to my project's status. Then she emailed back saying she needed various things, including a chapter outline and some chapters that she did not have electronic versions of. I was happy to comply with the requests because I thought, well, at least she's working on it. But she evaded my question as to exactly which segments of the manuscript she intended on sending out, and when I asked to see the submission list of potential publishers, what I got looked suspiciously to me like a generic list of all the publishers of literary fiction in New York, not a list specifically tailor-made to my particular project.
She had said several times that this was going to be the "superstar book" of her fall submissions, yet here it is nearing winter and I can pretty well bet that nothing has gone out yet. The last time I sent an email, I got an automated response stating she would be out of the office until December. The message said she was not taking on any new clients, and that all current clients would be notified of their projects' status in December.
Okay, my question is, given that this is a legitimate agency with a verifiable track record, and that this agent does seem to really believe in me and this book (we've talked on the phone several times, and she's always willing to talk to no end about this book), and that it IS, after all, a 1300 page mammoth, should I be unduly concerned about the constant stalls and delays? Am I just being impatient? Is this sort of thing customary with reputable agents? I know that if she is any kind of agent at all, she's probably up to her neck in work and has many more clients besides me. And her reasoning is always that she wants to take the time to make the most strategic decisions with this manuscript. But I still have to wonder. After all, she's had the manuscript since March, and certainly since July it has been ready to go out, especially if she's only sending a partial.
Any thoughts on this?
I posted a similar message in another thread, but got no response. I realized that particular thread was over a year old, so figured I would try with a new thread. If this is repetitive for anyone who saw the earlier message, my apologies.
She had said several times that this was going to be the "superstar book" of her fall submissions, yet here it is nearing winter and I can pretty well bet that nothing has gone out yet. The last time I sent an email, I got an automated response stating she would be out of the office until December. The message said she was not taking on any new clients, and that all current clients would be notified of their projects' status in December.
Okay, my question is, given that this is a legitimate agency with a verifiable track record, and that this agent does seem to really believe in me and this book (we've talked on the phone several times, and she's always willing to talk to no end about this book), and that it IS, after all, a 1300 page mammoth, should I be unduly concerned about the constant stalls and delays? Am I just being impatient? Is this sort of thing customary with reputable agents? I know that if she is any kind of agent at all, she's probably up to her neck in work and has many more clients besides me. And her reasoning is always that she wants to take the time to make the most strategic decisions with this manuscript. But I still have to wonder. After all, she's had the manuscript since March, and certainly since July it has been ready to go out, especially if she's only sending a partial.
Any thoughts on this?
I posted a similar message in another thread, but got no response. I realized that particular thread was over a year old, so figured I would try with a new thread. If this is repetitive for anyone who saw the earlier message, my apologies.
