Simsubs

[macalicious731]

This is a purely hypothetical question. Yesterday, for the first time I was able to sit down and leaf through the Writer's Market, looking at agencies. Quite a few that I copied down to look further into accepted simultaneous submissions, but their approximated time responding to queries and mss. were widely varied.

Now, what might happen if you received an acceptance, yet you're still waiting to hear back from another agency? If you would prefer to have the one you're still waiting for a response from, how long can you wait to get back to the other agency?

The whole thing seems to have a simple answer: don't simultaneous submit. But waiting six months to be rejected, then shipping your things off to another place for another 4 months doesn't seem to be very productive, either.

Anyway, just curious what other people thought of this. It's bound to come up eventually for someone, I'm sure.

[maestrowork]

You simsub agents with similar response times AND the level on your list. You should target the top agents who rep your favorite authors or the kind of books you write first. Then go down the list...

[Jamesaritchie]

I've always believed the best way to get a good agent is to do your homework and submit to the agent that seems most likely to accept, and to be able to market, your particular novel. You need to know more about an agent than what a listing in WM tells you. That's just a starting point.

[vstrauss]

>> Now, what might happen if you received an acceptance, yet you're still waiting to hear back from another agency? If you would prefer to have the one you're still waiting for a response from, how long can you wait to get back to the other agency?<<

You can tell the accepting agency that you're waiting to hear from others, and will respond within a couple of weeks. You can then contact the agency that's still considering, tell it you have an offer, and ask if consideration of your submission could be expedited. Agents understand about these kinds of situations, and are often willing to be helpful.

Trying to organize your submissions by agents' stated response times won't work, because agents so frequently don't keep to their stated response times.

- Victoria

[macalicious731]

Thanks Victoria, that's pretty much what I needed!