Partials with no follow-up the new norm?

From what I've seen and heard, I don't think it's the norm. Sometimes agents ask for a partial and it doesn't get to them, they're completely swamped so it takes awhile to get to said partial, they send the author their decision and it somehow doesn't make it to the author, etc.

I had a similar experience. An agent asked me for a partial and I waited for 4 months with no response. I finally status-queried her and she told me she'd sent the rejection 3 1/2 months ago. This was all done using snail mail.

I'm sure many people have realized that email doesn't always work, but sometimes even snail mail doesn't either.

If you are doing a lot with the US Mail, you might want to consider a couple of things:

1. Do you know your actual address? I know, this seems like a bonehead question, but it's for real. Many, many publishers do not know their own addresses, at least the ones the US Postal Service uses. Go to USPS.com and the Find Zip Code page. Put in your street address and zip code. What will come back is the USPS-approved version of your address. Use that one as your address, always, to help ensure mail reaches you.

2. Are you mailing it to the right place? Many of these websites that steal info from agents' sites or guidebooks have outdated information. Many of the guidebooks may also have outdated information. It is a good idea to check addresses directly on the agent's site before mailing anything off. Then run that address through the USPS system also, as the agent may not know his correct USPS address.

3. If you are mailing A LOT, it may make sense to sign up for a service like Stamps.com, which checks each address to which you are mailing against the USPS system and corrects it. It also puts the correct USPS bar code on your mail, which results in your mail getting their faster, because the bar codes let it zip through the system.

4. Don't want to do any of that? TYPE YOUR LABELS in all caps, in Arial or Courier typeface. The OCR software at the USPS will read the destination Zip Code more easily and your mail will get their faster.

Z

Great tips, Zach, but I was wondering this: Does the mail deliverer get involved in the process too when delivering the mail to the addresses. Thinking that they do, I always type out my envelopes with the thought that the deliverer will have to quickly glance down and decipher the address, so I usually go with an all-caps serifed font like Times Roman which they say is easier to read. But if the USPS's OCR software won't be able to read that sort of type well then I guess it's sort of a give and take situation, either way.

Look at your junk mail. Are they using a serif font? I think not. Since they are spending millions to get that junk mail to you every year, I think we can trust that they have figured out the best way to go with fonts, yes?

Z

I'll take your word for it (and theirs) and go with Arial from now on,
while maintaining the hope that junk mail companies will do the opposite,
so I'll receive less stuff from them.

new norm

Totally the new norm. It's happened to me on 50% of partials (that means at least six sent no word) and four fulls in the past year. When I status queried after four months one of four with fulls sent a belated rejectin and apology. Others Nothing.....A total breakdown in courtesy.

Mr. Zack, what about emailed partials?

Do you have an opinion on agents who never respond to requested materials? They asked for them, they got them, they don't respond to the material or a follow-up. What do you think of that?

I'm wondering about this myself.

Orion had several suggestions for ensuring the manuscript actually got there (e.g., replying via their original emailed request, and asking for confirmation that the manuscript actually arrived). I did both. I didn't hear back.

I think it's fair and appropriate to evaluate the communication style a no-reply might suggest. But on the off-chance it never got there, should you send a status query after a certain length of time? Would you send the proposal by snail mail, or cease communications altogether?

lostlore said:

In the Bewares forum someone just said, "Partial requests with no follow-up seems to be the popular response."

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This is unfortunately true. Some agents won't even respond to a requested full. Some demand an exclusive and then don't respond. Those are the real bastards!

(To be fair, there are exceptions. A few agents respond promptly with personalized, signed letters, even to unrequested material.)

how long would you suggest after a partial request before you sent a follow up/confirmation?

3 months is a pretty standard time to allow before chasing up.

For the record I eventually got responses on all my requested materials, some took a long time though.

I sent a requested partial to an agent in September. I followed up just a few weeks ago with an email.

Nothing yet.

I'm considering it a dead end right now.

When you say they "got them," do you mean you confirmed they received the emailed partial? Or just that you sent it as requested?

Email is a funny thing. Far more of it disappears than you might think. And a lot of it goes into your spam folder. Have you added the agent to your white list or safe-sender's list? Does your email provider block spam without putting it in a spam folder you can access regularly and ensure no "real" mail is getting caught? Do you regularly check your spam folder for "real" mail?

An agent who accepts email queries should have a dedicated mailbox for such submissions and an auto-responder on that box that tells it was received. Other than that, no agent owes anything more because--and this is an important point to remember--the author isn't due anything more. You can apply for many jobs and they will tell you upfront that they will "only contact those applicants in whom we are interested." The same may go for these agents. No answer means no. An auto-responder tells you they got it and after that, well, that's that.

Do I think that's a good system? No. But it may explain a lot.

One reason I don't accept email submissions is that the volume would kill me. Plus with paper, people can use the Post Office's Delivery Confirmation service and know it got there, without me doing anything.

What's slightly amusing about so many of the posts I read online here and other places is the incredibly high expectations authors have of agents to work for free. Because reading your queries and submissions is work and it is done for free by every agent who is not charging a reading fee. And since charging a reading fee gets agents virtually tarred and feathered, most "real" agents don't.

Now I get that agents are expected to be prospecting for new clients and hence that's why they don't charge a reading fee. But you can no more expect agents to invest more time and energy for free than they already do. These expectations of personal confirmation of receipt, personal replies, feedback that will help you revise, etc., are just out of line. Do you sometimes get all of that? Sure. Because by and large, most agents are not total jerks. But we all reject the vast, vast majority of material that comes our way. Why would we invest more in our rejection "systems?"

Z

DecemberQuinn said:

Mr. Zack, what about emailed partials?

Do you have an opinion on agents who never respond to requested materials? They asked for them, they got them, they don't respond to the material or a follow-up. What do you think of that?

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Andrew Zack said:

But we all reject the vast, vast majority of material that comes our way. Why would we invest more in our rejection "systems?"

Z

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understood...thanks for all the info

Andrew Zack said:

Because by and large, most agents are not total jerks. But we all reject the vast, vast majority of material that comes our way. Why would we invest more in our rejection "systems?"

Z

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With all due respects, I believe it's possible to reject someone's manuscript without discarding common courtesy.

Andrew Zack said:

Now I get that agents are expected to be prospecting for new clients and hence that's why they don't charge a reading fee. But you can no more expect agents to invest more time and energy for free than they already do. These expectations of personal confirmation of receipt, personal replies, feedback that will help you revise, etc., are just out of line. Do you sometimes get all of that? Sure. Because by and large, most agents are not total jerks. But we all reject the vast, vast majority of material that comes our way. Why would we invest more in our rejection "systems?"

Z

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Well, with all due respect, sir, I wasn't complaining and I didn't say anything about personal rejections or confirmations or anything, and I certainly would never expect an agent to give me any kind of feedback. I don't even have an issue with agents who say they don't respond to queries unless interested--I may not like it, but I also know ahead of time they don't reply so it's my choice to submit or not.

I just wondered if you thought that, having requested materials and received said materials (and don't forget, when writers print hard copies and mail them off, we're also essentially working for free. I'm not complaining, but there are expenditures on our side too), an agent should at least send out a form rejection if they didn't interest him/her, that's all.

Perhaps I'm simply being oversensitive. But I feel a bit as though you were singling me out there and ascribing motives to my question and expectations on my part that weren't there.

I was just curious what your opinion was, since it's one I've always respected here. I'm sorry if my question bothered you.

1. I wasn't singling anyone out. I was merely responding in general to a topic that has come up over and over and over and over....

2. I agree, common courtesy is nice, but if the policy is "no answer means no," I don't think you can do anything other than accept that. If you don't like it, don't submit there, but you can't expect any agent to change their ways simply because one or even many authors say so. There really aren't any market forces at work here if there's no money changing hands.

3. Writers printing out hard copies and mailing them off aren't working for free for the agent. And perhaps it is wrong of me to say that agents are working for free for authors when they read materials. But if you want that agent to do more than read the material, e.g., respond to the material, then you are asking him or her to work for free.

And why should an agent send out a form rejection? Now, if the agent requested an SASE, then he or she should use it to send the author at least a form rejection. But when it comes to email, why should the agent do anything? Back in my dating days, I spent a lot of time doing the online dating thing. If a woman wrote to me and I wasn't interested, I didn't write back with a form rejection. And if I wrote to a woman and she wrote back with a rejection, I was usually peeved. Why did she bother? Obviously if I never heard back I would know that she wasn't interested.

A smart agent taking email queries would be wise to use an auto-responder to confirm receipt, to save them from a hellish number of follow-ups. But other than that, they really don't owe the writers any kind of a response if they are not interested.

I don't say this to sound harsh or cold. I'm merely trying to give you some insight into the reality of the situation. Pay an agent for their time or their opinion and they should provide the services they promise. But without any kind of payment for service, there's really not a lot of case for complaining about not getting a rejection letter, is there?

Z

Okay, so, you don't think an agent needs to/should be expected to send a rejection of any kind on requested materials. Thanks for the reply. I just wondered what you thought.

DecemberQuinn said:

Okay, so, you don't think an agent needs to/should be expected to send a rejection of any kind on requested materials. Thanks for the reply. I just wondered what you thought.

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Actually, I didn't say that. I said that if that's the agent's policy, you don't really have any reason to complain. If the agent requests an SASE, one presumes he or she is not building a paper house out of them and he or she should use it to respond. But when it comes to email submissions, if you know they got it via some means of confirmation--auto-responder, read receipt, etc.---and you know that you have done what you need to do to make sure a reply from that agent isn't going to get caught in your spam folder, then it is likely safe to assume that no response means no interest. And if they are interested, I promise you they'll follow-up.

Z

I have always received a response of some sort on requested material. Some agents do take much longer than others, but I would think it's simple courtesy to send a response to material they asked for.

If an agent is requesting further materials and then rejecting by not replying, then that policy should be made explicitly clear in their request.
Something along the lines of "please e-mail me your first 3 chapters and synopsis. If you have not heard from me by xyz then I am not interested in pursuing this project." Plus they need an autoresponder to acknowledge receipt.
To just not reply leaving the author in the dark is unprofessional