To answer the full manuscript question: I've heard anywhere from two to four months. I'm going on month three, and hoping to hear back soon.
Hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
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Veritas Literary Agency (Katherine Boyle)
- Thread starter Barbarique
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Well, I got my response from Jennifer and it was a rejection. At least it was personalized, so if/when I decide to revise further, I'll have some comments to go off of.
Good luck to everyone who's still waiting!
Good luck to everyone who's still waiting!
I have LOVED my dealings with this agency. Mr. Carr, Ms. Boyle, and Ms. Skutelsky are all wonderful. Definitely worthwhile to query them. They're all knowledgeable, kind, and hard working. 
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Hopefully we will get a chance to LOVE them as much as you do. We are still waiting on a full request submitted two months ago.
I can assure you it won't be anything to do with the fact you're a guy. John Green, Markus Zusak, George Martin, Ian Rankin, Terry Pratchett...seriously, one look at my bookshelves is proof enough that male writers are highly thought of.
Good luck and keep on trying.
Your post made me curious, so I took a quick glance at our "representative titles" page from the web page and came up with 20 female and 18 male writers. I knew we had plenty of male writers, but that was even more balanced than I was expecting, since my own authors run about 3:2 women to men.
All of our authors aren't on that list, of course, but I think it shows that we're more than open to submissions from men.
Unfortunately, it is true that queries get too little attention. In an ideal world the query would be read carefully, and the sample pages considered with one's best attention. The reality is that the volume of work leads to some skimming and rapid decisions and we are human and make mistakes like everyone else. And sometimes we're too busy, or we simply prefer some other project at that particular time.
It might help to think of literary agents like browsers in a bookstore. When you go into the store to buy a couple of books, you're not making a value judgement about all the books you didn't select. Therefore, if you are confident in your query and your writing you should not get discouraging by a rejection or twenty. It's only when nobody is plucking your book from the shelf that maybe something is wrong with either your writing or your presentation.
I queried another agent at Veritas and was told Ms. Boyle would like a full. After 6 months, I had done some major revisions for another agency, so I nudged and attached the revised ms, letting her know that if she hadn't already read it, she might want to read the newer ms. I also let her know I had it out with a couple other agents, which I understood to be a common practice (several other agents who requested fulls wanted to know if it was out with others). A day or two later, I got a terse response saying something along the lines of, "I'm sure another agent will like it."
So, either she had read it and decided to pass but hadn't bothered to respond, or she never read it at all and passed. Either way, it came across as very rude.
Then you might not have wanted to work with her, in the long run? Best to get these conflicts out of the way early.
That's kind of how I chose to see it. I like to see a bit of personality from agents, esp. if they are requesting material and are potentially someone I could end up working with. It's important that personalities match.
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I submitted to Michael Carr while I was querying two years ago and got a professional form a month later
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My first book did not sell, and he chose not to rep my next project. I should note that this all happened 10 years ago! We haven’t been in contact since then.
