[Agency] Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, LLC (formerly Dystel & Goderich Lit. Mgmt.)

Hey, I just noticed that I've become a "Super Member." Cool! How'd that happen?

Send out more queries, happywritermom.

happywritermom said:

Hey, I just noticed that I've become a "Super Member." Cool! How'd that happen?

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Did you put on a red cape?

Check out the Newbie Forum for lots of good stuff...

Anonymous on the D&G blog said:

And agents complain about how little time they have to read submissions...

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Mr. Anonymous, was that you?

There are at least four of us in this thread that sent fulls/partials to MB, received at most one reply to a status query, and then silence. There must be a lot more people in the same boat.

It still bugs me, particularly since I never queried MB in the first place. I queried Miriam; she passed it on to MB, and he, unsolicited by me, asked for my full manuscript, only to pretend he'd never heard of me again.

Grrr.

Michael Bourret

I know it's common for agencies to not respond to unsolicited queries if they're not interested, but how often do agents not respond to manuscripts they have requested?

Some time ago I sent Miriam at Dystel & Goderich a query. She passed it on to Mr. Bourret, who asked for the full manuscript. After three months I emailed him and asked what the status was. He said he was still reading it.

It's now been ten months, and two more emails, and Mr. Bourret has not responded in any way. Pretty rude treatment for someone who never even queried him - he asked me for my manuscript!

If it was just me, I would assume it was merely an oversight; but I see in the D&G thread that at least three other people are having the same problem.

This strikes me as unprofessional and rude. I mean, come on, just send out a form letter that says, "I'm sorry, my focus has changed and I won't be able to give your manuscript the attention it deserves." Is that too much to ask? Or even just a "my reading lead time is now 12 months, so please be patient."

I realize that after all this time (and silence), it counts as a rejection, but I have to say it's the rudest rejection I've ever not received.

Is there anyone else out there that is having this issue with MB, or any other agent? Maybe we should start a "insufferably rude to non-clients" list. Or maybe we should just rail in this thread against the implacable powers-that-be. That's what we do best, after all.

/rant on!

....or maybe just move on to the next guy?

Seriously, I sympathize with your frustration. But to be blunt bitching and moaning about how so-and-so didn't respond after a couple emails is counter-productive. So it was a silent rejection. Okay fine. Move on to the next agent. Michael Bourret isn't the only agent out there. You've got better things to do with your time than dwell on agents who don't respond.

Nathan Bransford's advice in respect of requested manuscripts is to send a polite status query once a month until you get a reply.

He reps a writer friend of mine, and she doesn't have a problem with him. I did query him, but got no response. Perhaps he's just really busy.

Once I had to wait for ten months from a top agent (at a different agency than D&G) for a response for my requested full MS. And I received a form letter rejection.

It's just how these things go. Don't wait. Query other agents.

Is it upsetting? Sure. But keep in mind that along with ALL the queries and requested partials and fulls, agents have their own clients' needs as well as agency and industry needs. To say nothing of the huge shake up in the industry over the past few months. All good agents put their clients at the top of their priority list. And lately, with all the moving and shaking in publishing, I'm sure many clients have made many demands of their agents. I know I have.

So move on, query other agents, and be prepared to wait. And work on another project. That's what you'll have to do when your book is on submission with editors, anyway. Might as well get a head start. And good luck.

FWIW, Michael reps my crit partner. And she adores him. He's done right by her. He's a terrific agent, one whom I've personally met and hung out with a number of times. I highly recommend him (as does my crit partner).

After all this time certainly a polite query once a month is appropriate, but you need to move on from this one. If he thought you were the next hot name for the NYT list he'd have called by now.

Agents deal with 100s of pieces of mail daily, and dozens of manuscripts--even ones they've requested tend to pile up after only a week or so.

My first sale had similar problems. The piece I submitted was so specific to the publisher that there was no way to sell to anyone else. The editor kept LOSING it!

Every few months I'd ask about its status and get an apologetic mail that he couldn't find it or someone had taken it from his office. I'd make a new copy and send it. The third time was the charm; he felt quite guilty by then and bought it.

Of course, during that year I was working on my first novel and haunting the library's 808 section to figure out the submission process.

Good luck!

M.R.J. Le Blanc said:

But to be blunt bitching and moaning about how so-and-so didn't respond after a couple emails is counter-productive.

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He did respond. That's the problem. He asked for a full manuscript, and now can't be arsed to send a form letter rejection.

Mind you, if you send something he doesn't like, unasked for, you'll get a nice form letter in a matter of days.

As for bitching and moaning, why don't you go bitch and moan about how people always bitch and moan about stuff that isn't important to you in some other thread? This is the bitch and moan thread about agents who do stuff even more annoying than usual, m'kay?

Gillhoughly said:

After all this time certainly a polite query once a month is appropriate,

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See, that's what I was looking for. What would other people do in this situation?

I've thrown in the towel - I'm not waiting on the guy - but I'm still annoyed that he won't even respond to me or the other people. Maybe I will keep sending him polite emails until he does respond (or puts me on auto-reject ).

Yahzi said:

See, that's what I was looking for. What would other people do in this situation?

I've thrown in the towel - I'm not waiting on the guy - but I'm still annoyed that he won't even respond to me or the other people. Maybe I will keep sending him polite emails until he does respond (or puts me on auto-reject ).

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I'm sorry, you missed this part of what she said:

After all this time certainly a polite query once a month is appropriate, but you need to move on from this one.

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There are two likely explanations for this:

1) Spam Filter From Hell
2) He's Just Not That Into You

Sorry. I'd keep trying different agents.

Agents get hundreds of emails a day, and clients are their top priority. I know it's not fun to get no response, but I'd honestly stop worrying about it. He either has lost the manuscript, isn't getting your emails because of spam filters or you didn't get his rejection because of your spam filter. Maybe he even thinks he did send a rejection. You never know. I'd just move on.

I don't know what the standard etiquette is for this kind of thing but in my opinion, if someone requested a full from you and ten months has gone by, I'd be picking up a telephone.

JenWriter said:

I'd just move on.

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And never mention it?

Should I just take this agent's unprofessionalism without so much as a squeak? Am I not entitled to mention his behavior in public? Is it so unthinkable that I should do anything but slink away, assuming all fault and blame on myself, and take the shame to my grave?

For crying out loud, people. We may be aspiring writers without a credit to our name, but we're still entitled to some basic respect. The rules of the game are that if you ask for a manuscript, you owe a response. It's simple courtesy. And I am within my rights to point out that Mr. Bourret is being discourteous.

I have done so, and received some helpful advice and comments from people not hell-bent on sucking up to every agent, no matter how shabbily they act. Thanks! What I've decided to do is tell Mr. Bourret I am withdrawing my manuscript. I can't say I won't submit to him again, since I didn't submit to him in the first place

And hopefully anyone else in this situation will see this thread and realize it's not them, it's him. That was a comfort to me, when I originally saw it in the D&G thread, and I wanted to give it a wider audience. Which I see I've failed at... ah well.

You said you wanted to know what other people would do in the situation. I told you and gave my reasons for it, none of which included being shamed and taking blame on myself. If I were looking for an agent and hadn't heard back for 10 months on a full, nor heard back on a couple of emails, I'd move on.

Sometimes it takes this long for agents to get back to writers, and sometimes it takes this long for editors to get back to agents. The publishing industry is slow.

I completely agree that it is rude for an agent not to reply at all to requested material. I think Yahzi has every right to be irritated. I know I would be.

Agents expect us to act professional, well they should do the same. And most do, thank goodness. But for those that don't, we writers don't need to rush to their defense. Being "busy" is not an excuse for them to ignore basic courtesy.

So far as I'm concerned, if an agent ignored me after a few prods on the status of a work I had out with them I'd just move on. His/her loss as I see it. You keep querying and don't dwell on it. Why would I want to harbor that kind of negativity? It's exhausting! If an agent or publisher treated me shoddily, again their loss not mine. Obviously they weren't worth my time in the first place, and better to find out before signing than after.

But to be fair, one does have to be realistic about it. Agents aren't just reading queries and partials and fulls, but they're also communicating with editors and seeing to their own clients. The bigger the agent, the bigger the workload. Agents are allowed to be busy too, and we as writers have to find that balance of having realistic expectations and knowing when to move on. It differs from one agent to the next, so you can't paint them all with the same brush. So yes, in some cases being busy is a legitimate excuse. If it's common for an agent to be slow to respond you can basically chalk that up to being the norm - and if you don't like it, don't query them. It's as simple as that.

Yahzi said:

And hopefully anyone else in this situation will see this thread and realize it's not them, it's him. That was a comfort to me, when I originally saw it in the D&G thread, and I wanted to give it a wider audience. Which I see I've failed at... ah well.

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I thought it was helpful for you to give this as a datapoint.

I'm not suggesting that Yahzi dwell on the fact that the agent ignored them. I actually agree with you that, in cases like that, as with any rejection, you do need to put it behind you and bounce back into the game.

That said, I stand by my opinion that any agent who is big time enough to be too busy to respond to someone who's manuscript they requested needs to hire an assistant to do it for them.

I don't encourage nursing hard feelings, but I appreciate venting them and having a place to do so. I like to know how other writers are treated by agents and publishers and how they feel about it. I'm glad writers can share good and bad experiences here, writer to writer. It's why I visit.

kap

status...?

so...have any other writers with full submissions heard back from mb at all? i have queried widely and have some other irons in the fire, but of course i'm still curious on the status...

KAP said:

I don't encourage nursing hard feelings, but I appreciate venting them and having a place to do so. I like to know how other writers are treated by agents and publishers and how they feel about it. I'm glad writers can share good and bad experiences here, writer to writer. It's why I visit.

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Renee Collins said:

That said, I stand by my opinion that any agent who is big time enough to be too busy to respond to someone who's manuscript they requested needs to hire an assistant to do it for them.

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Exactly! Thanks, guys.

Yahzi:
As for bitching and moaning, why don't you go bitch and moan about how people always bitch and moan about stuff that isn't important to you in some other thread? This is the bitch and moan thread about agents who do stuff even more annoying than usual, m'kay?

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Actually, this thread is for discussion about experiences with different agents, publishers etc. There's a whole separate forum for bitching and whining here and there's a pretty good thread for sharing your frustration here.

Yahzi:
Maybe I will keep sending him polite emails until he does respond

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Yes - and in the meantime keep querying other agents.

The positive to take from this is that he did ask for a full, so you've done really well to get to that stage. That doesn't make it any less frustrating, but it should give you confidence that if someone at D&M wanted to take a look at your full, then other agents should do as well.

Yahzi:
The rules of the game are that if you ask for a manuscript, you owe a response.

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Again, I understand how you feel, but in publishing no one owes you anything. There are thousands of people out there with manuscripts and a limited of number of people willing and qualified enough to take on writers and help them make money. It's not an ideal situation, but no one owes you anything in this game and the only thing you can do is to grit your teeth, grow a thicker skin and get on with it.

Yahzi:
What I've decided to do is tell Mr. Bourret I am withdrawing my manuscript.

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That's a shame but it's up to you. Personally, I wouldn't do that until I had a definite offer from somewhere else, just because I wouldn't necessarily want to burn my bridges (plus, think how satisfying it would be to go back and say you had an offer on the table which is why you were withdrawing).

MM