I sent my queries last week and this week: NOTHING!

mine were all over the place. early rejection. early partial request. early full request. late rejection. late partial request. late full request.

don't try to figure out the odds on something like this. it's probably impossible.

I think most of my requests came within a month of sending the e-query, but I do recall a few outliers. A handful came months later, when I had assumed silence=no.

I had one request for a full and the agent sat on it . . .

~5 months went by, and another agent literally offered me rep the day she received my query.

I used the second agent to nudge the first agent (I had a preference) and the first agent offered me rep a few days later. If I hadn't had the nudger agent, I might still be waiting for the first agent to get back to me.

I probably received (don't have my spreadsheet in front of me ) 90% of my pages requests within a month of the agent receiving my query. A few requests came in around 7-8 weeks after the agent received the query, including two after I'd signed with my agent. Those were awkward emails to respond to.

Mine were all over the place, too. I've had requests within 20 minutes of querying up to 7 months later. I still have a full out and it's still under consideration from December of last year, too.

You could use Querytracker to help you figure out how long it usually takes. (But take it with a grain of salt.)

Although, sometimes it makes you paranoid. (Like I am right now.)

And since I've received nothing but rejections so far, but they've been all over the place. Early, quick rejection. Long rejection. No response rejection.

The wait is the killer part.

An agent requested a partial from me and sat on it for three months before rejecting. I've also had rejection within days.

A watched pot does not boil...

Do something else for the next 8-12 weeks or you will drive yourself crazy...

thothguard51 said:

A watched pot does not boil...

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I tested this theory. Fallacy. It does! It just takes a hell of a long time.

In my experience the agents who requested fulls/partials did so fairly quickly. I ended up finding an agent very early in the querying process (she asked for a full the day she got the query and offered representation two days later) so I was curious to see if any of the other queries I had out there bore fruit, and none of them did. One agent responded about two months later with a nice personalized rejection (her submission requirements included the first 50 pages, which she had apparently read because she commented on them specifically) but that was it. Form letters from that first batch trickled in for a while, but no requests to see more.

Now I'm in the submission process where there are editors who have been sitting on my book for months. The waiting never ends or gets easier, unfortunately.

I've also run the gamut from an hour to never.
But sometimes I've sent the same query to an agent who didn't respond in a month's time; twice they requested fulls a day or two after the second query.

The quickest rejection I ever got was 20 minutes after I sent the email. Ouch.

RobotNinja said:

I would just like to ask all you wonderful people who have had requests for partials or fulls: did the requests come soon after you sent the query? Two-four weeks later? Six-eight? Millenia?

Thanks for anybody who can give me some feedback. I'm just really curious.

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220 queries, 3 full requests out of the first 48, 6 out of the first 80, 9 out of 145, 11 out of 205, and 15 total out of 220 (two of which turned into offers of representation). Requests followed query by: 7 minutes, 1 day, 1 day, 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 4 days, 5 days, 5 days, 6 days, 7 days, 8 days, 7 weeks, two weeks, four weeks.

(Also 5 partials, all of which turned into rejections, requested after 1 day, 8 days, 12 days, 4 weeks. 8 weeks)

So the full requests skewed early (within days after the queries were sent) though there were a couple that took several weeks, while the partials were evenly balanced.

Random popcorn responses for me as well. Some were within hours or days (mostly Form Rs with a couple of partial or full requests tossed in the mix). Some have been hanging in the wind for a long time.

Mentally, I treat the process similar to the money I have in the stock market: remain hopeful, but don't bet on a return.

Just keep polishing your product, continue querying, and maybe start something new to bide your time. With any luck, you'll get some nibbles.

rosepetal720 said:

The quickest rejection I ever got was 20 minutes after I sent the email. Ouch.

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Ditto. Though to be precise I think mine was 24 minutes.

KTC said:

I tested this theory. Fallacy. It does! It just takes a hell of a long time.

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Love this!

I've only queried a handful of agents so far - started back in mid-September, and so far I've had two rejections (1 week via email and 2 months via snail-mail)...

...and yesterday I got a request for partial in less than two hours!

Yea for you Anne!

Just keep it up.

Quickest rejection, around 10 minutes.

Quickest request for a full, less than an hour.

Most or my requests came within the first 48 hours, others trickled in over about 3 weeks. one held out for 6-8 months (can't remember which, I'd given up on that one)

With editors, I've gotten requests consistently within 3 weeks. (Not a large pool here, we're talking like 4 submissions, and one was a straight out "no thanks" after 3 weeks)

3 weeks later, had a "no thanks" from one, a "we like the story, but not the illustrations" from another, and a "I am passing this along to another imprint" from another. 3 weeks after that, it was another no, citing they'd filled their list with similar toned stories or somesuch.

Smaller press editors, 2-3 months seems to be the norm.

I can only speak personally, but there are times when a rejection takes longer. This is usually when I've requested a partial and am mulling it over. It's good but not great. I want to give it a few days and see if I find myself still thinking about the story.

If I come back to it and can't remember what the story was about, that's a good indication that I should take a pass. If, on the other hand, I'm still intrigued, then I will either ask for a rewrite or for the rest of the book to see how I feel after having read more.

I received two rejections the next day, two request for partials within a few days (both were rejections with wonderful compliments attached), and the rest I am waiting on. Slooooowww business, I would say.