How long would it be OK to hold out on an agent rep offer before they get fed up?

When I nudged agents with an offer, I gave them 2.5 weeks to get back to me. One of them commented that it was a generous time frame, giving me the impression most authors give even less than that. So I would imagine anything more than 4 weeks will raise eyebrows? Just guessing here.

I think the important thing is to choose a date and stick to it. This is just my opinion, but don't tell the offering agent you'll decide in 4 weeks then email her on the deadline saying you haven't heard back from some people so you're extending it another week or whatever. That'll look unprofessional and is a pretty clear signal that there are other agents on your list you want more than her.

First thing would be to let the other agents know you have an offer ASAP. Some will respond to you immediately and pass, others may want to take a closer look. Assuming the offering agent is one you want (otherwise you wouldn't waste their time or yours with a query, right?), I personally wouldn't make the offering agent wait more than a week, maybe a week and a half. Although if I'm being honest, I'd probably only wait until I stopped hyperventilating.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

One to two weeks seems to be the norm, and you tell the offering agent upfront that you have other fulls/partials out and you'll need x amount of time to come to a decision.

Then you contact every one of the agents you've sent queries to who haven't sent back rejections. And you tell them the time frame and the circumstances. You don't have to specify who the offering agent is, but some agents will ask to make sure you're not doing this to get their attention faster.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

Wow. You're asking a lot of questions. You might like to spend some time reading existing threads, as a lot of your questions have already been answered.

If you get an offer of representation it's common to ask for two or three weeks to consider the offer, and to then contact all agents who have requested a full from you and let them know you have an offer on the table and ask them to respond within that timeframe.

I've seen several agents on twitter saying that they wish more authors would email them if an offer is on the table. Even if they still haven't requested material.

I have mixed thoughts about that. Not about notifying the other folks with partials and fulls...that's just good business for the author and courtesy for someone was enthusiastic enough to request.

But the agents who didn't respond at all, for more than 5 or 6 months? Who don't say 'We're not caught up yet' on their site or social media? Or the ones with a clear time limit in their guidelines ('If we don't contact you in X weeks, we're not interested')? They're asking for notification?

That seems like they want to have cake and eat it, too.

If that time limit has come and gone, they're not interested. Or their spam ate my query. I'll only requery in specific situations. The rest of the time, I don't want to be a pest, appear to be shopping an offer, or pulling a passive-aggressive tantrum to get them to look at my mms. I certainly don't think I owe the non-responders any notification.

Filigree said:

I have mixed thoughts about that. Not about notifying the other folks with partials and fulls...that's just good business for the author and courtesy for someone was enthusiastic enough to request.

But the agents who didn't respond at all, for more than 5 or 6 months? Who don't say 'We're not caught up yet' on their site or social media? Or the ones with a clear time limit in their guidelines ('If we don't contact you in X weeks, we're not interested')? They're asking for notification?

That seems like they want to have cake and eat it, too.

If that time limit has come and gone, they're not interested. Or their spam ate my query. I'll only requery in specific situations. The rest of the time, I don't want to be a pest, appear to be shopping an offer, or pulling a passive-aggressive tantrum to get them to look at my mms. I certainly don't think I owe the non-responders any notification.

Click to expand...

I definitely see your point.
Jessica Sinsheimer was one of the agents who said that she would like to get an email notification. As I recall it, one author replied that she was afraid to be " the annoying author" by doing that. But Jessica said that she didn't feel that way at all. Other agents also asked to be notified no matter the time frame.

I just think that it's worth to take into consideration if you're so lucky to get an offer, and you're still waiting for a response from a dream-agent.

The timeframes I have heard of other, successful authors using are: one week (7 days), 10 days, and two weeks (14 days).

I would suggest two weeks. Even if you would be happy to sign with the first agent. The reason for this, the longer you give them, the more likely other agents are going to be able to read. And the more likely they are going to be to offer.

You WANT more offers. Even if you end up taking the first. You may LOVE the first agent who offered (I did, and still do... HUGE fan of many of their clients). But you may end up clicking EVEN MORE with another agent (I did... ended up signing with a different agent, even though I would have been 100% happy to sign with the first. Revision ideas were a better fit.) On the other hand, if you get a second offer from an agent you DON'T click with (speaking from experience here, too), that can help to solidify your positive feelings about the agent(s) you DO agree with about career vision. The more choices, the better.

However, I think two weeks is kind of the limit. More than that, and you're not really being very courteous to the first agent. They're eager to get started on revisions, and to get your book out to publishers! 7, 10, or 14 days tend to be acceptable, and I'd suggest the longest of those to give yourself and the other agents the maximum amount of time, without being rude to or raising a red flag with the original offering agent.

Good luck with your choice!

Filigree said:

I have mixed thoughts about that. Not about notifying the other folks with partials and fulls...that's just good business for the author and courtesy for someone was enthusiastic enough to request.

But the agents who didn't respond at all, for more than 5 or 6 months? Who don't say 'We're not caught up yet' on their site or social media? Or the ones with a clear time limit in their guidelines ('If we don't contact you in X weeks, we're not interested')? They're asking for notification?

That seems like they want to have cake and eat it, too.

If that time limit has come and gone, they're not interested. Or their spam ate my query. I'll only requery in specific situations. The rest of the time, I don't want to be a pest, appear to be shopping an offer, or pulling a passive-aggressive tantrum to get them to look at my mms. I certainly don't think I owe the non-responders any notification.

Click to expand...

You don't owe them anything, but why not notify them, for your own sake? Worst case, they are slackers who don't read their e-mail and won't notice your notification before it's too late anyway. Best case, they are a good agent despite being somewhat uncommunicative with people who are not yet clients, and offer to represent you. In any case, it's not pestering if you have new information update them about. And you're not demanding that they hurry up and respond, only offering them an opportunity to.

In terms of notifying, I'm going through this now and decided to notify all agents who were a month or less (just sent queries, really), and those who seemed to responded later. I used QueryTracker's stats as a basic standard as to whether an agent might be considering my manuscript. Those who requested partials or fulls within a few days, I crossed off the list since they clearly weren't interested in my query.

But as for the late reply, I know that Jessica Sinsheimer (for example) answers queries in the order she receives them, which means notifying her of an author gives her a chance to read what you've sent in case you're near the back of that list. Other agents might/do act the same, but to know which is which takes both research and, well, openness on the part of the agent as to their process of dealing with queries.

Oh, and I gave a week for agents to get back to me this time. With my last agent I think I did ten days (why? I can't tell you.).