Which Agents Respond Quickly?

Here's a useful link for you.

http://community.livejournal.com/agentturnaround/profile

My record e-mail rejection time was 12 minutes

You might check Querytracker.net. Members post when they get responses and the statistics are compiled. Of course, people don't always post so they're not 100% accurate but you can get a good idea.

rugcat - that is an interesting site. However, I wish it had more agents and comments on it.

Chan - I have had some agents respond the same day. However, I can't say if that is normal or if I just happened to email on the day they were going through queries. Other agents can take longer. I just heard back from one that took a month, but it was good news so I can't complain. The thing is I think that an agent who responds quickly to one person might take longer for another. Just pick out a few and send it off. I am not sure what you are writing. If you want to tell us more maybe that could help. If you have questions about any of the agents I queried, I would be happy to share how long it took to hear something. Don't worry too much about it. You will most likely hear something, and hopefully it is sooner than you think. I know we all check our emails like crazy when we first start querying. I think that is normal. Good luck!

Just one more thing -- I wish I knew how quickly agents take to read proposals. The waiting game doesn't stop.

gettingby said:

Just one more thing -- I wish I knew how quickly agents take to read proposals. The waiting game doesn't stop.

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And it never will. It will do you well to truly realize this, know it's part of the profession you have chosen, and learn how to deal with it (basically work on other projects).If not you'll soon go nuts.

Wouldn't worry about finding agents who respond quickly. I would find reputable agents who have repped work like yours. That's the most important thing.

And as the above poster said, it never stops. Getting an agent is only the tip of a very slow-moving iceberg. Wait until it goes to publishers -- and then you have to wait to be paid -- and then you have to wit for publication -- and then it starts all over again with book #2.

Waiting is part of publishing.

I had an agent request the full the day after i sent the query. The following week she sent it back with requested changes, which I made.
So now I'm waiting to hear back on that. One week so far.

Another agent rejected one manuscript, then emailed me the following month changing her mind.

so, who knows???????

They can email you telling you they really love it, dont' talk to anyone else, etc, and then take a long while to get back to you. but keep in mind what is a long time to us isn't necessarily a long time to them. :.) Although sometimes you'd think they'd move faster, right?

VERY SLOW BUSINESS......

chan said:

Thanks for all the responses. I had checked QueryTracker, but I couldn't tell how realistic that was. The community livejournal page is really helpful. BUt I agree, sometimes I think people just get lucky and the agent is checking his/her queries at that time, etc.

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Exactly so. Someone may have caught the agent when they had the opportuntiy to address their slushpile in a timely fashion. The next week, 3 different new contracts might have come in that all needed haggling over and no queries got looked at.

And the waiting truly never stops in this industry. Now that I've gotten an agent, I'm trying to patiently wait for her editorial letter so I can make revisions. And then I'll have to patiently wait while the book goes out on submission. And then I'll have to patiently wait while...Rinse, lather, repeat. *grin*

It's enough to drive a person to drink.

It's easy to quickly reject a query. I think the agents' assistants often do that. I'm sure that they want to reject most queries since they get so many. But I've had agents request my book proposal several weeks after I sent the query. I figure it takes time for the agent to get the query, read it, and request more.

Bottom line is: If you don't get fast replies, you don't get fast rejections. If you haven't received a rejection, there is still hope.

I rather have a rejection come quickly than a few weeks of false hope.

gettingby said:

I rather have a rejection come quickly than a few weeks of false hope.

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Me too. At least you can move on.

chan said:

Thanks for all the responses. I had checked QueryTracker, but I couldn't tell how realistic that was. The community livejournal page is really helpful. BUt I agree, sometimes I think people just get lucky and the agent is checking his/her queries at that time, etc.

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It is interesting to read those pages to see what a particular agent's response time is, but in my experience, some of the response times are very similar and some are wildly different. There are just too many variables we are unaware of, and too many to measure.

waylander said:

My record e-mail rejection time was 12 minutes

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I can beat that (I think). I once got an e-mail rejecting my proposal, from an agent I'd never heard of, and had never queried.

I responded via return e-mail that "I'm sorry, but due to the cruddy week I'm having, I cannot accept unsolicited rejections at this time. Accordingly, I now consider you my literary agent and will expect your contract via snail mail within the week."

As a response I got the same rejection e-mail. The shmucks didn't even bother to target their spam.

I've told this one quite a few times and it always gets a laff.

chan said:

Sorry, I don't know if I am putting this in the correct forum, but since I am going crazy and also just looking for a few agents to test the waters with and test my query with I thought I would ask:

Which Agents Respond Quickly? And How Quickly?

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Please give me some clarirty. You say "...just looking for a few agents to test the waters with and test my query with......"

Are you saying that you haven't prepared what you believe to be the best possible query letter and you are hoping that the agents will tell you what's wrong with it? If so, don't send out anything. All they will do is standardly reject your query. No matter how good your work, it will never be seen if it's proceeded by a query letter that doesn't sell your work and make the agent request same.