06-17-2006, 08:15 AM
SylviaDiamandez
Esteemed New Member
E-queried, sent the partial, was told to wait six to eight weeks. Stopped querying to avoid the mess that can come from having more than one agent pursuing the same project at the same time.
Nine weeks later, still nothing. Not even an auto-response rejection.
I finally e-mailed her and asked that, if she hadn't already passed on the ms, to no longer consider it. Still nothing.
IMHO -- if you have to prompt an agent on something as simple as this, you'll have trouble getting answers down the road, when it counts.
IMHO -- if it takes 30 seconds, or five pages, or one sentence as I've read in some sources, to determine if a project is doable, there's no reason for an established literary agency to make someone wait six to eight weeks for a response to a query.
If the agent is a one-person operation working out of a spare room, then maybe. But this agent works for an agency with the resources to deal with queries in a timely, professional manner. (I'm assuming it has readers and other underlings who keep the inboxes clear and the outboxes full.)
If every agent who asked for an exclusive on a partial did so, you'd never get a ms published. The human life expectancy isn't that long.
One sale two years ago? Probably just as well. I'd be in the old folks home showing my new roomies my never-published novel.