Do requests for partials or fulls generally come quickly?

freelancemomma

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It's been so long since the last time I queried that I've forgotten. I sometimes see people posting that they got a request for a partial or full within hours of querying. Is this typical? If a few days have gone by without a response, is there still a chance of getting a request? Thanks in advance!
F.
 

Maryn

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It's that answer everyone dreads: It all depends. On factors out of your control, too.

Sometimes an agent or publisher is screening (or has an underling screening) queries just as you send yours. Sometimes most of them are awful or unsuitable for other reasons, so yours look really good and they want pages. Other times, there's some crisis in the office (I've worked in a lot of offices that mostly staggered from one crisis to the next) and nobody's screening jack until it's dealt with. Or they've just finished clearing the in box when you send, or the person screening takes a week off because her mom's having surgery... And of course there's the new "No reply means rejection." (Which I don't approve. How hard is it to paste the same neutral Thanks-but-no message into the reply box and hit send?)

The good news is that sometimes the person screening is allowed only to root out the hopeless. Anything with promise gets kicked up the chain, where it may languish for days or weeks until the person at the next step gets to it--and may kick it up another level. The process that results in a request for pages takes weeks or even months in that set-up.

So try not to get discouraged or impatient. Focus on the next thing you're writing.

Maryn, been there
 

RaggyCat

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It totally depends. Sorry! Responses will be slower though if you hit agents at a bad time, such as this week, for example, when many agents will be busy with the Frankfurt Literary Festival. Christmas is often a dead period too.

My personal experience is that the requests I've had for fulls (both recently and then during my first agent hunt years back) were relatively speedy by publishing terms (1-2 weeks after the query), but I've never had an immediate request.
 

Shoeless

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Yeah, as others have said, there's no real average, so many variables are in play here, like the sensibilities of an individual agent, versus the time of the year of you're submitting. I had one agent request a full from me within an hour of my sending a query. She never, ever responded to me again. On the other hand, a query I sent out and forgot about, didn't get a request for a partial until two months later, then didn't get a full-request for three months, and that finally turned into an offer of representation two months after that.
 

Kats

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Agree with everyone else - it depends! I got a request after 5 weeks (that I had already closed out as it was after the agency's 4 week timeline) and it turned into an offer many months later. I also had a request 1 day later that didn't turn into an offer - it really just depends on the specific agent and their workload at the time!
 

ap123

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The majority of requests have been within a week or so for me, but enough have taken longer that it's only a surprise (but not a shock) if they come after 2 months.

I've had requests that have run a spectrum from an hour after I sent the query to 6 months later.
 

Treehouseman

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It depends. If you have a full QueryTracker.net membership you can see where you are on the queue and if agents "cherry pick" which ones to choose.

That saying, my last 2 agents read query/fulls and signs within 7 days. So quick can be the norm, as the assistants will flag likely projects first.

After that there are some slow requests for projects that are a little less obvious, but I've noticed that they are a little less likely to be positive.
 

Kensi99

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Agreed with everyone else here. I had one request eight minutes after my query, another after three months and I was in the middle of a revision, so didn't get out to her for another two months. On the whole, I'd say they're usually within a couple of weeks. And, yes, a lot depends on what is going on in the agent's life - festivals, out sick, etc. I recently queried someone through that agent's actual BOSS (whom I know) and have received no reply whatsoever. Would the person ignore his boss's referral? Who knows!
 

Shoeless

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It depends. If you have a full QueryTracker.net membership you can see where you are on the queue and if agents "cherry pick" which ones to choose.

That saying, my last 2 agents read query/fulls and signs within 7 days. So quick can be the norm, as the assistants will flag likely projects first.

Oh wow, I didn't even know QueryTracker could do this now. Is this because some of the agencies have switched over to using a QT query management system?
 

Treehouseman

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Oh wow, I didn't even know QueryTracker could do this now. Is this because some of the agencies have switched over to using a QT query management system?

Query Tracker's always been able to do this - if you have a paid membership!

It's done by the honor system and self reporting, if you log your queries and your rejections expediently, it will show up on the premium timeline. (Even though I have an agent, I've been logging some of the "late" requests for the sake of keeping the data accurate.)
 

Shoeless

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Query Tracker's always been able to do this - if you have a paid membership!

It's done by the honor system and self reporting, if you log your queries and your rejections expediently, it will show up on the premium timeline. (Even though I have an agent, I've been logging some of the "late" requests for the sake of keeping the data accurate.)

Man, I feel dumb. I did have a paid membership--or will, up until next year--but it never occurred to me to look in the premium timeline to see if there was a "queue" I could check out to see where I was. Holy crap, I wish someone had pointed this out to me when I was actually, heavily using it. This is my TIL moment, Treehouseman.