How often can you check in with a publisher and is it ever acceptable to ask how long it takes?

writera

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Just wondering, how often (maximum) can you check in with a publisher and is it ever acceptable to politely ask how long a decision will take? In my previous experience, I'm used to publishers just never replying full stop unless it's a rejection, but more and more it seems just no response has become standard. I even had an experience with a publisher who was very interested in a novel and wrote me back a couple of times saying they'd been looking for a project like this, then just stopped communicating and didn't reply to two follow-up emails I sent months apart.

I've got a few outstanding submissions that I've pretty much just decided to let go, as in the past any time I've followed up, I've never heard back. But just wondering, how do other people handle these situations especially if you don't have an agent? These are publishers - a couple medium/big, a few small presses - that accept unagented manuscripts. None of them indicate how long a response typically takes (well, one of them did, but I've gone beyond that time frame). So how often would you check in before you gave up with no response? And would you ever directly ask how long a decision would take and how would you phrase that if so? Thanks in advance.
 
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Undercover

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The non response sucks. You're not alone. I've had publishers interested and then nada...like that's it. Nothing more, when you were interested and everything and then I'm just dropped just like that? Yep. That's how it goes on some of these publishers. It's a business, it's nothing against you personally, I hope you get that. But for me, there has got to be an ending time, regardless if I hear back or not. I give it 6 months and if nothing, then I assume that aren't interested. Now granted, I've had full requests 18 months after the submission was sent. BUT that only happened to me that one time that was the longest from submission to full request. You never really know until you get the email. There are more and more of them that just don't respond if they're not interested. Unfortunately, yes, it's the standard thing and becoming more and more popular, even with small presses.

I would go over all the submission guidelines again and see if you missed something. Sometimes they will say it, sometimes they don't. If you wanted to, you can nudge after the 6 month mark, but most likely you won't hear back. BUT I have heard back the couple of times I've done it in the past, so it's worth doing your homework on and double checking all your pending submissions.