Is no response to fulls and R&Rs standard?

Tarley said:

I have admit I'm getting pretty discouraged here and wonder if my experience is standard going with agents. I have two full manuscripts out and having heard no response to either after three months, I politely nudged each agent. No response. Now it's ticking close to six months on one, eight on the other and I'm not sure I should bother nudging again.

I also did an intensive R&R and that too, I received no response to despite nudges at three and six months. Briefly, I worried it was my email program but I send and receive tons of email with no problem.

I realize agents have zero obligation to writers querying them but its very frustrating to see on query tracker an agent sending rejections to queries at the same time they aren't responding to a full. And the R&R was literally a waste of months of work. Someone in my local writing group said agents often request "promising" fulls but don't bother reading them unless you nudge with an offer of rep from another agent -- then they know it's really worthy checking out. That seemed a little strange to me but after these experiences, I'm starting to wonder...

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First of all, don't be discouraged; be annoyed. Having been an agent myself for many years, I know very well that they're not little godlings; they're just salespeople who like books. If an agent requests a full ms., he/she knows perfectly well that the author is sitting on tenterhooks waiting for a response. If you know you won't be able to read for many months, don't ask for the full! If you do ask, read the damn thing in a timely manner....or read as much of it as necessary if the answer turns out to be no. All the more so if you actually requested revisions.

That said, I think your theory is overly Machiavellian. Agents ask for full mss. because they see commercial/literary potential; but reading those mss is a much lower priority than reading the work of existing clients and actually selling books. So the requested mss. pile up, and agents get overwhelmed. They might spring into action if the writer notifies them of an offer; like most salespeople, agents hate being bested. But they're not requesting mss. just in case; that would make no sense.

My advice is to keep submitting to new agents as if you never had those requests, and keep nudging those who requested fulls or R&R's every few months. Also, if you keep getting "close but no cigar" reactions, you might consider taking me up on this offer to find out why.

It's getting more common from what I can tell. Years ago, I had maybe one agent never respond to a full + nudges, and I recall specifically one who never responded to the R&R she'd given me. But in the past 1-2 years I've had that happen more like 4 times--3 on fulls and crickets regarding another R&R.

I’ve had enough NRs on fulls to almost expect that, but I’d be unhappy and rather surprised not to receive a response on an R&R. In the end, it’s a rejection either way, but the lack of closure is frustrating. I understand that agents need to protect themselves, though.

On the plus side, if those notes gave you a better manuscript, you can forget about this particular agent and query others with renewed vigor. Willful amnesia is the best way to survive certain parts of the whole querying/submission process, I find.

And, if it makes you feel any better, consider that agents sometimes get ghosted themselves—by editors. An editor might respond to a pitch (the equivalent of requesting a full) and then go silent for months and months until the agent nudges with another offer. Occasionally (from what I’ve heard) an editor doesn’t respond at all. Authors on contract can also have long, unpredictable waits, as Sonya pointed out, which might or might not end well. It doesn’t mean agents or editors are conspiring against authors. It just means they’re busy and stressed and being bombarded from all directions, and authors have to find strategies for keeping our own stress levels manageable.

I’ve found the Print Run podcast very helpful in giving me an agent’s perspective on all this (the summer slowdown, for instance). Also, CPs and beta readers can give me that involved, uncensored feedback that a writer desperately needs sometimes, but that publishing really isn’t in the business of providing. My CPs dare to say the stuff that my agent and editor can’t say for all kinds of professional reasons (“What were you thinking? This story has NO plot!!!”), and I think it’s really improved my writing.

One of the agents I know has said she now gets so many vicious letters/emails when she rejects submissions that she no longer sends rejections, she just ignores them. Said writers get added to a list she shares with other agents and those vicious writers tend to get blackballed in her genre (romance, young adult). But she's never said she doesn't respond to requests for fulls within a reasonable time frame.

Time of year affects response time for her (two agents in the agency, one admin who tracks everything). Both agents take summer vacations with family and both tend to do little between Thanksgiving and Christmas. A request for a full in January might get read within a month or two, one in June likely will see a three or four month response. This year they have an intern doing some of the stuff coming in over the transom so they will concentrate on current authors and promising new authors a bit better. These things vary at all agencies and the huge agency with multiple offices will be quite a bit different from the one-person agency.

So, fulls out three months may still be getting a response in the future but the R&R is likely dead. Either way, just keep submitting as usual. I had one book out on a proposal for over a year when I got an offer for publication from another publisher and a week after we signed the contract I got a response from the publisher who had the proposal for over a year with an offer of publication.

Kind of wanted to tell the publisher "Hey, you snooze, you lose!" but wisely just informed them of the signed contract. Good thing, I sold them three more books over the years.

Jeff

I have four fulls out right now, and I believe that the two who are right at the 3-month mark may have ghosted me too. One of them ghosted me on another full several years back, and when I checked the timeline for the other one in QueryTracker, I saw that they have requested 30 fulls in the past year and have responded to none of them. No rejects, no offers, no nothing. So...I doubt I'll ever hear from that agent either. It's frustrating.

I certainly understand agents not replying to queries, but it hurts when it's a full. I can't imagine an R&R. That really stinks.

I also wish that all agents who don't respond to queries would set up an auto-responder, with a clear timeline as to when it's a no. 30 days, 60, 90, heck, even 6 months. But just let us writers know--if you don't hear back in that time-frame, it's a no, and you can stop wondering.

I agree with those who say some agents have stopped responding to even fulls and R&R these days. I am hearing this more and more from writers subbing. It also could mean they haven't gotten to it yet. That is possible. As someone pointed out, an agent's clients are going to come first so if they get busy with their authors then submissions fall to the backburner. Also, this is the summer and many people take vacations, etc. They could be on vacation or just busy.

If more agents are starting to not respond to even R&Rs I think that it's a bad practice. If you had an agreement for an author to do an R&R and they do it, you can at least acknowledge it. I'd be more disheartened if I did an R&R at someone's request and they didn't get back to me than saying anything about a full I sent. An R&R is different.

Still, an agent has no obligation to answer you if you're not their client. Isn't always fair but that's the business.

Either way, it's nothing you can control. These agents might just be behind but whatever is going on you can't worry about it. All that does is cause stress. Focus on something you can control like sending your work to other agents. There are agents who claim they always respond so maybe you should focus more on those agents.

Good luck to you and don't distress. Put this energy to good use and write!

Tarley said:

Thanks for all the replies. I've had partial and full requests before, as well as R&R's, where the agents responded back in a fairly quick time frame, so this silence was surprising. I definitely get the part about agents worried about disgruntled writers. However when an agent says they are super excited to read more and then you never hear from them again, it just boggles my mind how that's better than a form rejection. IMO, then the agent should say make the request with the caveat, 'if you don't hear from me in X months, it's a no.' But that's just me.

A full request with no response is ultimately, at the end of the day no harm no foul, but the R&R with no response...that hurt and I seriously question I would bother doing another for any agent in the future.

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Tarley, look at it in a positive way. If that agent said they are extremely excited about your work, did you wonder maybe they could be busy discussing it with their agency or getting prepared to offer you a contract? I can't see someone being that excited about a book and then ghost you. This is why I say remain as positive as you can because this business is TOUGH. If you let the negativity sink in, it will fester and that does no one any good. I know it's frustrating to not hear back but there COULD be a good reason for it, even one you might end up loving. If an agent is seriously mulling over offering you a contract, that will take some time. So, in that case, this could be a good thing.

Marian Perera said:

I wonder if there's any chance that an agent might agree to represent a writer, but would then be silent rather than communicating editorial rejections because the writer might become argumentative. I mean, if an agent's only experience of me as a client is when the agent is offering me representation (at which point most writers are happy), the agent can't be certain I'll remain professional when I get a rejection or a request for revisions.

Personally, I hope that if I eventually end up with an agent, that agent will communicate with me even if the news isn't good.

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Yep, many agents do that practice of not telling you about rejections. Some will even ask you, "Do you want to know the bad or just the good?" Some writers can't handle it because it brings too much negativity and they will spend all their time mulling over why the editor rejected the book instead of doing something positive. It's like authors who don't read their reviews (I am one) because no matter how many good ones I get if I get one bad one I will spend my entire day doubting myself and my confidence will fall to the floor. And I am a veteran author and still rejection or negativity can be too much to deal with. So I save myself by avoiding it.

I also think it's easier for an agent to do her job if she doesn't have to constantly talk her clients off the ledge. LOL! It can be mentally exhausting especially if an author has an obsessive personality where they nag you constantly about every rejection. So I can see why agents wouldn't tell authors about the rejections.

It's best to focus on stuff that shows promise. Like if the writer has been invited to do a rewrite, etc. But why focus on the rejections? What good would it do in the end? There are authors who want to see everything and that's their right. Those writers should let their agents know up front to forward everything and share everything no matter if it's good or bad.

Back when I had an agent she would call me or automatically forward me the rejections. If I didn't hear from her for a while I knew she had nothing going on. I learned her habits fast. She was the type to tell me ASAP if she had any news worth sharing so I didn't have to chase her down because I knew if she hadn't shared there was nothing to know.

It's all about communication and expectations. Many writers DON'T talk, meaning they might be afraid to voice their opinions. You gotta tell your agent what you want or they won't know what you expect. You can't assume they will be a certain way. All agents are different and work differently. The agent works for the writer. You have every right to share your feelings and expectations. People need to spell these things out at the beginning so you're on the right page. There shouldn't be assumptions on either side concerning what the other expects from the partnership.

cool pop said:

She was the type to tell me ASAP if she had any news worth sharing so I didn't have to chase her down because I knew if she hadn't shared there was nothing to know.

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This is also what I hope for from an agent. I don't focus on rejections, but at the same time, if I have an agent, I don't want complete radio silence unless there's good news. I'd like to be able to tell the difference between "silence because there's nothing to report" and "silence because the agent is concerned I'll become abusive/panicky if I hear bad news" or even "silence because the agent is not doing their job" (which could also happen).

So as you said, it's a matter of communication, and if the two parties have very different and incompatible communication styles, best to know about that asap.

It does seem to be getting more common. I don't think it's okay; once you ask for an R&R it is definitely no longer an unsolicited communication and there absolutely IS an obligation (a moral/cultural one, obviously, not contractual) to respond. I would argue the same for a partial or full request, but I would say there is less obligation there.

I understand some authors behave badly and I'm sure they are more likely to argue over a full/R&R rejection than a query rejection. But IMO the agent should still respond and block as soon as the author becomes a nuisance.

D.L. Shepherd said:

I have four fulls out right now, and I believe that the two who are right at the 3-month mark may have ghosted me too. One of them ghosted me on another full several years back, and when I checked the timeline for the other one in QueryTracker, I saw that they have requested 30 fulls in the past year and have responded to none of them. No rejects, no offers, no nothing. So...I doubt I'll ever hear from that agent either. It's frustrating.

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Wow, that's awful. Sorry to hear what you're going through, although having two other fulls out is still good.

But 30 fulls and no response? How did you know they didn't give a response though? I didn't think QT had a section for responses on requests. Comments section?

Tarley said:

I have admit I'm getting pretty discouraged here and wonder if my experience is standard going with agents. I have two full manuscripts out and having heard no response to either after three months, I politely nudged each agent. No response. Now it's ticking close to six months on one, eight on the other and I'm not sure I should bother nudging again.

I also did an intensive R&R and that too, I received no response to despite nudges at three and six months. Briefly, I worried it was my email program but I send and receive tons of email with no problem.

I realize agents have zero obligation to writers querying them but its very frustrating to see on query tracker an agent sending rejections to queries at the same time they aren't responding to a full. And the R&R was literally a waste of months of work. Someone in my local writing group said agents often request "promising" fulls but don't bother reading them unless you nudge with an offer of rep from another agent -- then they know it's really worthy checking out. That seemed a little strange to me but after these experiences, I'm starting to wonder...

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I understand not getting a response on a full. It has happened to me twice. Once based on referral, the other by query. I don't even consider those requests anymore. I have no idea what it means other than they weren't that interested to begin with.

But no response on an R and R? What? That's just terrible. I'm sorry that happened to you. I hope the rewrite is a better version of your novel and you sell it for a million bucks.

Samscript said:

Wow, that's awful. Sorry to hear what you're going through, although having two other fulls out is still good.

But 30 fulls and no response? How did you know they didn't give a response though? I didn't think QT had a section for responses on requests. Comments section?

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Thank you. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. I've heard of others with many more fulls out getting nothing but rejections, so...

As for QueryTracker, if you have the premium membership, there is a timeline feature, and you can view all the requests and rejections for different time periods. This agent does request a lot of fulls, and they used to respond to them all, (although sometimes as far as six months out), but over the past 12 months they have not responded to any.

ETA: Of course, some writers may not have updated their responses on QueryTracker, but it would seem odd that none of them updated during that same time period.

D.L. Shepherd said:

Thank you. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. I've heard of others with many more fulls out getting nothing but rejections, so...

As for QueryTracker, if you have the premium membership, there is a timeline feature, and you can view all the requests and rejections for different time periods. This agent does request a lot of fulls, and they used to respond to them all, (although sometimes as far as six months out), but over the past 12 months they have not responded to any.

ETA: Of course, some writers may not have updated their responses on QueryTracker, but it would seem odd that none of them updated during that same time period.

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I just checked it and didn't know they had that feature. Very interesting. I thought the timeline only showed query rejections or requests. I just picked an agent at random and saw that one full took 844 days for a rejection. Wow.

So yeah, that agent who requested 30 fulls and responding to none is smelling a little fishy.

Samscript said:

So yeah, that agent who requested 30 fulls and responding to none is smelling a little fishy.

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This is a long thread, but it has an example of an new agent with a reputable agency who requested literally hundreds of fulls and then dropped off everyone's radar.

There's a SFF lit agent out there who requires you to watch three youtube videos of his to learn a pass code before querying him. WTF? Yeah, I struck him off my list. Apparently (according to QT), after you query him, he only requests from writers who have a massive online presence. Again, WTF? OK, TF is marketing potential. Not quality of writing. I guess?

IMO agents are people. IMO people come in all types and that's actually one of our selling points (as a species). We are all over the place in opinion and whatnot. But with diversity comes the cost of ... a diverse set of approaches.

And that includes agents. To say that no agent ever tries to game a system seems naive to me. Is such an approach rampant? I doubt it. Does it happen? Wouldn't surprise me at all.

2 cents.

Samscript said:

So yeah, that agent who requested 30 fulls and responding to none is smelling a little fishy.

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I wouldn't say fishy, more just disappointing. She's a one-woman-show agent, and a dream agent who can open doors all wrapped up into one. But after seeing so many others not get a response in the past twelve months, I'm afraid to nudge her. I probably will try at some point, but it just crossed 90 days, so I'm going to hang tight just a little longer first.

Patty said:

There's a SFF lit agent out there who requires you to watch three youtube videos of his to learn a pass code before querying him. WTF? Yeah, I struck him off my list.

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Wow...haven't come across that one yet. That's just nuts!

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Marian Perera said:

This is a long thread, but it has an example of an new agent with a reputable agency who requested literally hundreds of fulls and then dropped off everyone's radar.

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How sad for all of those hopefuls.

D.L. Shepherd said:

I wouldn't say fishy, more just disappointing. She's a one-woman-show agent, and a dream agent who can open doors all wrapped up into one. But after seeing so many others not get a response in the past twelve months, I'm afraid to nudge her. I probably will try at some point, but it just crossed 90 days, so I'm going to hang tight just a little longer first.

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Hm, that changes my perception then. If she has a long history of sales and her own agency, then it might be a problem with a large workload, her assistant, and/or interns.

I think you're right though. 90 days isn't enough time to get concerned.

Marian Perera said:

This is a long thread, but it has an example of an new agent with a reputable agency who requested literally hundreds of fulls and then dropped off everyone's radar.

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Wow, that was a roller coaster I'm glad I never got on. Wild.

If an agent never responded to my full while I was always polite, I don't query her with my new project unless I am desperate. There should be mutual respect.

Marian Perera said:

This is a long thread, but it has an example of an new agent with a reputable agency who requested literally hundreds of fulls and then dropped off everyone's radar.

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Wow. Okay, just read the whole thing. That was heart breaking.

goddessofgliese said:

If an agent never responded to my full while I was always polite, I don't query her with my new project unless I am desperate. There should be mutual respect.

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I tried again with the same agent that ghosted me several years ago on another project, because both times I really thought this person was a good fit. They did ask for a full both times I queried them, but I guess they didn't fall in love with my work. With that said, if I don't find an agent for my current project, I'd probably try them with my next book and hope that the third time's the charm.