Is no response to fulls and R&Rs standard?

Tarley

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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...
 

Woollybear

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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...

It has occurred to me (as an amateur writer) that, given the practice among writers of telling all agents when you get an offer of rep, a 'savvy' agent might just request a ton of stuff, not read it, have no interest in reading it, and only requested it because if some other agent reads it and offers rep that first agent will then have you calling them and at that point they can read it and decide.

Sort of like holding a number to stay in line 'just in case.' No skin off their back--you did all the work.

I've had one similar experience to what you describe. My guess is the agent never bothered to read it, just wants me on the hook to tell them if someone else offers.

Which I doubt I'd do. Ten months.
 
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Ari Meermans

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Agents don't have time to play games. Dealing with queries is adjunct to managing the business of their current clients. They deal with queries in their spare time. (Okay, that's a joke, by the way.) Usually, they have to deal with queries on their own time.

Are you indicating that you're responding to an R&R or Full request in the subject line of your email? If not, you should. Still, there are no guarantees and there's nothing to stop you from continuing to query.
 
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Shoeless

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In recent years some agents have actually started not-responding even to fulls and R&Rs. I was quite surprised to see when I was querying that one agent requested a full for my novel one day after I'd queried her, but I never heard from her again, even when I wrote to all the agents with fulls informing them I had an offer. I've seen other writers who have also said that even a full request on an MS has gotten no response, but that's still a *minority* reaction. Most agents will at least give a form rejection on a full.
 

ap123

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I've found this to come up more and more in recent years. I wouldn't say it was standard, but it's no longer shocking--though hugely disappointing and frustrating! A form rejection on a full sucks, but it's better than silence.
 

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It has occurred to me (as an amateur writer) that, given the practice among writers of telling all agents when you get an offer of rep, a 'savvy' agent might just request a ton of stuff, not read it, have no interest in reading it, and only requested it because if some other agent reads it and offers rep that first agent will then have you calling them and at that point they can read it and decide.

Sort of like holding a number to stay in line 'just in case.' No skin off their back--you did all the work.

I've had one similar experience to what you describe. My guess is the agent never bothered to read it, just wants me on the hook to tell them if someone else offers.

Which I doubt I'd do. Ten months.

Agents don't do this. They request fulls if they're interested in the partial they've already read, or they reject the partial. They don't have the time, inclination or bandwidth to play games in the way you describe.


In recent years some agents have actually started not-responding even to fulls and R&Rs. I was quite surprised to see when I was querying that one agent requested a full for my novel one day after I'd queried her, but I never heard from her again, even when I wrote to all the agents with fulls informing them I had an offer. I've seen other writers who have also said that even a full request on an MS has gotten no response, but that's still a *minority* reaction. Most agents will at least give a form rejection on a full.

It's becoming more common for agents to not respond rather than to give a rejection because it's becoming more common for writers to argue with rejections. If agents just don't respond, they avoid the potential arguments. And note that these arguments consist of more than just angry emails: I've heard of agents getting followed, threatened, and having their professional contact stalked and harassed.

It's regrettable. But having seen this from the agents' side, I can't blame them one bit.
 

lizmonster

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In addition to Old Hack's explanation - these are people with both other clients and other lives. I share the frustration of dealing with no response, but based on my own limited knowledge 99.9999999999% of the time it's not going to be due to anything nefarious or unprofessional. And in those .0000000001% of cases? That's not someone you'd want to work with anyway.

It's hard (sometimes impossible) to let this stuff go, but there's really no value in trying to make it personal on any level. It is what it is, and in each specific situation you'll likely never know why.
 

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It's becoming more common for agents to not respond rather than to give a rejection because it's becoming more common for writers to argue with rejections. If agents just don't respond, they avoid the potential arguments. And note that these arguments consist of more than just angry emails: I've heard of agents getting followed, threatened, and having their professional contact stalked and harassed.

It's regrettable. But having seen this from the agents' side, I can't blame them one bit.

Damn. I had no idea it was getting that bad.
 

Woollybear

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If I understand, then, it sounds like the answer to the original question is 'it happens, and more so over time.'

This seems like something to weigh (and track on QT) before doing a R&R.
 

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I can somewhat understand non responding to partials/fulls, especially since harassment is a real problem. I find it a bit unprofessional, but I'm not an agent. Maybe I'd feel differently on the other side of the table. And it's true that it doesn't stop the author from querying other agents, so no major harm technically done.

Not responding to an R&R though? That seems pretty awful. The agent has asked the author to do weeks or months of work. Leaving them having after asking that is not okay, IMHO. Sadly there's nothing that can really be done, I just want to express sympathy to the OP. That's a crappy position to be in.
 

lizmonster

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Not responding to an R&R though? That seems pretty awful. The agent has asked the author to do weeks or months of work. Leaving them having after asking that is not okay, IMHO. Sadly there's nothing that can really be done, I just want to express sympathy to the OP. That's a crappy position to be in.

Agreed, and I didn't mean to trivialize the hurt and frustration that go with this.

But I do think it's worth reminding ourselves that this kind of ghosting is rarely personal. There are enough things in publishing to drive us to distraction; might as well let go of what we can't control.
 

Old Hack

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I can somewhat understand non responding to partials/fulls, especially since harassment is a real problem. I find it a bit unprofessional, but I'm not an agent. Maybe I'd feel differently on the other side of the table. And it's true that it doesn't stop the author from querying other agents, so no major harm technically done.

Not responding to an R&R though? That seems pretty awful. The agent has asked the author to do weeks or months of work. Leaving them having after asking that is not okay, IMHO. Sadly there's nothing that can really be done, I just want to express sympathy to the OP. That's a crappy position to be in.

Having seen this from the agents' side, I can definitely understand why they don't respond, especially to R&Rs. Once you've put that much work into a project, getting a no is doubly disappointing. And often the reactions to a rejection under these circumstances are even more extreme.

I've heard of agency staff having to wait inside the building at the end of the day while an angry writer threatens them from outside. I've heard of agency staff getting followed home, and harassed there. It's awful. I've seen agents getting harassed and threatened at writers' conferences, because in their one-to-one sessions they told the writer their book needed more work and the writer took exception to this.

And there was a story a few years ago of an agent who was assaulted by a disgruntled, rejected writer, who reached into her car and smashed her head against her own steering wheel. I can't remember who it was. But it was awful, and it was by no means an isolated incident. This happens to agents and their staff, and it happens often.
 

Sonya Heaney

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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’ve never queried agents, so I can’t speak for that situation.

What I do know is that publishing is a hugely frustrating business for authors, no matter who they are.

I was becoming really discouraged a little while ago. A big, important, promised phone call my publisher arranged for a specific date and time in mid-March didn’t happen. Even though I was already signed with them, there I was, sitting by the phone every afternoon for weeks before I gave up.

I had a notebook full of dot points to discuss so I wouldn’t start gushing and sound like an idiot, and… it felt like they forgot about me…

Five months into the future, and suddenly one day I had more calls and emails than I could deal with. Someone I spoke to was really taken aback that I hinted how stressful and uncertain the past half year had been. (A couple of weeks before I actually typed up a big rant that – thank god – I never sent off to anyone.) They live in this world where a month is a day. I know they're just as busy and stressed as we are, but I’m sure agents and editors don’t understand what it feels like for us.
 

Old Hack

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I know they're just as busy and stressed as we are, but I’m sure agents and editors don’t understand what it feels like for us.

I've worked as an editor, and have good friends who are editors and agents.

Most editors and agents do know how difficult it is, they really do.
 

Sonya Heaney

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I've worked as an editor, and have good friends who are editors and agents.

Most editors and agents do know how difficult it is, they really do.

And yet authors are the only reason people in publishing houses earn money. And then they don't bother to contact their authors for months at a time - even when they specifically arrange phone calls, when the authors are under contract.

I'm not going to lie that getting a call half a year after it was arranged, to tell me they're "really excited about my books!!" was a huge slap in the face. I'd started subbing to other publishers at that point. "The author is the last to know" is a very accurate quote.

Even a one-line email every month or two would be better. A reminder that editors know that we - the authors they've already signed - exist.
 

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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...

Wow, not responding to an R&R leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not responding to full requests too, is pretty bad form.

I think what we (read: I) sometimes have to remind myself of is that, well, agents and editors are...human. Most will be decent humans just trying to get by, but some...are maybe less stellar? :D Not responding to a full request (which they requested!) is rude, IMO. But there isn't much we can do about it, I suppose, aside from write them off our querying lists going forward.

When we were subbing one of my books, I asked my agent about subbing to a specific editor because I'd interacted with this editor a few times on social media and he seemed great. My agent was like, HISS SNARL and then he basically ranted about this editor for the next ten minutes. It was hilarious, and a good reminder that yep, it's a job, and like any other industry, you'll have people who are good at it and people who aren't. You'll have polite people and not so polite ones. So...yeah. Gotta get used to waiting.
 

Tarley

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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.
 

lizmonster

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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.

Yeah, nothing off an R&R is awful, full stop, and very much bad form. I'm sorry it happened, and I don't blame you at all for shying away from the practice.

I'm on my second R&R now (different manuscript), and while I'm of two minds about the practice in general, both times I got notes that I very much agreed with and believed would make the MS better. In the case of the one I'm working on right now, the notes I got felt very much like thorough notes from an editor - the agent seems to get what I'm trying to do with the story, and I agree with nearly every point they brought up. And while I have every hope I don't get ghosted on the other side - even if I do, I've got a better book in my hands because of this agent's efforts. I don't think I could bring myself to go through the effort of an R&R unless I was fully behind the changes requested.
 

Marian Perera

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Wow, not responding to an R&R leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not responding to full requests too, is pretty bad form.

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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Marian Perera

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I once applied for a job at the college where I got my diploma (and where I'd worked part-time) and they interviewed me. However, they didn't communicate with me after that, and I only knew the job had been filled because a friend of mine, who had also applied for that job, got a call.

I don't think the college was concerned I would become argumentative or would harass them, because the interviewers knew me. It was more likely that they just forgot to call me. Everyone's human, we all make mistakes or overlook things. But I was not happy about this, and I don't intend to apply for a position with them again. Communication just happens to be one of the things I need in a business relationship.
 

mrsmig

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All this is so close to my Real Life job (acting) that it isn't even amusing.

Your agent submits you for an audition - a great role in a great show. You go in, strut your stuff in front of the assistant director and the casting agent, and feel like you nailed it. You did - you get a callback audition. You go in again, strut your stuff but even better, and this time maybe more people are in the room: the director, the producers. The director smiles warmly and gives you some adjustments; you do the side or the song or the dance again and there are more warm smiles, maybe even a conversation about your availability for the show. You think you nailed it. You get a call from your agent. The producers would like to put you "on hold" for the production, so "don't book anything that conflicts with the show's run without checking with them first." You eagerly agree and then...crickets. Weeks and weeks of crickets. You start hearing through the grapevine that offers for the show are going out. You muscle your agent to find out what's happening - and a few weeks later s/he passes on the wan message that the director has decided to "go in a different direction" for the role you were on hold for. For weeks. In other words, after all that work and all that waiting, someone else got the part.

The hardest thing to absorb after all this is that it's not personal - because it feels so veryvery personal. After all, they smiled at you, said nice things, made you feel like you'd Made A Connection. You wonder what you did wrong. You wonder if you hadn't worn those shoes, read the lines that way, said that thing, been taller or slimmer or younger or a different color, maybe they wouldn't have shrugged you off in such a dismissive, impersonal way.

This is when you have to remember that none of this is about you. It simply means for that role, for that director, for that show, and at that time, ultimately you weren't what they were looking for. The package of You is still a good package - they called you back, remember? they put you on hold, remember? Down the road you could be absolute perfection in some other director's eyes. It's business. It's not personal. And in the acting biz, just like in the writing biz, you pick yourself up, tuck your resume/headshot (or in your case, your manuscript) under your arm and go out there and try, try again.

I'm sorry this is happening to you, Tarley. Clearly, with two fulls and an R&R under consideration, you've got the stuff. Hang in there.
 
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Old Hack

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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.

I think under the circumstances you describe the agent would talk to the writer and tell them to behave more professionally; and if that didn't happen, the agent and author would part ways.