Hello,

I submitted my ms (a novel for teenagers) to an agent back in the summer after she had read the initial three chapters and synopsis but it was returned within a week. After e-mailing her to seek some guidance as to what she felt was wrong with the ms, she kindly gave me some pointers and said that she would be willing to take another look if I made the amendments.

I have since completed the revisions and after e-mailing her to check that it would still be ok to submit the full ms, have duly posted it back to her. That was just over six weeks again and I've still not heard anything.

Should I sned an e-mail to check that she received it or would that be viewed as 'chasing'? I don't want to jeopardise my chances but I'm beginning to think it's been waylaid in the post and I'm sitting here waiting like an idiot for her to respond.

Any advice gratefully received,

Sara

It is rarely good form to chase up a submission until the third month has passed, or eight weeks at the earliest. The agent has probably been delayed by the London Book Fair, amongst other things, so I would play safe and wait the full three months before sending an email.


- NaomiM

Oh yes, should have remembered the London Book Fair. Thanks, hadn't realised that three months was the benchmark - shall have to sit on my hands until then!

Thank you,

Sara

Eight weeks? And then they could still want it? I assumed they would get in touch pdq if they liked it (to stop someone else getting it).

Eight weeks of holding my breath and saluting magpies/not walking under ladders? I don't think I'm up to the challenge... My fifth draft (answer to the five page list of revisions) has been gone three weeks tomorrow.

Seriously though, if they thought it was the Next Big Thing, they'd get in touch sooner, wouldn't they?

Not necessarily, because even once an editor's had three weekends-worth of chances to read it (as my agent put it) and fall in love with it, in a big publisher an editor on their own usually isn't in a position to commit the company, and certainly not instantly. At the very least they need some other people to read it and confirm their opinion, and they usually need to work out the figures and get opinions from marketing and sales and then confirm a rumour they heard about someone else buying something that sounds horribly similar and then wait for the next acquisitions meeting and then argue the book's case and then go away and re-do the figures and then bring them to another acquisition meeting and and and...

Emma

<Added>

Normally, if your agent's doing their job, the only way they can stop someone else getting it is by offering more, or by offering so much as a pre-emptive bid that your agent advises you to pounce.

t€hanks Emma, but neither of us have got that far! Would this be similar with an agent? Smilingrightatyou and I are both waiting on a reply from an agent.

Sorry - misread you.

It can still be long though, as Naomi says, mostly because while they can decide pretty quickly from a synopsis whether they want to read the whole thing or not, they need to read a full MS properly and think hard about if and how they could sell it. That takes concentrated time, and may, again involve others in the agency reading it. With agents I think it's not so much having to get a slew of others to okay it, more that clearing the time to read and then decide isn't always easy - weekends again. And some agents aren't the most organised of people - I suspect reading MS comes into that category of important-but-not-urgent which always gets postponed when the phone rings or some drama or Book Fair blows up...

FWIW, my agent read the full MS for TMOL on a plane coming back from New York one Sunday night, when she said she should have been asleep, because she had a full day in the office on Monday morning. And when she and I went to my publishers trade conference, she headed off to bed at about 1am, saying she had three manuscripts to look at before she went to sleep. We had breakfast together at eight the next morning...

Emma

I recall the process being long winded on the agents part.
He didn't reply for an age to my partial and I'd assumed it was a no and had sent out my full to second choice.
Then when he requested the full, again I didn't hear for a couple of weeks. When it finally came back he requested some changes and then we were off again...
Interestingly I think as writers we have to 'turn it around' much more quickly.
HB x

I think some people have waited 6 months or more to hear back. So even if you chase it up to confirm whether or not they've recieved the ms, there still may be a long wait while it goes from Reader to Agent and, if they like it, on up the line if it's a big Agency, before they make a decision. The smaller one man bands, with just a reader and an agent, may be quicker - once they've read it - but there's really no rhyme or reason to these things, unless they absolutely love it and then they're on the phone to you within the week.


- NaomiM

Mine is with a v v top-gun agent. And the letter they sent was combined revisions from 'all the people in the office who'd read it'. The eponymous Big Gun would, apparently, be 'delighted' to see it again. It's three weeks today since they've had it back. And your opinions have made me feel a little calmer and (faintly) less obsessive.

PS I saw fifteen magpies all together the other day (a first for me) and was in an earthquake last night (a lifetime's ambition): must mean something... See? Only faintly less obsessive...