I'd be interested to know how long folks have had to wait for a *particular* agent or publisher to reply to a submission with some form of acceptance. Ie., we all know that rejection sometimes only arrives after months of nail biting anxiety...but do positive responses come in more quickly?

I ask having sent a manuscript in to an agent who had previously rejected one book but asked that I send in new writing. We'd met for a chat and had lengthy email correspondence, so I felt that there was at least a positive personal rapport. However, having submitted a new piece, it's now been three months with no word. I would have thought that if they had liked this second piece, I would have heard from them by now, and I can only tell myself that "no news is good news" for so long!

So, I'm curious (ok, and a teensy bit hopeful): has anyone received a book deal from someone after submitting an MS many months earlier?

Three months is nothing - though I personally would still send it elsewhere and not (ever!!) put all my eggs in one proverbial.

That said, I sent my 2nd novel, "A Dangerous Man", to Flame Books in July 2005. They asked for the full MS in October 2005. In December 05, they emailed me to say they were seriously considering it and would let me know in the new year. In April 2006, they offered a contract for it, which I accepted. So it was 9 months between original submission and formal acceptance. Still waiting for a publication date though!

A
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I do think there is no rule for these things, and most of the reasons for delaying or answering quickly are entirely independent of what they think of your work. Some agents are busier/more chaotic/more thoughtful than others. A full MS takes a deal of reading and thinking, and especially at this time of year, a clear chunk of time for that isn't easy to come by. An editor friend of mine routinely takes two or three MS to bed with her. As her husband is an editor too and does the same, I do wonder what happens to a couple of thousand sheets of A4 if things get friendly...

But three months seems to be the approved length of time after which you can politely enquire if there's any news yet.

FWIW, I don't know if in the end they would have taken me on as a client, but I had a 'yes, please send the whole MS' from an agent six months after I submitted the sample of TMOL, in which time another agent had taken me on, helped me revise it, sold it to Headline, and sold it again in the US. (Perfect publishing etiquette of course dictates that I should have withdrawn the submission, but I didn't think of it.)

Emma

<Added>

Yes, as Anne's pointed out, you should certainly be sending it out elsewhere too - apart from anything else, it weakens the agony of waiting.

I agree - send it to everyone you can think of, and ignore all that 'We must read exclusively crap' cos it's completely unreasonable.

My experience varied a lot. I already had an agent who had requested my full MS cos she came to our MA and gave a talk and took some of my work away with her. Six months later, when i came to submit properly, I mentioned this in my covering letter, which is probably why I had a number of very prompt responses.

Sheil Land, who eventualy took me on, lost my MS for three months.

AP Watt requested full MS within two weeks, then took three months to respond to it. (Rejection.)

At one point, the full MS was in the hands of five agents, then every single one rejected me within three days. That was my lowest point.

The thing is, if they're interested, as far as I can see, it's not just up to the person who read your opening chapters. There seems to be a huge hierachy. I had a number of emails that went like this: 'Dear Sarah, three of us have now read your MS and think it looks very promising. We will now pass it to the director for his decision.' His decision was always no. Sometimes it is just up to one person, I think, but more often than not, a lot of people seem to get in on it.

I did have one very gushy email three days after I'd sent out my opening chapters. (NB Never trust a gusher.) 'Dear Sarah, This is just the sort of thing I am looking for. I am very excited about reading this. Please email me your full manuscript as soon as possible, and I will come back to you next week.' This was on January 20th this year, and I still haven't heard from him.

I chased up my work when I hadn't had a response within 8 weeks. I was amazed by how many people had lost my submission.

Also, an interesting point on the debate as to whether you submit to a named person or to the submissions department. I sometimes think the whole thing is a lottery. I submitted to a named agent at AM Heath. When I phoned them about two months later, I spoke to someone on submissions, who checked his computer log thingy, and said they hadn't received it. (It had gone straight to the particular agent, I now know.) I re-submitted, and, within four weeks, received a standard rejection. That was in March/April.

Then, in August, I had an email from Named Agent, saying, 'You sent me the beginning of your novel earlier this year. Unfortunately, it was mislaid and has only just reappeared. I'm sure you already have an agent, but I just wanted to apologise for not responding sooner.'

So it just goes to show . . . . er, actually, what does it go to show??

But anyway, however long it takes, there is one thing that it is certain, which is that waiting is torture. Also, one thing I have learnt from the whole experience is that, hard though it is, there is no point wasting your mental/emotional energy trying to speculate on what is going on. You simply don't know. It sucks that you don't know, but if it's possible to achieve some level of acceptance of that, it might save you the near-madness of 'Well, it takes two hours to read fifty pages. If they read at a rate of five minutes a day, that will take 12 days. They received it on Monday. Today is Next Wednesday. Take three days off because they had the flu. Take another day off because they were at Frankfurt. . . . . ' There is no way of knowing, and it's impossible to read the 'signs'.

Sarah

hard though it is, there is no point wasting your mental/emotional energy trying to speculate on what is going on. You simply don't know.

This should be carved in marble above every aspiring writer's door (and monitor, and letter scales, and stack of A4 SAEs)

Emma

Geez, Sarah - sounds as if you've had some colourful experiences! Losing a MS for three months, wow...mind you, I guess the thing to remember is that agents/pubs are only human. Though they seem to weild godlike power to us, life gets in the way, papers get mislaid, etc. etc.

Consider speculation ceased!

It's not that uncommon, MF! During the year that one particular publisher (not its current one) held onto "A Dangerous Man" whilst promising to publish it, they lost it twice.

==:O

A
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No, it's not that uncommon at all, alas. I've known MSs get lost by publishers when agents sent them in! Not my agent, and not my publisher, I hasten to add. On one hand, the avalanche of paper must be a nightmare, on the other hand, you'd think they'd have systems for dealing with it by now...

Emma

I heard of a manuscript being returned to an author after being found on a bus - and she knows for a fact that it was the MS she sent to a certain agent. (She used some kind of coding on the cover page.)

Oh, God.

Now, you see, I can completely sympathise with whoever it was who left the MS on the bus. I leave things everywhere, even important things.

I know (or knew, he's dead now) the person who left the designs for the new £1, £5, £10 and £20 on the tube...

Emma

I think these things always take longer than expected. I sent a batch of four submissions to agents in late August. I had responses from three within three weeks, one personal and encouraging, one standard comp slip and one short email. Another requested a full manuscript. A week later he requested a meeting, and a week after that I was signed. It took a further month to have feedback from four publishers, three of whom said no and one who was interested. Then after another fortnight we met up. That was three weeks ago and I'm waiting to hear the results of two big committee meetings. Probably won't know anything before Christmas.

The fourth agent I submitted to still replied yet (so that's nearly three months).

You need a lot of patience in this industry!

I fear I may be the winner here! An agent had my full MS for a YEAR!!!!!!!
This was obviously completely unacceptable, but she had been ill and kept telling me she was getting round to it. She was also such a super-duper top agent I would have chopped my own leg off if she'd asked me, which is pretty craven and pathetic. This was something that happened a few years ago when I wasn't the bitter, twisted hag I am now and was all bright eyed and bushy tailed about the whole thing. I feel much more conscious of my own rights in all this now. Still haven't got an agent though!

Sometimes I have wondered if I'd do a Bushtucker trial if it meant the Senior Editor at Faber would take me seriously.

Hee hee - bring on that vomit fruit!