How To Get Answers

by sheer force of will

Hi friends,

I got an email in the Q&A box that I thought would really benefit the whole group, so I’m running it here today. If you like stuff like this, consider becoming a paid subscriber and see Q&As in your inbox (on a lot of) Thursdays!

K asks: I’m in dire need of a perception-versus-reality check, as an anxiety-ridden writer in the querying trenches. I currently have eight fulls out (I’m so grateful!) Most of them were requested once I followed up after my first two fulls went out; it quickly became clear agents were suddenly interested when they knew others were.

It’s been radio silence ever since—going on four months for the first few, and over eight weeks for the more recent ones. I’ve followed up on a few who are beyond their posted reading timelines, with no response. My question is: are all these agents sitting on my full until they get an offer of rep email from me, after which they’ll prioritize reading it? If so, I’m in a querying catch-22. I’m also curious to know if interest wanes the longer agents go without hearing that I have an offer—there was one agent who was very keen on my initial pages and said she’d read the full as fast as possible knowing it was out with others. Would the lack of an offer of rep from someone else in the time she’s had it make her less enthusiastic?

I’m aware that most of this is beyond my control, and my anxiety is surely due to my struggle to regain it. I know the world is *waves around* and everyone is totally under water—I want to be cognizant of that while also being proactive when it’s appropriate. How common is it for agents to ghost on fulls? How long do I wait before I give up on these and move on to alternate options? I’d love your perspective on the psychology behind the curtain.

Thanks, as always, for your help and invaluable posts!

Eight fulls! Congrats! That’s great news!!! I know this is exciting right along side anxiety-producing, so I hope my answer here will allow you to enjoy more of the excitement rather than the anxiety. Here’s hoping!

To start, I want to go over a few things that seem true, but that are not. Some are correlation, not causation and some are just how it looks from YOUR point of view. Here is, as you say, a peek behind the agent-curtain.

Following up after the two fulls went out did not cause the other six requests to happen

First, I don’t recommend following up with the agents you’ve queried when another agent requests a full. I mean, you can, but personally, it doesn’t turn the pressure on from my end. Lots of agents request fulls more frequently than I do. But this is not a cardinal sin and it’s not bad that you did this. You can decide this works for you (in the future, too) and do it and eh, us agents will live. Of course, four people DID request the full after your follow up, so hey what do I know. :) But your follow up didn’t cause those requests. Your follow up put your email back at the top of their inbox, they read it and thought hey I might like that, and it looks like someone else does, too and they requested your work. That does not mean they are any more or less likely to offer you rep, and I posit that they are no more likely to offer rep or not. They are likely going to do whatever they were going to do regardless of your follow up or another agent’s interest. You just got their attention. The bottom line is you cannot predict the outcome of this situation by the when or how someone requested your work. All you know if that they requested the full. The rest is unknowable until they tell you. Try not to predict the future here. You cannot.

Silence does not equal deprioritization

The amount of time an agent does not respond to you does not directly correlate to their interest in your book. Do things get read really quickly sometimes? Yes. But things can take a long time and still have a happy ending. And the agent IS prioritizing your work—according to their priorities, not yours. They are reading queries as fast as they can, in conjunction with all their other manuscripts and contracts and emails and meetings and research and sleep and vacations and sick days and family and everything else. You, of course, want your book to be the top of their list, but when you are a client, you also want your book to be the top of their list, and where does that leave your friend who’s also querying? This isn’t to make you feel bad—it’s normal to want to be the top of the list! But remember you probably aren’t the most important thing on an agent’s to do list—not because your work is not worthy, but because you are not a client (yet!).

Do agents ghost on fulls sometimes? Yeah, it happens. It’s not great and we know it. We are anxiety-ridden sometimes, too! But the agent who ghosts on your book was probably not the right agent for you anyway so it’s best to just let it go.

Being “proactive” does not put the control back into your hands

Being proactive, i.e. following up, etc., only looks like control in this situation. Do things happen after you follow up, and such? Yes! But that doesn’t mean it’ll be the outcome you want. Following up too much, too, does not make an agent more likely to reject you, either. I have this same conundrum with editors. I will follow up one million times with an editor who’s had a manuscript for a long time. (Sorry, editors!) I need that answer, even if I know it’s a no. I feel like I owe it to my clients. I’m sure there are editors who don’t really like it (sorry!) but it’s my job. I don’t love it either! And I don’t really expect there to be this surprise one million dollar book deal on the other end of all my “just checking in!!” emails. But I know what it’s like to have an editor ghost on a project as a writer and an agent and it sucks. So I’m going to follow up in professional, reasonable, persistent ways. That doesn’t mean I have any control over the outcome, and neither do you. Follow up. It’s ok. But there is not a way to follow up that will MAKE an offer happen and a lack of following up will not make you miss an opportunity.

And don’t do that thing I know has crossed your mind (whether you want to admit it or not. It’s crossed everyone’s mind.). There isn’t an email you can send that says you have more “interest” in your work, whether that’s an outright lie, like you have an offer of rep, or something more vague others may interpret as an offer, and get them to respond faster to your work. Don’t do this. I know it’s tempting. We’ve ALL thought about it. (And agents who do this, what we call “shopping interest,” when there is none are quickly found out and suffer for it. It’s not great.) Don’t do it.

You are doing the right thing by following up according to agents’ posted reading timelines. You can keep following up every few weeks after that. It doesn’t mean anything more than they’re busy when you don’t hear back.

The only ticking clock is the one in your head

The agents with the fulls are not thinking geez I thought people wanted this book. Since no one offered yet, I guess it must be trash. No one is thinking that. They are probably thinking oh man, I need to read that great thing I requested yesterday. Wait, it wasn’t yesterday???? It was four months ago???? Dammit! There is a lot of time dilation when it comes to publishing, and even more so when it comes to queries. Sorry! I know it sucks to be on the too long side of things. But also, four months is not that long. Eight weeks is really not that long. There is no specific, consensus, iron-clad time table that spells out what is too fast, just right, or too long. I know, it sucks. You can decide what that time table is (six months? follow up every eight weeks?) and hopefully some agents will align with that. But you can’t make them.

I know it seems like if an agent says they will read “as fast as possible” and then doesn’t email for several months that it seems like they are not interested. They might not be! But that also may be their definition of “as fast as possible.” I can’t take a whole day off to read a non-client manuscript, even if I wanted to. I can’t read on most nights or weekends because I am A: tired and B: cannot work that many hours a week. It takes me anywhere from 6-10 hours to read a manuscript, depending on the length, and if I get half an hour to read everyday, I’m lucky. I don’t get that every day. And client manuscripts come first. If that means I miss out on something great because another agent reads faster, well, them’s the breaks (for me). We can only do what we can do, and YOU can only do what you can do. That is: write your next book. Manage your (very normal!) anxiety however suits you best. Be professional and kind when you follow up (but remember following up does not CAUSE rejections or offers). Silence only means silence. Worrying will get you nowhere.

I know this is easier said than done! Again, your feelings are normal. Agents have ALL these same feelings when we are waiting for editors to read our clients’ books. I’ve seen every. single. iteration. of submission timeline happen. An offer the very next day after submission. An offer a week later. Five offers in the blink of an eye after I let people know about the first one. One perfect offer a year later. All scenarios can happen, and you can’t do anything about it except write a good book, try to get it into the the best hands you can, and wait.

Good luck!

OXOOX,

Kate