No reply after eight months. They get so many queries at BookEnds, I'm sure, so I'll presume that mine was lost in the mail. With a new title and a fresh new query, I'll try them again.
Alicka Pistek doesn't take paper queries any more, so the one I sent in September must have been shredded. Or it didn't arrive, lost in the mail. I've resubmitted via her e-mail address at Publishers Marketplace and not heard back, so that's a no. I guess. Or did she not get the e-mail? How can anyone tell? Try again, perhaps? Give it up? So many choices.
Michele Beno never responded to the e-mail query, so I tried snail mail. No reply since September. Lost in the mail again, that's got to be it. I'll shoot her another one soon, just to double check the postal service in New York. As for Tara Mark at RLR, well, that lost in the mail excuse doesn't hold water. She never responded to the query from September, and the second attempt has been just as ignored. Fine, if that's how it's to be, but a little note on the website would be appreciated.
Some agents are backlogged and the wait will be long. It took Chris Parris-Lamb of the Gernert Co. about five months to catch up, but at least he finally mailed off the rejection letter. That's such a contrast with agents like Joy Harris or Sonia Pabley, who rejected my query the minute it landed on their desks. Could have saved a couple of pennies on postage there. I figured it would take a couple of months for a response, so the SASE had that extra postage affixed. Turns out it wasn't needed, with the rejections arriving well before the rate increase.
No one's looking at a partial, no one's asked for a full. Two weeks gone since the last round of queries went out, and it's time for the next batch. I've been doing this too long, until it's just an automatic sort of thing. Send out mail, receive mail, cross off agency, move down list. Write another manuscript, begin at the beginning and repeat endlessly.
As hobbies go, however, it's cheaper than model railroading or antique auto collecting.
4 comments:
I swear some people have bribed my postman to simply return my submissions in 2 days. I've had some SASE's never returned, and some which take forever.
The most recent one was to Zoetrope: All Story. I wasn't waiting with baited breath, mind you, but I did expect Zoetrope to respond. Their site says they respond within 5 months, which would have been last fall. So by the beginning of '07 and still no response, I checked it off as rejected. Lo and behold, nearly a full year later, my story was returned with its form note rejection.
...
I had the audacity to e-mail them and ask after the submission, thinking it was lost after not hearing a word for eleven months. The response was that they had it logged in and they would get to it by early May.
Within a week, I had Zoetrope's form rejection in hand.
I'm waiting on a few other journal submissions that were supposed to be responded to within six months, and it's been seven. It's the brilliant prose, of course, keeping the story in the 'maybe' pile.
I sent a full manuscript per request to Sonia Pabley at the Gersh Agency on 14 January. No response after nearly four months either by post or email on a request for the status of the ms.
So, I have sent out queries to others who might show an interest.
In other words, I sadly gave up on any response from Sonia whatsoever.
Respectfully,
Nyla
You should have been querying other agents while you waited for a response.
This sort of thing happens, and you don't want to put the query process on hold.
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