Industry Response Time

The longest running lab study is the Australian pitch drop study, which has recorded eight drops of pitch falling in 86 years*.

Is it just me, or does the publishing industry seem to move at a similar pace? It takes you a year to write your book. You send in a query, and it takes 90 days to get a request from an agent, who then takes six months to respond. You go through 4-6 months on revisions, at which point the agent submits. Six months later, you get a contract offer, and 18 months after that, your book comes out.

The attitude of most people in the industry to this situation can be summed up like this:

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There's nothing I can do about most of these steps, but I decided early on that I wouldn't torture writers with that six months to a year where an agent has a query/chapters/manuscript, but the book isn't in front of editors. I try to respond to queries in 2-3 weeks and to full manuscripts in a month. Once I accept a writer, I don't screw around. I'll give notes, expect a relatively quick turnaround, and be ready to go when the manuscript is.

For example, I met Amanda Skenandore at the end of April at the Las Vegas Writers Conference, at which point I listened to her pitch and asked her to send pages. She sent them on May 3, I requested a full on May 15, and called her three days later to offer representation (admittedly fast, but it was a fantastic read). We went on submission in mid-June and had an offer from Kensington Books by mid-August.

Okay, so that's an admittedly best-case scenario. But I try to stay on top of my workload and I really enjoy working with writers like Amanda and editors like John Scognamiglio of Kensington, who are on top of their workload, too.

One of the main reasons I respond so quickly is because I'm not the biggest name agent out there. There are bigger names, people who have more and bigger deals under their belts. I'm in competition with these people, but one thing I can offer my writers is the knowledge that I'm responsive. Most of the time when I offer representation I'm the first agent they hear from. That has landed me some great projects I wouldn't have signed if I'd been second or third or fifth.

*Nobody has actually seen one fall, but it's on webcam now, so someone will next time one falls.