Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting

There’s a discussion on writer Twitter about the length of time it takes for agents and publications to respond. In some cases, it’s been so long that the work has already been accepted and published elsewhere. 

The online discussion centered around two posts: a writer’s commenting that they got an agent rejection a couple of years after they queried; and, an agent pointing out how busy agents are and acknowledging that writers have no power in the agent/publisher/writer dynamic. 

It was the acknowledgment of writers’ lack of power in the query/submission process that caught my eye. 

The rule of thumb used to be that a writer queried one agent at a time, one magazine or journal at a time. No multiple submissions. I think that’s going by the wayside as writers look for ways to gain some power in the process. 

I’m currently looking for an agent and have a list of around twenty possibilities. If I submit one at a time, wait a minimum of eight weeks (which is what most of them advise), it will take me about three years to work through the list. In the meantime, the agent world is not static. Agents quit, change agencies, close submissions, make changes to what they’re accepting, and so on. While no multiple submissions may seem like it works in the agents’ favor, it doesn’t. Both the writer and the agent miss opportunities. The same is true for literary magazines and journals.

What’s the solution? One idea that seems to be catching on is closing submissions when the slush pile gets too big to manage. Or, ideally, before things reach that point. As a writer, I’d much rather wait for submissions to open rather than have my submission sit forever at the bottom of a pile. 

Another is that more writers are ignoring the ‘no multiple submissions’ rule of thumb. Of course, writers need to avoid spamming submissions. We still need to do our research and make sure what we’re submitting fits the agent or publication. 

We’re all busy. Agents and the people running small presses (usually volunteers) often have ‘day jobs’ to pay the bills. Writers do too. We’ve all got personal obligations that require our time and attention.