# Waiting on a publisher



## MJ Preston (Mar 17, 2018)

What's the longest someone has waited for an answer on a submission? 
I'm over two months on a novel submission. 
(Not in a slush pile it was requested)


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 17, 2018)

I've submitted my work to around twenty publishers now, having sent them off in December. I've only heard from four of them since, so the rest are passing the three month mark now. I expect this to go much longer still.

-JJB


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## Cephus (Mar 17, 2018)

Honestly if they don't  get back to you within a couple of months, figure they rejected it and moved on.


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 17, 2018)

Cephus said:


> Honestly if they don't  get back to you within a couple of months, figure they rejected it and moved on.



Perhaps, but I maintain hope that I'll hear from all of them, even if it takes a while. Regardless, I'll be embarking on another publishing blitz soon. I shall never surrender until I achieve my goal!

-JJB


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 17, 2018)

I don;t wait for them to reply. Send out the queries, and move on to the next agent/publisher. Some of these people do not reply unless they like your stuff, even says so on their web site.  If they want to contact you, they got your number.


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## Cephus (Mar 18, 2018)

JJBuchholz said:


> Perhaps, but I maintain hope that I'll hear from all of them, even if it takes a while. Regardless, I'll be embarking on another publishing blitz soon. I shall never surrender until I achieve my goal!



Nobody said to surrender, just don't wait.  You don't owe them anything and they don't owe you anything.  Send the manuscript out to other people.  First one to bite wins.


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 18, 2018)

Cephus said:


> Nobody said to surrender, just don't wait.  You don't owe them anything and they don't owe you anything.  Send the manuscript out to other people.  First one to bite wins.



Yep!


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## MJ Preston (Mar 18, 2018)

Actually, I've queried and been told they are behind. A rejection usually comes pretty quick if they don't like it.


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## S-wo (Mar 18, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I don;t wait for them to reply. Send out the queries, and move on to the next agent/publisher. Some of these people do not reply unless they like your stuff, even says so on their web site.  If they want to contact you, they got your number.



truth.


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 23, 2018)

MJ Preston said:


> Actually, I've queried and been told they are behind. A rejection usually comes pretty quick if they don't like it.



This is true. I've noticed that if you do bug them, they request more time to sort everything out. When they do choose to respond, it happens quickly in the form of a rejection.

-JJB


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## Blackstone (Mar 23, 2018)

Are you sending direct to a publisher or an agent?

Either way, frankly the best thing to do with submissions is to send them and forget. You start waiting for responses you'll go doolally.


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## JJBuchholz (Mar 24, 2018)

Blackstone said:


> Are you sending direct to a publisher or an agent?



Me, I send them to publishers. I don't have time for agents and other nonsense.

-JJB


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## Ralph Rotten (Mar 25, 2018)

JJBuchholz said:


> Me, I send them to publishers. I don't have time for agents and other nonsense.
> 
> -JJB




Have you had much luck finding publishers that will accept unsolicited, unagented material?
Even Permuted Platinum stopped taking such submissions.  Seems like an agent is the only way to get to a publisher (aside from stalking them  )


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## JJBuchholz (Apr 6, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Have you had much luck finding publishers that will accept unsolicited, unagented material?
> Even Permuted Platinum stopped taking such submissions.  Seems like an agent is the only way to get to a publisher (aside from stalking them  )



Not as of yet. I've had several responses from publishers turning me down, and a couple saying they are 'looking my work over'. I shall never give up on this, no matter what. I know it might take several years to get published, but so be it.

-JJB


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## Bayview (Apr 10, 2018)

JJBuchholz said:


> Not as of yet. I've had several responses from publishers turning me down, and a couple saying they are 'looking my work over'. I shall never give up on this, no matter what. I know it might take several years to get published, but so be it.
> 
> -JJB



If you accept that it's going to take several years, I'm surprised that you aren't giving yourself time for an agent.

Most of the best publishers don't accept unagented submissions, so you could end up spending a lot of time submitting to publishers you may not actually want to work with.

(This may be different if you're subbing to the Canadian market... I don't know how Canadian publishers work)


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## Blackstone (Apr 10, 2018)

Bayview said:


> Most of the best publishers don't accept unagented submissions, so you could end up spending a lot of time submitting to publishers you may not actually want to work with.



With the concurrence that I do not know much about Canada either, here are my handful of pennies...

Bayview makes a good point. I did not mention it myself as it did not seem to be directly relevant to the original post but since it's out there now...

Some publishers will accept unrepresented authors but you need to question a couple of things. Namely, why? Why would one publisher do things differently than most of the (decent) publishers in the world? Chances are it is not out of the goodness of their hearts.

The answers are several, but they are not limitless. Perhaps the publisher in question is just really small. That's fine, and nothing wrong with it, but then what are your expectations? Tiny publishing houses will not pay you much of an advance (possibly zero dollars) and will not have the ability to do much for your book as far as promotion and sales, yet they will most likely take a huge percentage of what sales they do generate, not because they are ripping you off but because things cost money and businesses are there to make it. 

This leads to a dilemma: If the publisher is that small, what do you need them for when we have a perfectly healthy (and growing) self-publishing market, with which you can keep much more of the proceeds? Is it just ego, just so you can say you've done it, or is it because it actually will *grow* your work? 

If publishing houses of larger sizes are accepting unsolicited MS's I'd be even more careful as that is practically unheard of (at least I haven't heard of it) and chances are they are probably not legitimate and are using that to lure in authors who are desperate. You don't sound desperate, but you do sound like your main goal is publication at all costs, so just be careful.

A good agent is worth it, honestly. I love mine. Yes it's an extra hurdle and it's hard and yes they take a cut but so what? One does not walk up the mountain because the line for the ski-lift is long and the ride is bumpy.

 Anyway, just my opinion. Good luck!


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## Jay Greenstein (Apr 11, 2018)

MJ Preston said:


> What's the longest someone has waited for an answer on a submission?
> I'm over two months on a novel submission.
> (Not in a slush pile it was requested)


In general, the consensus is that two months is the longest you can expect.

It also depends on if a query/sample was requested or the manuscript. Manuscripts take longer.

Did you check the website to see if they have a comment on response time there? They often do.

In any case, a polite note to the agent/publisher mentioning that it was  requested, when it was sent, and asking for the status couldn't hurt.

And to ready you for the possibility of rejection, I like this one.


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## Pete_C (Apr 11, 2018)

In some of the more esoteric genres many publishers don't require an agent. The publishers are often specialists in their field and recognise that an agent would in all likelihood reject an MSS that they would seek. As such, many have annual submission windows.


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## Phil Istine (Apr 11, 2018)

Jay Greenstein said:


> And to ready you for the possibility of rejection, I like this one.



The link is blocked in the UK on copyright grounds.


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## Bayview (Apr 11, 2018)

Tor used to accept unagented submissions (they may still) but as I recall they said the wait could be a year or more.

And, yes, there are niche publishers that don't require agents (I work with a couple!) but the OP... oh, wait. @JJBuchholz isn't the OP! Sorry, I missed that. JJBuchholz doesn't "have time for agents and other nonsense," but he isn't the OP, so this is all a bit of a de-rail!  The OP isn't really taking part in the thread anymore.

So, in general - submitting directly to a publisher because you write for a niche market may make sense; submitting directly to a publisher because you don't have time for an agent probably doesn't.


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## Blackstone (Apr 11, 2018)

Yeah I didn’t take into account niche markets! I do know a lady who writes cookbooks and does not have an agent. Oops! I’m sure that applies to some other genres, especially non fiction. Fiction wise not sure? Erotica perhaps? 

I think Tor closed to submissions within the last a year or so, but could well be wrong. It’s been awhile.


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## JJBuchholz (May 4, 2018)

Bayview said:


> (This may be different if you're subbing to the Canadian market... I don't know how Canadian publishers work)



I'm submitting to publishers across all of North America. I won't limit myself to my own country.

-JJB


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## Bayview (May 4, 2018)

JJBuchholz said:


> I'm submitting to publishers across all of North America. I won't limit myself to my own country.
> 
> -JJB



But you ARE limiting yourself to publishers who accept unagented authors.

Are you writing in a niche genre?


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## Ralph Rotten (May 5, 2018)

Bayview said:


> But you ARE limiting yourself to publishers who accept unagented authors.




...and that is a teeny, tiny pool to select from.


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## moderan (May 5, 2018)

Ralph Rotten said:


> ...and that is a teeny, tiny pool to select from.



Yep. Even if you work in a niche market (I do) that has a good many indie presses. A good agent can help you reach beyond that niche, or at least place your work where it can be seen by people not attuned to the niche.
I write about 4/5 shorts, and am unagented. Definitely limits who you can approach. So I've been approaching agents on a referral basis, to represent one or the other of the eleven novels I have on hand, in various genres (often within the text). 
My usual approach is to try to sell short fiction to ezines, printzines, as audience-builders, but I'm branching out into hard sf and that isn't the same group as reads 'weird fiction', whose readership generally comes from horror novels and shorts. 
Tor is still accepting mss (afaik). I just had a proposal for an anthology put off (not rejected, but going back through channels for financing estimations). They have one of my novels also.


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