Whilst ploughing through the Literary Agents section of the 2012 edition I was struck by the fact that most agents can take up to eight weeks to respond to a submission - if at all. Yet some of them want the submission to be exclusive. What world do they live in? If a manuscript has to wait for a rejection before being offered to someone else it could take a year to approach just six agents.
Does anyone have the answer?
What a good comment Richard and how I agree with you, especially the part about What world do they live in?
Two other things baffle me about the publishing industry - why do they expect people to write such long novels when the reading world seems to want shorter and shorter and 2. why do creative writing courses constantly advocate writing short stories while all the teaching is about novel writing.
What it means is that you are expected to do in 1,500 words what James Joyce took 40,000 to do. Then we're told there's no market for short stories anyway. What a laugh it all is.
Both Louise and Susannah are essentially right, Richard. This is not a mathematically favourable business sector. The ration of manuscripts to agents to publishers is hideous. This calculation is exacerbated by suggestions of a formulaic approach adopted by publishers where their forward list needs to have certain genres represented. I'm afraid the notion that pure talent will out is quixotic.
But, as I've been saying in my Long-Distance Writer blog series elsewhere on this site, there is a proliferation of new routes to market that are changing the calculus. It's probably too early to tell how the market will shake out once the impacts of a technological (r)evolution work themselves out - but they do merit some research.
The world they live in is the one where they don't want to publish you (cynical response from much experience...most of it bad). Some agents don't reply at all, so 8 weeks isn't bad. The best ones will reject you fast if they're going to do it - but then you know they haven't read your work. If you make multiple submissions, you need to let them know. If you make a sole submission (and are prepared to wait), tell them as well. I've been trying to get my most recent novel published for the last two years, even though I try to send it out as fast as possible. Six agents in a year is pretty fast.
Sorry, this is a real loser's game!