I sent the first emails to London agents on the 7th of October. That might be four weeks ago. Must have sent maybe twelve emails ..... and I haven't had any kind of reply at all. It's been over a decade since I last was hustling agents, but I think the responses then were a bit quicker.
Anyway, yesterday I started sending emails to London literary agents about the two crime books I now have in stock. I got a response right away from someone who told me I hadn't sent the books.
It says on some of the websites for agencies that they will get back to you within eight or twelve weeks, and if you haven't heard anything from them by then, forget it. There used to be things called "slush" piles before everything got digitised. It's stuff that hasn't been commissioned by the publisher. No one got published off slush piles. I don't think back in the day anyone at all got a young adult book published from a slush pile. It's all done through agents .... the slush pile has moved.
Anyway, I'll just keep on pitching for a couple of hours a week, some afternoon, and see if I get lucky. I don't really care about the crime books, but it would be nice if I could get anyone in the book business to read The Buddha, The Dakini, and The Dirty Old Man. Of course, we don't always get what we want. Mare dukkha.
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