Literary Agents Who Respond FAST
While you certainly shouldn’t choose which agent to query based on who responds quickest, knowing the response times of agents can nonetheless be a great help. Once you have your initial query list pulled together, sending the first batch to some agents who have a history of quick responses can help you determine whether your query package (particularly query letter) is working the way you hope.
Knowing how helpful these lists were for me while I was querying, I wanted to share what I could. Below you’ll find who had the fastest response times for me, as well as general information on response times.
How I Got My Literary Agent
Let’s start with the obvious: querying is hard.
Querying in the midst of a pandemic, massively overworked literary agents, and a changing publishing landscape is especially hard. Anyone who is doing it should honestly get a gold medal in perseverance (also, probably chocolate for, ya know, the feelings).
I’ve always found posts about how authors manage to cross that proverbial finish line to be immensely helpful and encouraging in the past, so I wanted to do my part and make my own!
Follow along for some real talk, statistics, and a healthy dose of humor along the way.
Querying Tips for Neurodivergent Writers
Querying can feel like a herculean task for any writer, but for neurodivergent writers, the process can be especially challenging. Though I can only speak from experience in regards to my own ADHD, many of these tips will apply to those who are neurodivergent in other ways, such as those who are autistic, have dyslexia, etc. because there is so much overlap in the way that certain symptoms show up.
For those unfamiliar with how ADHD works (and I mean really works, not is shown badly on television), here’s a quick rundown. For most of us things like patience, attention to detail, and rejection sensitivity are common traits. Toss in difficulties reading between the lines when it comes to social cues, processing information through questions, and an overabundance of passion (that can feel “too intense” for many) and you have my particular flavor of ADHD.
If you’ve been querying for any length of time, you probably read all that and either saw yourself a little too much in it, or at the very least know that I just described all of the traits you need to have to successfully query. I wish I had a magic wand that could make the process easier, or some secret advice that would even the playing field, but the truth is I don’t. I’m right in those querying trenches with you.