Rude agents

In a surge of New Year optimism, I sent out 10 email queries to agents who handle books like mine. A couple of these indicated on their websites that they only respond to those queries that interest them. Fine. The rest either posted nothing about response times or stated that they respond to every query. Ten weeks later I've heard from two. Both not interested. But at least they had the courtesy to fire off a response.

Most surprising is that one of the non-responders was referred to me by another agent. That kind of connection has always meant a more rapid turn around, but ten weeks later — nothing. How difficult is it to hit "respond" and send a form rejection? I realize that an agent's first priority is his or her existing clients and there are many demands on their time, but come on! A little courtesy shouldn't be so difficult.