Some of us are currently in the wearisome process of querying literary agents and publishers with open submission windows.

I recently emailed queries to 88 agencies, and have my eye of a few others who’ve been closed for submissions to clear their slush pile. I only approached British agents in this tranche of submissions, but when I chased after 160 agents in 2015, I included 20 in the U.S.A. They were all agencies who already handled well-established and newly published British authors, and who said they welcomed approaches from foreign writers.

Their response rate was better (more polite!) than British agencies—quicker too, with 18 of them rejecting my query within two months. The most rapid rejection came within 10 minutes, from an agent in New York who must be insomniac as it was 3:00 a.m. there. It made me think that I’d lobbed a dead rat over a neighbour’s hedge, and he’d immediately flung it back my way! 

Do any of you submit across The Pond?