United Agents open house submissions

Despite keeping an eye out on this open house, it's now over a month since I've seen any movement on it. If I don't see anything before the new year (i.e. 1st Jan 2017), I'm going to assume they've finished their open house submissions process and that any responses to still waiting authors got mangled in the spammer machine.

I know Boneman still has half a chance - he's not sure if he's still in the open house or not - good luck if he is and good luck placing his novel elsewhere if he isn't.
 
Bah! I'm going to finally break cover ... have been monitoring this thread for weeks. It's the only thing Google turns up for UA Open House (other than the obvious).

So, commiserations to all who have had bad news. I still haven't heard a thing! I submitted mid-August, whenever it was, the literary fiction day. I know at least one other person who hasn't heard either.

I sent a follow up email, just an auto confirmation like the original. I also posted on their Facebook page (November 2nd) and somebody else has recently. No reply for either.

I appreciate they're busy, it's not cool to pester and personally I'm not expecting a positive reply (I'm pretty confident about my writing but I know the work I submitted is not obviously commercial by any means) but ... they could make a statement at least? Either, if you haven't heard assume you won't or, hey we're still at it.

Any advice on following up or does one just have to be patient?

Thanks
Jim
 
Boneman said:
I'm assuming that the machine sent out an automated response, but a human checked it afterwards. But quite fun to imagine I might still be in, when I actually decided to withdraw...
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I suspect that if anyone wrote a story of your tale of this submission, no publisher would find it credible enough to put it in their magazine!
 
Mr J said:
Bah! I'm going to finally break cover ... have been monitoring this thread for weeks. It's the only thing Google turns up for UA Open House (other than the obvious).

So, commiserations to all who have had bad news. I still haven't heard a thing! I submitted mid-August, whenever it was, the literary fiction day. I know at least one other person who hasn't heard either.

I sent a follow up email, just an auto confirmation like the original. I also posted on their Facebook page (November 2nd) and somebody else has recently. No reply for either.

I appreciate they're busy, it's not cool to pester and personally I'm not expecting a positive reply (I'm pretty confident about my writing but I know the work I submitted is not obviously commercial by any means) but ... they could make a statement at least? Either, if you haven't heard assume you won't or, hey we're still at it.

Any advice on following up or does one just have to be patient?

Thanks
Jim
Click to expand...

Welcome Jim... hope you enjoy SFFchronicles.

Just one quick question - you say your submission to United Agents went into the literary fiction stack. Is it also science fiction or fantasy? (Yes, you can have both literary and science fiction!)
 
Hi Serendipity

Couldn't agree more! But no it was neither scifi or fantasy. I love both genres (across all media) but don't write them. Go figure! I joined only because of the UA reference.
 
Mr J said:
Hi Serendipity

Couldn't agree more! But no it was neither scifi or fantasy. I love both genres (across all media) but don't write them. Go figure! I joined only because of the UA reference.
Click to expand...

Aw! Shucks! And there was me thinking I could add you to the list (of a half)! Good luck with the submission.

Another quick question - I never really understood what the term literary (as in literary fiction) really means. Can you shed some light on this?
 
Serendipity said:
Another quick question - I never really understood what the term literary (as in literary fiction) really means. Can you shed some light on this?
Click to expand...

Ha! No me neither :) I picked it because my novel didn't fit with the others. It's not 'genre' fiction. It's a bit out there. You know what Southern Gothic is? Well this is Southern Surrealist!

One interesting definition of 'literary' that I've read is: literary fiction is where the plot is the character's development rather than what happens to them

If I were The Emperor Of All Existence there'd only be two book genres - well written ones and badly written ones. The former would ALWAYS be published regardless :)
 
Mr J said:
Bah! I'm going to finally break cover ... have been monitoring this thread for weeks. It's the only thing Google turns up for UA Open House (other than the obvious).

So, commiserations to all who have had bad news. I still haven't heard a thing! I submitted mid-August, whenever it was, the literary fiction day. I know at least one other person who hasn't heard either.

I sent a follow up email, just an auto confirmation like the original. I also posted on their Facebook page (November 2nd) and somebody else has recently. No reply for either.

I appreciate they're busy, it's not cool to pester and personally I'm not expecting a positive reply (I'm pretty confident about my writing but I know the work I submitted is not obviously commercial by any means) but ... they could make a statement at least? Either, if you haven't heard assume you won't or, hey we're still at it.

Any advice on following up or does one just have to be patient?

Thanks
Jim
Click to expand...

Hi all. I'll break cover too! I've also been monitoring this thread for a while as you seemed to be the only people talking about this Open House.

I submitted under Literary Fiction (22nd August?) and I still haven't heard anything either. My friend who submitted under Commercial Fiction heard back after 6 weeks. But I've more or less given up on hearing anything now. It's a little annoying as I also had a job interview on the submission day and I remember being extra stressed trying to get my submission finalised and sent away in time. Only to receive deafening silence in return...

I do think it's bad form that they haven't made some kind of statement about whether they're still working on it or have swept it under the carpet. Especially as they promised to get back to everyone. It would only take them seconds to post a tweet. But it's just something you need to get used to if you're going to submit to agents sadly.
 
Welcome, Sard, to the Chrons.

There was a flurry of rejections for the SFF submissions that would have come under commercial fiction fiction on Oct 20th/21st - which was about six weeks ago. So your friend was far from being alone in being rejected then.

It looks like to me that there are a few people in different categories who have not got a rejection from United Agents. One tweet I picked up was that the response time depended on which agent your work went to for consideration. On the other hand, another tweet indicated that some people had been quickly called in for a discussion. So all I can say is... o_O:unsure::confused:
 
Serendipity said:
Welcome, Sard, to the Chrons.

There was a flurry of rejections for the SFF submissions that would have come under commercial fiction fiction on Oct 20th/21st - which was about six weeks ago. So your friend was far from being alone in being rejected then.

It looks like to me that there are a few people in different categories who have not got a rejection from United Agents. One tweet I picked up was that the response time depended on which agent your work went to for consideration. On the other hand, another tweet indicated that some people had been quickly called in for a discussion. So all I can say is... o_O:unsure::confused:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the welcome Serendipity.

If they had as many submissions as it appears I guess it's no surprise that a few people got lost in the process. It seems like Commercial Fiction had a big clearout of submissions one day and sent out their rejections. Maybe the agents covering Literary will do the same soon. But I'm not holding my breath any more and consider their silence an unofficial rejection.

Yes, I saw the tweet about open house authors getting called in for discussions. Well done to them. It must have been hard to stand out with so much competition. I wish them well.
 
We're all crawling out of the woodwork now! haha!

I have also been sneakily keeping an eye on this thread since August. I don't write fantasy or sci fi (though I do love both!) but, like the others, this was the only place on the web where people were actually talking about the Open House!

I also submitted to the lit fic deadline and have heard nothing! :( It's such a very, very long time!

I wonder if anyone from lit fic has actually heard back one way or the other? We lit fic folk seem to have been rather abandoned!

I agree that it would just be nice to have some sort of update, whether that be 'we're still working on it' or 'we've given up on it' or 'if you don't hear back by X date assume the worst'. Some sort of closure would be nice!

x
 
United Agents smells strongly like Hollywood. So, please don't take it personally if you haven't heard anything, because this seems to be the way UA works, and to be honest, they might have been totally swamped by the response. Therefore, it might take years for them to let you know you've been lucky as that is the way Hollywood works, because:

If you don't have a public name, don't expect to get a quick response from the United Agents!
 
In a clearing stands an author
And a writer by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of rejections that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving,"
But the writer still remains.....

Apologies to Paul Simon
 
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So true, Boneman.

The problem isn't me as a writer. Me as a writer will never stop writing, even if nothing I write ever finds its way into print (that is, conventionally published print). I think that's probably true for most of us here! Like your beautifully chosen verse says, the writer remains. We write because we cannot not write.

But it is the parts of me that are not the writer (the wife, the mother, the person who has bills to pay, the person with a leaking roof that needs replacing, etc. etc. etc.) that gets pretty frustrated with the publishing industry!

All writers are people pouring their heart, soul, energies, time into creating a product which is exceedingly difficult to sell and will in all likelihood never receive a return. We do it because we cannot not do it, but the practicalities of that become so wearing! I do wish that agents and publishers would remember that sometimes in how they deal with us! To them I suppose we are just a mass of potentially lucrative crops that they can harvest or leave to rot at their leisure. But that's not what we are!! We're real people with very real, practical everyday needs and problems and bills to pay!

After all "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction"...
 
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