LC, the important thing is stay busy while your agent is pounding the pavement. I know it's difficult, and I face that every day. I've noticed my output has declined by about 60%. It's that damn anticipation thing going on.
Here's a perk for the agented and soon to be: I've never heard of any literary agent that did not have some contact, affiliation or direct connection with the movie industry. It's one of their little secret treasures they like to keep hidden for as long as they can. Just the mere mention of studio interest is enough to drive many authors into anticipatory fits of glee, and the minute they find out that their book has been sent to a producer or director, they blab it all over the internet. So many times this fact is kept low profile within the agency, with strict adherence to "mums the word."
I said book. Not a screenplay. Yep. Novels can go directly to studio heads/production companies for consideration. That happened to me--three times, with two different agents. In fact, the book can make the studio rounds before it starts the submission trail to the literary publishers. Here's the rub--your agent might not mention the studio or big wig, and that's to protect you. He/she might tell you that your little precious is out there kicking around in movieland, but that's all they'll tell you. This guards against you shooting your mouth off, or contacting that source yourself. You never, ever want to do status checks with movie heads, or publishers for that matter, behind your agent's back. Especially the movie industry, because there's too much at stake going on. It goes without saying, never drive a wedge between your agent and his/her source--you did not cultivate those contacts--your agent did. Just stay out of it and do a lot of praying.
Hint: No agent on earth can be enlightened enough or know about every possible publishing house out there. They have to watch the industry, look for new openings, startup houses, editorial changes, and the birth of new imprints from the majors. It's a constant learning and growing process. Agents are seldom idle. If you've just gotten wind of a promising contact that might fit your book (like a resonating glove, hah), for gawd's sakes, don't be afraid to alert your agent and tell them "Hey, look what I found! Whadda you think?" Contrarywise, most agents are receptive to industry info. In fact, mine told me that if I ran across any promising leads, to get ahold of him at lightspeed. This scenario is not you doing your agent's work--it's your agent trusting your judgement and allowing you some decision-making leeway on this magical submission tour.
The first thing my agent asked me was "Do you have any favorites?" Well, bust my buttons. Just so happened I did and sent the names and addresses to him. He was receptive and got them right out. Of course he can disagree, and he has a few times. That's where his expertise shines through--he'll know if a cetain house has just filled up their fantasy slots for the next two years because he's heard it straight from the editor. I would have never known that. We also have a rule that Baen is the last gasp, for instance. That's because those stinkers can take more than a year to get back on a full, and last time out for me, it was on an exclusive basis. So he'll concentrate first on the highest paying houses with the fastest turnarounds--it just makes economic sense for him to do it that way.
Somebody asked me in a PM how many houses my agent hits for me and for how long before giving up. This is kind of subjective and there are no hard and fast rules. Your agent gets requests for fulls, just like we get requests for partials and fulls. They solicit with phone pitches, e-mails, fax, face to face meetings, or hardcopy. It depends on the genre a bit, too. He/she is unlikely to get as many requests for a SF or western than they would for a really good romance or fantasy. But...all things considered in a perfect world, there's probably about 25 to 30 worthwhile houses out there that pay good money and have great contracts. So I go by my own 7-7-7 rule, as it pertains to my agent. He'll get seven full requests then send out that batch. He expects answers within three months from those seven, and tacks on another month for unforseen contingencies. Four months later another batch of seven are sent out. Then the last batch, which totals about 21 houses (out of 30, because he pulled about a 65% response). So after a year, if I'm damn lucky, I've had about 20 full reads. If there's no sale we go into a huddle for the next six months, and that's where I get to contribute more input into the process. If we haven't sold the book after 18 months, then it's my sandbox and I take over complete control. At this stage I'm only likely to find a POD outfit willing to buy the book. Whether he wants to get involved in a sale at this stage, is his decision. If he doesn't, I don't hold it against him.
My genre right now is urban fantasy, and this is about the normal submission procedure for me. Every agent is different. I've heard of agents that query blast every possible source out there and cop as many as 30 full requests within a matter of weeks. So 30 fulls in hardcopy or email are sent out then and there. No fuss or messing around. Bam. I've also heard of agents who are content to send out three to five fulls and then chill until every last one of them is rejected. So, you're milage will vary.
Gak--I've been blabbering again!
Tri-red-shifting.