Last weekend, I submitted my first query letter about Star City to a literary agent. I got rejected, but it was as nice a rejection as an aspiring novelist like yours truly can get. Agent #1 promptly responded in 5 days, and encouraged me to seek out other agents. Most agencies don't respond that fast-most mention 1-2 months as the response time for query letters. Some agents don't even bother reading submissions from new authors such as myself.
Anyways, I didn't have particularly high hopes for acceptance from this first agent. But, my sister and I did gain some good experience that we used to submit a couple more queries.
Another piece of good news is that I finally recruited another beta reader: my sister's former college roommate. I'd been wary of getting more beta readers as my manuscript wasn't good enough. But, with my sister's editing during the last two weeks, we whipped Star City into shape. I'll be getting more beta readers over this summer so that I can further improve my novel.