Less than 2% of manuscripts published.

[panda]

I thought about posting this under the Horror subforum, lol.

So I've heard this stat (may be wrong), and here's some quotes I've found about it. Is this true?

About the top 2% of all submitted manuscripts end up on bookshelves. Many are rejected for things like not following the publisher's guidelines to the letter or submitting a manuscript to a publishing house that doesn't publish that genre. Others may be rejected for numerous grammar/spelling errors in the first few pages, using a fancy font or stationary, and a myriad of other reasons.

The bottom line is, up to 90% of manuscripts that come in will be rejected for basic, fixable things. You'll really only be competing with the top 10%.


Well apparently only ten percent of people who start a novel actually finish it and then only three percent of the novels submitted for publishing actually get published.
or look at it like this, just say 1,000,000 people started writing a novel, only 10,000 finished it, then of those ten thousand, only 300 got published.

 

[KTC]

Just write a Top 2% manuscript and you'll be good. Quality HAS TO stand for something.

 

[panda]

Just write a Top 2% manuscript and you'll be good. Quality HAS TO stand for something.

. I think I might be one of the writer dropouts the last quote mentions. Like a beauty school dropout, go back to high school...sorry grease moment is over.

 

[aadams73]

That sounds like a fair estimate.

Read Slushkiller.

Then endeavor to do what KTC said.

 

[katiemac]

Two percent sounds scary, but you've also got to understand the quality of 97 percent of what is submitted in the first place. 2 percent gets published, another 1 percent is okay but not good enough, and the rest of it is just illiterate horror. Reading slushkiller is a good way to understand that if you aren't buddies with an agent and can read hers.

 

[KTC]

Two percent sounds scary, but you've also got to understand the quality of 97 percent of what is submitted in the first place. 2 percent gets published, another 1 percent is okay but not good enough, and the rest of it is just illiterate horror. Reading slushkiller is a good way to understand that if you aren't buddies with an agent and can read hers.

I like my tiny niche in the 1%. It's a happy place here in the land of Not Quite Good Enough. No pressures.

 

[maestrowork]

It is unbelievable but yes, 90% of the stuff in the slush piles is illiterate crap. So if you can put together grammatically correct sentences and construct a coherent story, you're already ahead of the curve. Now, the 10% is the real competition. Some are good but just not good enough. 5% sounds about right. Then it's a matter of finding the right match -- the right author with the right ms. for the right agent to pitch to the right publishers. There are only so many slots per year -- they can't publish everything that is publishable. Market condition, etc. come into play (maybe your book is really good, but there's already another novel about sparkling teenage vampires in high school).

I'm not sure about the 2%, though. Consider about 5000 novels get published every year (although, many are written by previously published authors...) That would mean about 250,000 submissions a year... oh well, maybe that is correct. Certainly sounds like a reasonable figure.

 

[panda]

Lol I'm reading slushkiller and I like the author's offense at the children's book manuscript, but I don't think I'd handle rejection well either and some of the reject letters were pretty nasty/unprofessional. I think all publishers should just have a blank reject form. I think the author will get the picture that they need to revise after the hundredth rejection that something is not working.

I do wonder though if they even bother to read a lot of the manuscripts...

It is unbelievable but yes, 90% of the stuff in the slush piles is illiterate crap.

Yeah I don't think I could ever submit something without it being gleaming and free of errors and stupid grammar mistakes like that, but content that's more subjective...

 

[KTC]

I do wonder though if they even bother to read a lot of the manuscripts...

I know I wouldn't have to. I mean, read the whole thing...of course. I can usually tell within the first couple sentences if it's worthwhile to continue reading. If I was an agent...I have to tell you...I would move things to the reject pile quite quickly. I would know if something is worth reading. They'd have to be crazy to read full manuscripts when the first paragraph is for shits.

 

[panda]

I know I wouldn't have to. I mean, read the whole thing...of course. I can usually tell within the first couple sentences if it's worthwhile to continue reading. If I was an agent...I have to tell you...I would move things to the reject pile quite quickly. I would know if something is worth reading. They'd have to be crazy to read full manuscripts when the first paragraph is for shits.

Oh no not full ones, my bad for not clarifying, I read somewhere else (and yes, I believe everything I read ) that a lot of the times they don't even glimpse the first page. I agree I would only read the first page or so to deduct if it was crap or not, but then I think you can judge whether a manuscript has any merit or not pretty quickly, kind of like looking at a painting.

questionable source i found online:

I have heard that about 50% of manuscripts are never read, and a further 42% end up in publishers' slush piles,

 

[Izz]

but I don't think I'd handle rejection well either

Rejection's part of the business. If you wanna be a writer, you gotta learn how to handle rejection. You don't have to like it, but you have to be able to handle it and let it drive you to become better.

 

[Izz]

Oh no not full ones, my bad for not clarifying, I read somewhere else (and yes, I believe everything I read ) that a lot of the times they don't even glimpse the first page.

if a query letter is terrible, then why would the agent or editor want to read even the first page of a ms? Query letter bad means manuscript bad, most of the time.

And if 42% (which just sounds like an arbitrary number to me) end up in publisher slushpiles that means that 42% has a chance of being read and picked up by a publisher.

 

[mscelina]

As a person who regularly reads slushpile submissions, I have to tell you--2% seems pretty darned right to me.

But I'd say there's another 3%, not one, that is almost there. Almost. Those are the submissions that have a great story and poor writing, or good writing and two-dimensional characters, or what have you. You can see that the story is worthy of publication, but in order to get there you'd have to work too darn hard. And the other 95%? Well...*shudders*...you just have no idea how painful some of it can be.

 

[panda]

Rejection's part of the business. If you wanna be a writer, you gotta learn how to handle rejection. You don't have to like it, but you have to be able to handle it and let it drive you to become better.

Did I say I don't like it, I love it lol. I eat rejection for breakfast. The point I was trying to make was while although a lot of those authors sounded crazy concerning the reject letters, I only meant that it was probably the hurt talking and that I could also see it from their paranoid POV as well.

 

[Wayne K]

I only have to beat out 98 guys. I remember reading that 90% of submissions are unpublishable, so then it's only eight.

Hey, I'm an optimist.

 

[katiemac]

What all this means is the real competition is among a much smaller pool of candidates. If you have a good book, you have a great shot.

 

[panda]

As a person who regularly reads slushpile submissions, I have to tell you--2% seems pretty darned right to me.

But I'd say there's another 3%, not one, that is almost there. Almost. Those are the submissions that have a great story and poor writing, or good writing and two-dimensional characters, or what have you. You can see that the story is worthy of publication, but in order to get there you'd have to work too darn hard. And the other 95%? Well...*shudders*...you just have no idea how painful some of it can be.

Thanks for the input. That's sort of what I was looking for first hand accounts from the publishing industry

 

[Izz]

Did I say I don't like it, I love it lol. The point I was trying to make was while although a lot of those authors sounded crazy concerning the reject letters, I only meant that it was probably the hurt talking and that I could also see it from their paranoid POV as well.

Oh sure, they might be upset and angry, but they're forgetting that publishing is a business. If someone's selling something, like soap as a random example, and not getting any customers, then where is the problem? With the customers, or with the salesperson, or with the product? Ten gets you one that it'll be one of the latter two, or a combination of both.

I know this sounds callous, but they need to take a few deep breaths, maybe a day or two to recover their sensibilities, and get on with writing. Or, less nicely, they just need to get over themselves.

 

[panda]

If someone's selling something, like soap as a random example, and not getting any customers, then where is the problem?

I agree it is a business, but in business there is also something called professionalism. That's why I think, blank reject letters is the best thing. I mean, as a business, would it not save time (ie money--the bottom line) to send form rejections? The publisher is not a critique service that is not their job. Their job is to sell a manuscript. I do agree though some people are not very thick-skinned and don't handle rejection well which is inevitable. If JK got 11 reject letters, you are going to as well. Honestly, they wouldn't bother me that much. I mean it would hurt (since I'm not a robot) but it would never write a scathing letter back or anything. The world goes on, Que Sera Sera... Sorry end rant/tangent. back to topic...

 

[panda]

What all this means is the real competition is among a much smaller pool of candidates. If you have a good book, you have a great shot.

That's true and a good way to look at it.

The glass is 2% full lol.

 

[Izz]

I agree it is a business, but in business there is also something called professionalism. That's why I think, blank reject letters is the best thing. I mean, as a business, would it not save time (ie money--the bottom line) to send form rejections? The publisher is not a critique service that is not their job. Their job is to sell a manuscript. I do agree though some people are not very thick-skinned and don't handle rejection well which is inevitable. If JK got 11 reject letters, you are going to as well. Honestly, they wouldn't bother me that much. I mean it would hurt (since I'm not a robot) but it would never write a scathing letter back or anything. The world goes on, Que Sera Sera... Sorry end rant/tangent. back to topic...

Heheh--if you're referring to those rejection letters in slushkiller most of them were form with a sentence or two of personalization thrown in. And they were all pretty darn nice, too, i thought.

Wherever there's something enclosed in brackets in the rejection letters submitted (like (loser) in one case), or where it says 'Dear Writer Person' or 'Your Beloved Novel' or something along those lines, that is not from the original letter. That's where something's been redacted by the person sending the letter in (or by TN Hayden, who posted that column) and replaced by said person with comment in brackets (or by TN Hayden). Reading through, i think the majority of the bracketed or added comments come from the person sending the letter in.

 

[panda]

Heheh--if you're referring to those rejection letters in slushkiller most of them were form with a sentence or two of personalization thrown in. And they were all pretty darn nice, too, i thought.

Where ever there's something enclosed in brackets in the rejection letters submitted (like (loser) in one case), or where it says 'Dear Writer Person' or 'Your Beloved Novel' or something along those lines, that is not from the original letter. That's where something's been redacted by the person sending the letter in (or by TN Hayden, who posted that column) and replaced by said person with comment in brackets (or by TN Hayden). Reading through, i think the majority of the bracketed comments come from the person sending the letter in.

Oh my bad lol

I was like that's pretty awful there's like profanity in some of those, makes more sense now...I just skimmed it before.

 

[Vincent]

2% is more than I expected.

 

[watercayman]

Heh those rejection letters are a heckofalot nicer than most of the comments my CPs send me

Seemed fair - I can certainly understand both sides - the personal feeling from the author, but also the tired agent/editor reading through a lot of garbage in a day.

 

[panda]

Heh those rejection letters are a heckofalot nicer than most of the comments my CPs send me

Seemed fair - I can certainly understand both sides - the personal feeling from the author, but also the tired agent/editor reading through a lot of garbage in a day.

No I agree, they weren't bad at all as far as rejections go, I misread some of the bracketed stuff from authors as from the publisher (i thought i saw one where a publisher called an author a b*tch in one or something like that and it made me pause lol)