Agents: What Proportion of Authors do You Sign Through Unsolicited Queries?

pedroj012 said:

I've been reading more and more that most writers find representation by meeting agents at conferences, or by meeting other writers and getting referred.

Click to expand...

Gee, pretty much how most people find their spouses. Meeting at work, school or through friends.

Yep. Same dynamics.

Jeff

WeaselFire said:

Gee, pretty much how most people find their spouses. Meeting at work, school or through friends.

Yep. Same dynamics.

Jeff

Click to expand...

As opposed to the spouse slush pile? Would that be tinder?

only ex-spouses on tinder...

pedroj012 said:

I still wonder about the proportion of people accepted in each of those categories. I have to think that the percentage of people you accept as clients that you knew previously is way, way higher than the percent of people you accept through queries.

Click to expand...

The percentage on signing someone from slush is certainly much, MUCH lower (it's been quite some time since I have run percentages, but at one point I found I was requesting about 7% of my queries, and from the fulls I'd requested, offering on maybe 5%. . . meaning about one-third of 1 percent, or 0.35%

That said, it's as much about VOLUME as anything. If I offered on even 1% of everything queried to me, I would sign a new client every single week. And by the end of the year be so overwhelmed I'd close completely.

We remain selective because it's the only way we can be effective. If we have too many clients, steam comes out our ears and our laptops explode.

So basically the low offer-rate on slush isn't just about your writing being good enough, it's about our lists not being too big.

Thanks for this post. I am just now thinking about finding an agent form paranomal thriller, but I am an unpublished writer and this part of the process seems mucho scary to me. This has given me some hope.

I was kind of wondering this myself because I presently live in Germany and can't go to US conferences because of the cost involved (and time off of my day job). Glad to hear the slush pile does actually work.

The slush pile is not ideal but it does work. So long as you write a good query, and send it to the right places, you'll be fine. Good luck!