Rejection Rate Staggering

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Cochinay

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I have one full request, and 25 rejections. Lessons learned: a)patience; b) humility; c) reality my novel just might be trash; d) ignore twitter ten query quacks; d) keep my real job; and e) don't expect sympathy, compliments or input.

My last rejection said, "We're sorry we can't offer any input. Please don't call the office." No one I know was clamoring or calling. I guess they're accustomed to stalkers and nutty folks.

Another said, "Be sure to keep trying. Don't be offended by rejection--it's normal and expected." Then I saw on twitter the same guy's sarcastic, snide, small-man comments directed to a number of would-be authors. It made me wonder how I even chose to query such a character.

Patience. Perseverance. A little confidence.

I'll just keep plugging away. I'll get a novel out and published one day, some day, somehow, even if the only bound copy is on my bookshelf awaiting a grandchild's notice.
 

Drachen Jager

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Not everyone makes it on their first try, in fact most don't.

Come up with fresh ideas, keep writing, keep learning, keep improving.

Eventually you'll get there, or not. But always remember, it's the journey, not the destination, and the harder the journey, the sweeter the reward.
 

cornflake

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I have one full request, and 25 rejections. Lessons learned: a)patience; b) humility; c) reality my novel just might be trash; d) ignore twitter ten query quacks; d) keep my real job; and e) don't expect sympathy, compliments or input.

My last rejection said, "We're sorry we can't offer any input. Please don't call the office." No one I know was clamoring or calling. I guess they're accustomed to stalkers and nutty folks.

Another said, "Be sure to keep trying. Don't be offended by rejection--it's normal and expected." Then I saw on twitter the same guy's sarcastic, snide, small-man comments directed to a number of would-be authors. It made me wonder how I even chose to query such a character.

Patience. Perseverance. A little confidence.

I'll just keep plugging away. I'll get a novel out and published one day, some day, somehow, even if the only bound copy is on my bookshelf awaiting a grandchild's notice.

That's not a good request rate, but it's also not a huge sample.

It could be a problem with your ms., but it seems like there could be a problem with the query if it's not generating partial or full requests.

Yes, they are accustomed to nutty folks - it can make someone sarcastic even. ;)
 

Whimsigirl

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If you haven't already, you might want to try posting your query in QLH to get some feedback. But yes, rejection is never easy :(

Good luck!
 

noranne

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I have one full request, and 25 rejections. Lessons learned: a)patience; b) humility; c) reality my novel just might be trash; d) ignore twitter ten query quacks; d) keep my real job; and e) don't expect sympathy, compliments or input.

My request rate is 1 full and 1 partial out of 44. So. Going to :cry: now.
 

mayqueen

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If you haven't already, you might want to try posting your query in QLH to get some feedback. But yes, rejection is never easy :(

Good luck!

Ditto.
 

Jo Zebedee

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I usually set fur flying with this suggestion but if your query rate is low then it might be worth checking the novel is top notch and not being rejected for things like lack of tension, punctuation, info dumping etc. I sent in loads of submissions thinking Imwas There and it turned out I was nowhere near. I took the rejections as a sign of that, rewrote, sought feedback, rewrote and repeated until I got somewhere.
 

Drachen Jager

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I agree Springs.

In my experience, Agents are far more forgiving on the query letter than they are on the actual novel. They just read the query to tell if you know how to write, your novel has appropriate stakes and such, and it's the kind of story they can represent successfully (so, similar to things they've sold in the past few years, but not too close to avoid competing with an existing client).

Make your query properly represent your novel. Spend the effort to get it right, but don't go nuts tweaking ad-nauseum. Put that effort into the novel.
 

SentaHolland

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It took me five years and countless submissions to get published. Like many, I was encouraged by possibly quite well meaning people to question my book, but when I was finally accepted, what makes my book unique was the reason they published it.
That's my story.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Are you submitting the first three page of your manuscript along with the query? If so, you may have a problem with your writing. If not, you definitely have a problem with your query.
 

Cochinay

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Are you submitting the first three pages of your manuscript along with the query? If so, you may have a problem with your writing. If not, you definitely have a problem with your query.

That's a good thought. My only request for a full followed only my query letter--no part of the manuscript. After sending the fist three chapters, the agent said he was undecided, but still wanted to see the full. He then said he liked to writing and the plot, but couldn't sell the concept. Wished me well. Actually a bit encouraging.

Maybe that tells me my opening pages aren't so great. Frankly, I've not focused on that issue.

The only comment I once picked up was in an online interview with a NY agent shortly after another rejection. Suspecting she "might" have been thinking of mine, she complained, "Why do so many new authors seem to start out with a weather report."

That could be an issue for mine, as I begin:

"Evans could feel the lingering chill inside the cab of his pickup truck. He traveled down Camino Luz with his white hard-hat on the passenger seat, and with the light of the morning sun just then beginning to spill over the ridges of the Galiuros and down the desert roads of rural Mammoth. Shadows of rocks and prairie cactus were stretched and bent low along the ground. Giant chuckwalla lizards in heavy coats of scaly armor, like ancient reptilian dinosaurs, wandered slowly back and forth across the warming pavement."

If this offends some rule, or is just "blah" or otherwise problematic, I can do some hard looking at this. Nothing etched in stone in my life.
 

mayqueen

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You can also post your opening pages in the appropriate genre section of SYW. It might not be the first paragraph itself, but there might be something else happening. Have you asked your beta-readers about it? Maybe you aren't starting in the right place. Maybe your opening pages have tons of cliches. Or maybe you just haven't found the right agent yet.
 

Fuchsia Groan

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The only comment I once picked up was in an online interview with a NY agent shortly after another rejection. Suspecting she "might" have been thinking of mine, she complained, "Why do so many new authors seem to start out with a weather report."

The "weather report" thing is a common complaint, and not just among agents. My boss hates it when writers start a story in our newspaper with something like "It was a bright, sunny day..."

Personally, I like your opening. I like description, and this is more elaborate than a "weather report": It paints a picture. I would expect it to move on from scene-setting soon, however. How quickly it needs to move on depends on your genre. In literary fic, you may be able to open with several descriptive paragraphs. In YA or a thriller, you need to get to the action fast.

I would listen to what the agent said about not being able to sell the concept, assuming it was not a form letter. Does that reflect the agent's own limited focus, or a problem with the genre in which you're trying to market the book?

As cornflake says, 22 is a small sample size. I had two requests in 22 queries, IIRC. Four more queries later, I had an agent.

But polishing those first pages can only help.
 

Drachen Jager

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That could be an issue for mine, as I begin:

Snippets from your work should only be posted on the SYW forums. This is for your own protection, as they're password protected.

Most of the sub-forums have "200 words or less" threads you can post to, or you can wait until you have 50 posts on AW and start your own thread.

If you want people here to look at your work, you should post it there, then you can put a link here for us to use.

It's not exactly a weather report, but it might as well be, there's no character development, no plot, no conflict.

Go to this link to see what agents think of the opening page, how important it is, the things they like to see and a much longer list of things they don't want to see.
http://www.annemini.com/?m=200610
 
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Katrina S. Forest

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My request rate is 1 full and 1 partial out of 44. So. Going to :cry: now.

Those sound like fine stats to me. Two out of 44 agents liked your stuff enough to ask for more.

Honestly, stats are weird anyway. If you happen to be querying a bunch of agents that only ask for material .5% of the time, then your stats won't be nearly as good.

You got two requests. Only happy tears over that allowed. :)
 

Wilde_at_heart

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Mutive, a poster on here, broke it down with a chart that showed what a 'good response rate' was vis a vis the number of agents queried.

I'm too lazy to go look for it, but I think it's somewhere in QLH...
 

J.S.F.

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FWIW, I went through about ten agent rejections and maybe twenty more I-never-got-an-answer-to emails before I first got an offer to publish my work digitally. That all took about a year. Yes, it is a VERY humbling experience. It can be very humbling, disenheartening, and even embarrassing if the publisher decides to get snarky...and some do. That's the nature of the business. People like that wouldn't dare say what they say to your face, but they'll print it with impunity unless it really crosses a line, but I digress.

Assuming your manuscript is up to snuff, then you might think about rewording your query letter. Getting the 'hook' line in isn't the easiest thing in the world, and despite having had a few books published, I still have trouble drafting a catchy query letter. So I'd look into that, just in case. There are a few sites where they tell you what to do and what not to.

Getting rejected sucks, and even the best authors out there still get rejected, so take heart. Keep refining what you have and keep submitting.
 

Dhewco

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Snippets from your work should only be posted on the SYW forums. This is for your own protection, as they're password protected.

http://www.annemini.com/?m=200610

I've never understood this. It's not 'password protected' if the password's on the same screen. Is that supposed to protect against internet searches or something like that?

I contend there's got to be a safer way to distribute the password. Maybe require you to pm a moderator for the password?
 

Jamesaritchie

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That's a good thought. My only request for a full followed only my query letter--no part of the manuscript. After sending the fist three chapters, the agent said he was undecided, but still wanted to see the full. He then said he liked to writing and the plot, but couldn't sell the concept. Wished me well. Actually a bit encouraging.

Maybe that tells me my opening pages aren't so great. Frankly, I've not focused on that issue.

The only comment I once picked up was in an online interview with a NY agent shortly after another rejection. Suspecting she "might" have been thinking of mine, she complained, "Why do so many new authors seem to start out with a weather report."

That could be an issue for mine, as I begin:

"Evans could feel the lingering chill inside the cab of his pickup truck. He traveled down Camino Luz with his white hard-hat on the passenger seat, and with the light of the morning sun just then beginning to spill over the ridges of the Galiuros and down the desert roads of rural Mammoth. Shadows of rocks and prairie cactus were stretched and bent low along the ground. Giant chuckwalla lizards in heavy coats of scaly armor, like ancient reptilian dinosaurs, wandered slowly back and forth across the warming pavement."

If this offends some rule, or is just "blah" or otherwise problematic, I can do some hard looking at this. Nothing etched in stone in my life.

It's not that it breaks a rule, exactly, it's that there is no story. I like the writing, and this really isn't enough to be suire, but weather isn't really the issue. Lack of character and story are why this opening would bother me.

There is no evidence that the character is running from something, hurrying to something, or has any problem at all. There is no emotion, no fear, no worry, nothing weighing on the character's mind, etc.

It really isn't about start with "action", in the usual sense of the word. You don't need things blowing up, or people being killed, but you do need character and story.

You need some evidence that something is wrong, that something is troubling the character. You need some evidence that a real story is at hand.

Weather can be used effectively to reflect the character's frame of mind, but you can't just have weather and description.

oYu may get this in right after this paragraph, I don't know, but, for me, while I might keep reading because I do like the writing, I;d also be irked, in a little bit of a bad mood, because I see no hint of story.

I read a lot of slush, but this is still just my opinion, and I'd have to read the rest of the first page to tell just how much of a problem this is.

Anyway, yes, weather reports are a poor start because that's all they are. They're just weather reports. They aren't character, and they aren't story. If you can merge character and story with the weather, you may have something, but standing alone, there's very little reason to keep reading.
 

mayqueen

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I've never understood this. It's not 'password protected' if the password's on the same screen. Is that supposed to protect against internet searches or something like that?

I contend there's got to be a safer way to distribute the password. Maybe require you to pm a moderator for the password?
My understanding is that it is to protect against google bots and things like that making your work searchable online.
 

AW Admin

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I've never understood this. It's not 'password protected' if the password's on the same screen. Is that supposed to protect against internet searches or something like that?

I contend there's got to be a safer way to distribute the password. Maybe require you to pm a moderator for the password?

The password is not to prevent humans from reading, but rather, to prevent Google and other indexing/ search sites from indexing.

The entire point of Sharing Your Work is to share. Once you've received crits and no longer need access to them, you can edit your original post, or request a SYW moderator to assist you.

Please read: FAQ: Am I Using Up My First Publication Rights If I Post In SYW?
 

Red-Green

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I posted my good news up in Goals & Accomplishments, but I'm re-posting the back story to that news here, because here is where it's needed, for anybody who is thinking of giving up, or is feeling crushed under a "staggering rejection rate."

I queried my first real novel in 2001, and here's what has happened between August 2001 and May 2014:

In 13 years, I’ve queried 7 novels to 216 agents, for a grand total of 453 queries. In response to those queries, I received 61 requests for more material, 5 revise & resubmit requests, 452 rejections, including 197 non-responses.

I also got 1 agent, two book sales to a small press, and whole lot of heartache. Since I sent my last query in February 2014, I got another agent, who sold a book at auction to a Big 5 publisher.

That book? The one that just sold? That book racked up 122 queries, 17 requests for full/partials, 3 R&R requests, and 122 rejections. That manuscript got kicked in the teeth, disrespected, and generally dismissed, right up until 3 different editors vied for a chance to buy it. I didn't even query the agent who finally offered to rep me and sold the book.

The publishing industry is crazy, but don't let it get you down. Keep writing. Keep trying to sell. Don't take your staggering rejection rate too personally.



The whole gory story here.
 

Treehouseman

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IThe publishing industry is crazy, but don't let it get you down. Keep writing. Keep trying to sell. Don't take your staggering rejection rate too personally.


The whole gory story here.


You've said it so much more succinctly than I could have, but I just confirmed an offer of rep with an agent today. I don't have exact figures, but I queried well over 100 agents in 2 years with this one project.

Perseverance. That's how you get there, folks. :D:D
 
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