Like does 1 person out of every 100 people land one? 1 out of every 200? I have no idea but I'm just curious 
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What are the odds of landing an agent?
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I think Slushkiller applies. Note that "You have now eliminated 95-99% of the submissions" before you get to the publishable ones.
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Not really sure you could ever figure that out as so many people that don't get an agent never say anything to anyone about it. It took me about six months to get an agent. We worked together for a year but it was disappointing for both of us and we parted ways. I sold my novel on my own about a year after that.
If you have a kick-ass, highly saleable manuscript, and a kick-ass query, your odds are 100%. No other figures matter.
Maybe I'm a Gothic Pollyanna,but I think if you have a bad ass MS that practically sparkles and an equally lovely query,your chances are pretty good.
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If you write a novel that tells a story, where the story holds together, where the language is actually comprehensible, and where you actually know what you are doing, then you're ahead of 90% of the submissions that you share slushpile with. Then the odds aren't so daunting.
But then again, you're aiming for the world figure skating championship, or to participate in the olympic track team, or attempting to outdo Michaelangelo. In figure skating, track, or sculpture you don't assume that your first work will win any laurels. For some reasons many new writers believe that writing should be successful from the start. It's not thus. So I don't sweat about agents now. I just enjoy the ride.
But then again, you're aiming for the world figure skating championship, or to participate in the olympic track team, or attempting to outdo Michaelangelo. In figure skating, track, or sculpture you don't assume that your first work will win any laurels. For some reasons many new writers believe that writing should be successful from the start. It's not thus.
So I don't sweat about agents now. I just enjoy the ride.Your chances are up to you. It took me less than a month while I was in the process of still writing the MS. It takes some people years, it isn't a race. You just want the best possible book out there. Make sure your book has a market and if it is well written it should land you an agent.
Good luck buddy
Good luck buddy
Supposedly, about 90% of submissions are:
1) Literally almost unreadable ("hay tihs a novel bob went store aliens grab mary bob shotgun 'get you the hot bullets of shotgun to die')
2) Completely psychotic ("this is my non-fiction account of why aliens told me to kill my wife and how I got away with it, if you don't publish it I'll kill you")
or
3) Both.
This skews the statistics, especially since a crap novel can be submitted many more times than a good novel, which usually gets accepted (and thus isn't submitted any more.)
1) Literally almost unreadable ("hay tihs a novel bob went store aliens grab mary bob shotgun 'get you the hot bullets of shotgun to die')
2) Completely psychotic ("this is my non-fiction account of why aliens told me to kill my wife and how I got away with it, if you don't publish it I'll kill you")
or
3) Both.
This skews the statistics, especially since a crap novel can be submitted many more times than a good novel, which usually gets accepted (and thus isn't submitted any more.)
And the only way you know you have a kick-ass, highly saleable manuscript, and a kick-ass query is if an agent actually agrees to take it on. Nothing else matters.
caw
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Not kidding at all.
Really, for true, if you can write two consecutive pages of grammatical English using standard spelling -- you're ahead of 90% of the slush pile.
Here's the problem: everyone who submits thinks they have a kick-ass, highly salable manuscript, and a kick-ass query.
(of course, I know that my 140k word epic about a stuttering vampire who falls in love with his werewolf speech therapist truly DOES kick ass)
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Believe it. It should make you jump for joy, truly 95% of what agents get is pure garbage. It means the rest of us, the sane ones, are already in that top 5%. If you haven't already check out that Slushkiller link Parametric posted above.
It's good news for us.
Not so good news for the agents who have to put up with that 90% unfortunately . . .
Here's the problem: everyone who submits thinks they have a kick-ass, highly salable manuscript, and a kick-ass query.
That's actually NOT a problem, as far as the original question goes: they can believe what they want, but if they don't have a kick-ass, highly saleable manuscript, introduced with a kick-ass query, they won't get an agent.
Ta da!
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So, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita wouldn't be published today?
What makes you think that one of the greatest novels of the 20th century ISN'T saleable?
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So, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita wouldn't be published today?
Obviously at the time someone thought it was saleable as it was, you know, published and all - considering how well known it is, I'd say it was pretty popular and someone somewhere recognised that. And who knows if it would have been sold today (as if all they publish today is easy and safe, anybody read "American Psycho"?). Tastes change.
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But you're using a highly fluid word there for a novel that we wouldn't know is one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, because it wouldn't yet have survived the test of time.
Whether something is saleable or not depends on a whole lot of factors. And if Nabokov was a writer today, and if he approached an agent with Lolita today (for first time publication), would you say it was saleable?
Simple answer. No.
ETA: That's for here in the states. I don't know what is acceptable elsewhere.
ETA: That's for here in the states. I don't know what is acceptable elsewhere.
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Yes, you're right, but what made me respond was the absolute surety that I perceived in willie's reply that saleable is good. I may have misinterpreted that.
It's the old argument, I guess, whether quality means lots of sold books. I won't get into that.
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Lolita was originally unable to find a US publisher and was published by a Paris press that published both avant-garde literature and pornography. I honestly don't know what would have happened with it today. There's plenty of much more explicit stuff out there, but of course most of it does not involve little girls.
You didn't ask me, but I'll answer you anyway. As stomach turning as the main character is--yes. It is a gripping story that is brilliantly written. Would there be agents and publishers who'd hesitate over the material? Almost certainly. There may well have been when it first was shopped for all I know since paedophiles have never been a popular group.
Edit: But somewhere it would have been published.
A lot of what is sellable isn't great. It's really two different topics.
What he said.
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... one can approximate the odds of getting an agent for a fairly large group of writers: out of 1000 who try X amount will succeed. But such approximations break down when the odds of one writer are attempted to be calculated, due to factors mentioned by posters above: that the writer may have a very good ms and be ahead of the curve, etc. There is a branch of statistics that takes these factor into consideration and still allows one to arrive at approximations of individual odds, but those stats are incredibly complicated and beyond my own ability to comprehend as I discovered when a fellow member led me to a Wikipedia page on the matter, which read like Latin to me. Seemed very interesting though.
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Except I'm not sure anyone ever equated "saleable" with some amorphous definition of "good". That's an altogether different debate. I think the use of the word "saleable" is very deliberate.
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