Debut Authors-path to publication survey results
- Thread starter Amarie
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I think the author in this piece is counting a slush pile as anything that came unsolicited, or the responders did not understand exactly what the slush pile is, or maybe, just maybe, it's me! That is a very high number of acceptance for a slush pile, even though its spread among many agents, its still a high number.
Correct me if I am wrong, a slush pile are those submissions that are unsolicited, or the agent did not like the opening of the submission and thus, tossed it aside without a full read. Am I wrong?
Correct me if I am wrong, a slush pile are those submissions that are unsolicited, or the agent did not like the opening of the submission and thus, tossed it aside without a full read. Am I wrong?
Isn't that the definition of a slush pile?
I don't find the figure unlikely. The first question tells us that 94% of the 55-strong group are agented, so that's 52 authors, give or take. Of these, 58% came from the slush pile, so that's 30 people. Is it so unreasonable that 30 people could land agents over the course of several years? (Look at the question about how long it took them to get a book deal - some of them were on submission for a long time.) There are hundreds of agents out there taking a handful of clients every year. That adds up to a lot of clients.
and we should consider how many agents that these people queried.
if they only sent one query each then it's a very high number. but if they sent 30 queries each then ther figure seems reasonable.
after all, send enough queries and eventually someone might accept it.
if they only sent one query each then it's a very high number. but if they sent 30 queries each then ther figure seems reasonable.
after all, send enough queries and eventually someone might accept it.
That is the percentage of agented authors surveyed who got their agents through unsolicited queries, as opposed to referrals, conferences, connections, or selling the book without an agent.
The survey only includes authors who have books coming out, so authors who submitted and failed to get representation are not represented in the survey unless they subsequently sold the book unagented.
To put it another way, an agent may only take 3 new clients out of 5000 queries, but if you poll those 3 people, 100% of them got agented through the slush pile.
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This is correct. In this case, 'slush pile' really means a query sent to an agent without a referral by a writer who had never met the agent in question. Once an agent read one of these queries, he/she then requested material.
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