36,000...

Stats like that make me want to hide under my couch.

If you read the stats in association with Making Light's Slushkiller you'll feel a lot better.

I saw that. Crazy, isn't it? Are there really that many people writing and querying books?!

The total number of queries doesn't bother me. Only a small percentage of those authors actually know what a query is supposed to be. Of them, not everyone can write one and of those, only some wrote books the agent would be interested in. (If the post said we got several thousand queries that did all of that, then I'd be on edge.)

I feel pretty confident about my queries, they do what they're supposed to. I'm much more concerned about making sure the manuscript my query describes is publishable quality.

After all, a no at the full request stage is still a no, regardless of how encouraging it is.

EDIT: Just checked the NaNoWriMo website, and it looks like 36,000 is just about the exact number of winners they had this year. Take into account all the novels written every year outside of NaNo... yeah, that's a lot of queries.

The more telling stat is 7 clients signed from 69 full requests.
Approx 1:10 chance of getting signed if they request your full manuscript

Except that working out the odds like that isn't useful, because the odds are different for every single book that's written. I've seen subs which had no chance at all of ever being published by a reputable house; and I've seen subs which were almost certainly going to get published.

I wrote a blog post inspired by Nelson's stats this time last year. It's about why the odds don't matter. I think it makes sense for me to link to it again here. While it is fascinating to see the numbers, please PLEASE remember, they don't actually mean anything for you as an individual author:

http://ididntchoosethis.blogspot.com/2010/01/its-not-about-odds.html

waylander said:

The more telling stat is 7 clients signed from 69 full requests.
Approx 1:10 chance of getting signed if they request your full manuscript

Click to expand...

Nah, that's not accurate: you're not taking into account the people who were offered representation but who went with another agency.

If they had said how many offers of representation came out of the 69 full requests, that would be a more useful figure.

36k queries and only 69 full requests? Is that normal? It seems pretty low to me but then again, I'm no agent. However, it does make me feel a little happier about my full requests...

to me the 69 full requests is more telling than the sheer number of queries.

IceCreamEmpress said:

Nah, that's not accurate: you're not taking into account the people who were offered representation but who went with another agency.

If they had said how many offers of representation came out of the 69 full requests, that would be a more useful figure.

Click to expand...

Good point.

And yes, the odds say nothing about the prospects for your manuscript.
If you have written an excellent book then the odds of getting an offer from a full manuscript request are 1.

wow, some huge numbers, but like others have said, it shouldn't really have any baring on YOU as an individual. I can imagine a huge number of them 36,000 are utter crap and from people simply not ready. Imagine how many work emails you get, mine is usually dozens and dozens, and i know many who get hundreds (if not thousands a day)

But what % of all them are actually useful and important?

In my experience not too many...

Matt (Turndog Millionaire)

Depends on the quality of writing, both query and mms.

The Nelson Agency gave me form rejections in 2009 and early 2011, on an awkward query letter that didn't do a mms justice (it's since been trunked, pending beta readers' responses.) On a completely new project and an effective query letter, they asked for a partial one day after I queried. I'm fairly confident this new project will find a home with Nelson, another agency, or publisher. It's a better book. I'm not in a vacuum about my guess, either -- I'm getting personalized rejections and sales from short fiction, now. Through hard work and learning, I've raised my chances much higher out of that initial pile of 35,000 to 40,000 queries.

Many years ago, I was a summer intern for a literary agent. I got to read the slush pile entries that people spent money to print and mail. Out of her backlog of 300 queries, I think I flagged 10. Of those, she ultimately asked for only 2. That was over a two-month period in 1988. With email, agents are getting hundreds of queries a day.

The most effective thing we can do as writers is ignore the statistics and focus on our writing.

Something else to consider, Kristen's agency goes above and beyond when it comes to selling the manuscript. Where most agents give up after 10-15 solicitations to publishers, they are the Energizer bunny of the literary agent world.

So, I imagine you wouldn't take on clients that you were "iffy" about.

I attended a query letter "workshop" with one of the agents (Sarah) and she said that 90% (or more) of what comes in doesn't fall within their submission guidelines: submitting genres they don't represent, writing a 5-page synopsis instead of a query letter, bad grammar, bad spelling. So, those numbers are coming from a smaller "pool" of people who knew what they were doing and could follow directions AND who cared enough about their query letters to proofread for spelling and grammar.

You look at an online community like this message board and we are such a tiny little blip on the radar. I would wager that most writers don't have the benefit of the resources here. I would also say that those who come here and take their craft seriously (and take suggestions seriously), will have a far better go of it.

You give me 10 random people who don't bother with internet forums (or websites that assist in querying) and 10 people from this board and I'd put my money on the boarders any day.

Just my take.

That's only 100 queries a day.

It's not hard to estimate that 90% of those queries are really, really bad. I mean, people come to QLH who've never read Query Shark.

So that's 10 possibly decent queries every day. I'd say half of those are just meh. So that leaves 1800 decent queries a year that might appeal to an agent. From that, how many make it past the first five pages? A partial? And remember that most agents are getting the same queries.

MysteryRiter said:

36k queries and only 69 full requests? Is that normal? It seems pretty low to me but then again, I'm no agent. However, it does make me feel a little happier about my full requests...

Click to expand...

The bulk of those queries are really bad, like "Hey, agent, I'm the next best thing!" Or "Dear Sir" to a woman. Or they're pitching a children's PB to an agent who only reps women's fiction. Or the novel is only half-completed.

CrastersBabies said:

90% (or more) of what comes in doesn't fall within their submission guidelines: submitting genres they don't represent, writing a 5-page synopsis instead of a query letter, bad grammar, bad spelling. So, those numbers are coming from a smaller "pool" of people who knew what they were doing and could follow directions AND who cared enough about their query letters to proofread for spelling and grammar.

Click to expand...

What was that I wrote upstream? Hang on, wasn't this it?

Old Hack said:

If you read the stats in association with Making Light's Slushkiller you'll feel a lot better.

Click to expand...

Yep, that's what I wrote.

Slushkiller. It explains it all.

CrastersBabies said:

Something else to consider, Kristen's agency goes above and beyond when it comes to selling the manuscript. Where most agents give up after 10-15 solicitations to publishers, they are the Energizer bunny of the literary agent world.

.

Click to expand...

Every good agent keeps submitting as long as there's a place to submit that won't harm the writer's future chances.

IceCreamEmpress said:

Nah, that's not accurate: you're not taking into account the people who were offered representation but who went with another agency.

If they had said how many offers of representation came out of the 69 full requests, that would be a more useful figure.

Click to expand...

The numbers are low, if anything. Yes, some of these will find representation with other agencies, but those others agencies are saying no to at least as many, and some agencies say no to one hell of a lot more writers.

There may be a tiny bit of trade off, but not enough to matter. And representation, of course, doesn't mean a sale.

heyjude said:

I saw that. Crazy, isn't it? Are there really that many people writing and querying books?!

Click to expand...

It's difficult to believe how many are writing and querying novels. This agency receives more queries than many, but fewer that some others. You can find writers on here who have queried up to 350 agents, and that's for one kind of books.

Millions want to be writers, and millions of novels are making the rounds.

CrastersBabies said:

You give me 10 random people who don't bother with internet forums (or websites that assist in querying) and 10 people from this board and I'd put my money on the boarders any day.

Click to expand...

But then you'd be betting on me! That could get ugly and really lighten your wallet...

waylander said:

The more telling stat is 7 clients signed from 69 full requests.
Approx 1:10 chance of getting signed if they request your full manuscript

Click to expand...

Cool. I'm going to pretend that applies across all agents. Now my offer of representation should arrive any day now! ^_^

Old Hack said:

What was that I wrote upstream? Hang on, wasn't this it?



Yep, that's what I wrote.

Slushkiller. It explains it all.

Click to expand...

Didn't see the link. Didn't click it. Just wrote what I'd heard first hand. A thousand apologies.

Jamesaritchie said:

Every good agent keeps submitting as long as there's a place to submit that won't harm the writer's future chances.

Click to expand...

Well, the question begs to be asked: how many "good" agents are out there?