For the Agented - HOW MANY???

44 times. Eeeek!

About 120 in all, about 40 on partials and 20 on fulls, of two entirely different novels combined.

I cheated. I got published with two different publishers without having an agent. Saved myself a lot of rejections, it seems.

Sent out 30 queries for the first book... no one bit (thankfully, it sucked).

Sent out 30 queries for the second... no one bit (thankfully, it needs revision).

Sent out 50 queries for the third... five requests for partials, two for fulls, one said yes.

Blondchen said:

This might help those of us who are habitual reader of the Rejection and Dejection board...

How many times did you get rejected before you landed someone who loved your work?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

I couldn't even tell you. It took me eleven years to get my agent, but she's worth the wait.

About 60 for two different books.

Tri

75 to get 9 partials, 5 fulls and 2 yes'. 1 of the yes' was a garbage yes (didn't do my research before I sent) and the other seemed to be good at the time, but then once I signed I realized I was better having no agent than staying with the agent I signed with.

Ended up selling that book to a small pub w/o an agent.

I stopped counting too, but it was a lot. My first agent I got at a conference. My book was named best novel, and she was the prize, or so I thought. My next agent signed up for one of my classes, and she was so enthusiastic, but she couldn't sell my (second) book. My current agent, who is a saint, I found through yet another conference. But in between all that there were a lot of rejection letters.

I sent 30 queries, had requests for a proposal from 14 of those, and was offered representation by seven.

Even after I'd signed with an agent, I STILL got rejection letters from some of those original 30 queries. And know what? Those still stung.

3 - but it may be from 1 to -- how many agents are there?

About 40-something for me.

105, but that's just for one novel - not counting all of the other rejections I've gotten over the years when I tried to get agents with some of my sucky trunk novels.

some stats on my querying :

queries sent : 121

partial requests : 22

parital rejections : 9

full requests : 4

full rejection : 1

rejections : 63

assumed rejections : 15
(this number is probably higher now!)

total rejections : 78

invitation to resubmit : 4

personalized rejections : 10
(mostly on partials, tho some on queries.)

the full requests were off of probably just
a dozen partials--as i was getting partial requests
after i had signed with an agent. so they
were never sent. i also pulled my partials with
agents after i signed with bill.

I'd be interested in seeing these figures broken down by genre. Not all genres have an equal number of agents to query, fantasy and science-fiction being the most notorious.

Somewhere around 100 for my fantasy adventure novel.
Now I have to go write another one

Sent about 30 queries total.

It resulted in 7 agents reading the full:
3 rejections, 1 invitation to resubmit, 2 nonresponses, 1 offer of representation.

It took about 8 months, although some of that time was spent revising based on agent feedback.

50-odd, I'd say.

ETA: YA realistic fiction and YA magical realism. I queried 4 or so mss before I found an agent.

my genre is YA asian fantasy.

i started with fantasy agents then began
querying YA--which have a lot more agents,
i believe. my agent handles YA.

Queried around 200 agents, got 23 requests for reads (fulls and partials), got my lovely agent. I don't know how many rejections that comes out to, but it was a lot. (Not every query was answered, and not every agent who requested a read read the material because I still had 11 agents reading when I got my offer for representation and a few agents just bowed out without reading.)

Only nonfiction books for children or adults.

Mystery/Paranormal

That was a science fiction book.

Tri