Still no positive replies

Hi JDM,

Once you get 50 posts, I'd suggest you post your query in SYW (Share your work). It's a long haul with lots of no responses and form rejections for most people. What do you write? It's good to start posting in threads for authors of your genre. It's a good way to get to know people here.

"in the past 3 months" isn't very specific. First, three months isn't necessarily an unusual time-frame for a response. Many take longer than that. Second, you aren't specific about when in those "past 3 months" you sent the queries. After 3 months, a polite follow-up should be acceptable. But, among the queried agents, do any of them say that no response = rejection?

I hate that latter situation, because it does leave you dangling, but it's increasingly become the norm.

caw

blacbird said:

I hate that latter situation, because it does leave you dangling, but it's increasingly become the norm.

Click to expand...

I've read a fair amount of websites, by publishers and agents, giving an expected response time, and then, the line "unfortunately, we cannot respond to all submissions." So yes, this does seem like the normal situation, and it's frustrating.

Hugs -- no responses are common, and so are slow ones. Depending on genre and agent selection, no response policies/practices seem to be 30 to 40 percent.

Still, why wait? I'd get some feedback on my query and pages, fix anything that needs fixing, and send more queries. Then send more!

I agree that it would be a good idea to post your query so we can have a look-see what's going on there.

Having said that, I don't think 20 is an overly large number of rejections, though certainly I can understand that it's disappointing and disheartening. I had 15 rejections before I got my first partial (and was starting to feel like a real loser) but after that the requests started rolling in.

Don't beat yourself up. I sent 67+ queries and got only 15 rejections over two years. A couple of those were personalized and useful, but they still meant 'no'. I trunked that project and worked on a different one. The new effort got me two offers and an agent within 8 weeks. You never know.

I don't know your genre, but at 20 agents, you've barely started. Feedback will help you clarify any issues with your work. If you've run through your initial list of agents, research more closely and try again.

I'm tempted to say

"Come back to me when it's 200"


but I won't.

Keep sending them in. It just takes one. Stephen King put a railroad spike in his wall, and would tack every rejection letter he got on it. He got so many the spike was weighted down so much it fell out of the wall. He filled two spikes like that.

Rejections happen to everyone...except Terry Goodkind.

King was writing shorts at the time, so not really a fair comparison. It did take him three novels to get published though, even after the experience of selling some shorts.

I've sent out over 40 (on 2 separate novels) and only gotten one full and one partial. Keep going, and use any agent responses as constructive elements to help you (free advice, am I right?) They don't like your voice? Work on that. The pacing's off? Take a look at your pacing.