Anyone have any lemon juice....

How many of those are not ready to submit? How many don't have a story that's marketable (for any number of reasons.)

I'm going to continue to tell myself that I *do* (or will!) have a story ready for the market and it's just matter of finding agents

Also, how many of those ecstatic writers who've snared agents and gotten pub deals actually go back and report it to Query Tracker. To me, that's akin to the number of people who *do* notify management when a retail employee goes above and beyond the call of duty.

Remember, of what is submitted to the slush pile, 95% of it is pure dreck. This includes submissions on scented paper, people with absolutely no sense of grammar etc. You can write a complete sentence. You do your research. That alone puts you in the top 5%.

I know for a fact that not all members of querytracker.net report their success stories (but I did). I can tell you that a large number of agents listed are tagged as not accepting unsolicited queries, so you can't figure them into the total of "available" agents unless you have some kind of in with them.

Don't be discouraged! It only takes one yes.

auntybug said:

We are a helpless lot of gluttons for punishment, aren't we?

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I prefer to think of us as masochists.


This business is a tough nut to crack, but like the old saying goes, if it was easy, everyone would do it. I figure that how tough it is to break into the writing/publishing industry is going to make my eventual success that much sweeter (if and when, right?).

I used Querytracker but stopped before I got my offer. So...

79 success stories!

There's hope.

The reason most people don't get agents is that most people give up.

Don't be one of those people.

Dang, that's not even 1% of a success rate.

Shady Lane said:

I used Querytracker but stopped before I got my offer. So...

79 success stories!

There's hope.

The reason most people don't get agents is that most people give up.

Don't be one of those people.

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That's so, so very true! I hear about people ready to slit their wrists because they got a couple dozen rejections. A lot of new writers have the attitude that if everyone doesn't love it, there must be something wrong. They love their book, so does their mom, their best friend, and Great Aunt Mildred, so that means the book should be a best seller. Right? RIGHT? In comes the giant clue stick. It's so difficult to get across to others the subjectivity of this business.

No, the percentage isn't great, but it's not the lottery. We don't all have equal chances. Some authors submit many, many MS but don't take the time to keep learning the craft. It only makes sense to keep submitting if each book is better than the one before it.

Plus there's the fickle nature of the business. The timing of catching the trend.... When Twilight first went big, I bet agents carefully read every vampire book they could get their hands on. Now that the trend has run for a while, good luck getting any vampire book looked at unless you're offering something truly high-concept and strikingly original. Those are things you can't control, so don't even try.