I have an agent; so now what are the odds?

There really aren't any statistics for you. Your odds are greatly increased by having an agent, but that doesn't guarantee publication. I've heard some authors and their agents submit up to three or four books before one finally sells. Other authors sell very, very quickly, and with the first book their agent goes out with.

You've passed a huge hurdle and signed with (what sounds like) a good agent. You say you've had an agent for a year, but not how long you've been on submission. I assume you've also been working on something new this past year, so you have something else to present in case this current work goes nowhere?

There are no odds or percentages. It's a VERY subjective business. But if you got a good, reputable agent, then chances are the book itself is good or they wouldn't have taken it on. (They're in this to make money after all). They can also open doors for you and get the manuscript in front of the people most likely to buy it. Your odds are better than someone without an agent.

Some books take longer to sell than others, too. Every agent has a story about the book that they believed in that took them years to sell (you see it mentioned on their blogs a lot). And the sad truth is, some book never sell, and it might take book two or three before that author sells. (Hopefully that won't be you, but it does happen.)

Hang in there. If your agent is doing all they can, there's not much else they can do. Talk to them about it, that's what they're there for.

First book, agented by top-notch agency, no sale, second book, second NYC top-flight agent( one doesn't have to switch-- I did), now getting ready for second submission, all this in the past year. I am realistic. This book may not sell either. So many factors go into making a sale. The agent can only do so much. Wishing everyone on submission good luck.

Rog and Zsuzsi, what kind of book are you subbing? I don't know all that much about the business, but I imagine that certain types of books take longer in general, and that the market right now is worse in some sectors. So maybe that info will be helpful to others...

It largely depends on who the agent is. Not all agents are created equal, and publishers do not treat all agents the same. Soem agents have a reputation for sending in quality pretty much each and every time, some agents have a reputation for sending in quality part of the time, and some agents have a reputation for sending in quality about once in every hundred tries. Publishers treat agented submissions accordingly.

Jeeze, ninety percent of the slush I've read the last few years was agent slush, meaning agented submission that came in at teh publishing house, and was treated just like unagented slush.

Still, it's never about the odds, it's about the quality of your novel.

ROG50--I know the feeling. My experience was that I got a reputable NYC agent with a nice client list. He told me he liked the story but it needed work. His initial notes were brief, but completely on target. Then he "made me" work my ass off for over a year with re-writes until he thought it was ready to go out. It is a much different and (hopefully) much better novel. Now its been out at a handfull of places for a month and I wait. A few passes and still under consideration at other places. But he's been very candid that it is a very tough fiction market right now and the last thing most of the large houses want is another debut novelist in their ranks. If you get publishers marketplace daily deals you will see that there are very few fiction sales right now of any sort and many of those appear to be going to repeat authors or smaller houses (although memoirs and non-fiction appear to be picking up this fall). I guess its just hang in there, keep writing and trust your agent (until, of course, you dont anymore -- but then you really do go back to square one because none of the large houses right now appear to be taking unsolicited manuscripts).

Jamesaritchie said:

Still, it's never about the odds, it's about the quality of your novel.

Click to expand...

No one can quantify quality. Robert Pirsig tried, by god, and he went crazy. I suppose there is data out there, somewhere, on the likelihood of an agented book getting published by a quality publisher. (Hehe.) Obviously, it's always possible to get published if you don't care about the publisher, but getting a quality publisher if you have a quality agent, I'm guessing one in two.

rog50 said:

Long story short, I guess I'm just venting frustration. I know the odds are infinitely better having an agent than not. But infinity x zero is still zero.

Click to expand...

No! Don't say that. Infinity times zero is most certainly not zero - it's undefined! It's an indeterminate form. Respecting your metaphor, it doesn't mean that your chances are zero. It's just that nobody can tell you how long it will take. As frustrating as it is, I suggest that you don't meditate on it too much.

Concentrate on the effort and not the outcome.

Good luck,

--J

To answer your question directly. I don't think anyone publicizes those kind of stats--not in this business.

Click to expand...

http://www.writers.net/forum/read/10/181626/181619Vt

... even so, I once read that the percentage is 60% or so on a site by someone in the industry, for what it's worth.

Julie Worth said:

No one can quantify quality. Robert Pirsig tried, by god, and he went crazy. I suppose there is data out there, somewhere, on the likelihood of an agented book getting published by a quality publisher. (Hehe.) Obviously, it's always possible to get published if you don't care about the publisher, but getting a quality publisher if you have a quality agent, I'm guessing one in two.

Click to expand...

Of course some people can identify quality. Quality always, without exception, means: 1. A book a publisher wants. 2, A book that the reading public will buy in large numbers.

But ths aside, it's just weird to think you can't identify quality. If you can identify junk, and pretty much anyone can do this, you can identify quality.

The biggest myth out there is that writing is subjective. Only good writing si subjective, and most publishers, or most editors, have a very, very good eye for indentifying good writing and good storytelling.

You still have to fit teh book with the right publisher, but from my experience, good books always find good homes, as long as the fit is there.

The second biggest myth is that the world is filled with good books and good writers that can't find a publisher. If so, they're hiding very, very well. They don't come thrugh the slush piles, they don't show up in agented submissions, so where teh heck are they?

This thread was very helpful -- thank you. I am a longtime (as in years) lurker, new to membership and posting. Would any of you more experienced members mind spelling out what happens when your manuscript lands on the publisher's desk? I get what happens on our end -- wait, wait, and wait some more -- but what steps does an editor have to go through before he or she can make an offer? I've seen references here to acquisitions boards and editorial boards, but wanted to get a more clear idea. Thanks!

In the end, waiting is the hardest part. I stay focused on my next book and my heart skips a beat when I get calls from NYC. You'll hear it time and time again. First books don't always sell. It's a numbers game, stay with it. If you can't stand it not being published, indie publishing has it's many success stories.

Best,
Greg Gutierrez
www.greggutierrez.com

phoenix said:

Would any of you more experienced members mind spelling out what happens when your manuscript lands on the publisher's desk?

Click to expand...

Not all publishers work the same way, but here's one typical scenario:

The editor reads your ms. and loves it. Their next step is to have one or more other people read the ms. and give their opinion. Mostly these readers will be editors or editorial assistants, but they might include marketing and sales, if the editor wants to drum up interest in the work. If the editor gets a lot of negative feedback on your novel, they might end up rejecting you at this point.

If everyone likes it, the editor will draw up a profit and loss sheet for the project. In some publishing houses, the editor needs management to sign off on the offer. Others have periodic acquisitions meetings for the department, where the editor presents the work and the P&L. The editor will hand out copies of the ms. to more readers before this meeting. (See part above about drumming up excitement.) Again, if the response is negative, you could get a no even though the editor liked your work.

But if all goes well, the editor then makes the offer. If you have an agent, there might be some negotiation. At some point, when you and your agent are satisfied, your agent tells the editor yes. Everyone does a happy dance.

If you and your agent submitted to multiple houses, your agent will call the other editors to let them respond. They might pass, or they might try to outbid the first publisher. Things could get interesting at that point. However, barring the case where all the offers are terrible, you eventually choose one and things proceed as before to the happy dance.

... so in other words an ms needs about as much approval to be pushed through for publication as a bill in Washington needs to get passed ;-)

Ken said:

... so in other words an ms needs about as much approval to be pushed through for publication as a bill in Washington needs to get passed ;-)

Click to expand...

It can feel that way.

Once you get an offer, you enter a whole new level of waiting. Waiting for contract and payment. Waiting for editorial notes. Waiting for the release date, which can shift around a little or a lot, depending on the rest of the publisher's schedule.

Except, as Uncle Jim says, you don't really wait. You start the next project.

The last time I asked an agent about the odds of a newly-agented debut author getting published he told me that he sold perhaps half of the new writers he took on, and regretted not selling the other half. He represented literary writers, and I suspect things are different in other genres, but it's a reasonable guideline to work with.

Thank you, eqb, for that informative (and sobering!) post. I wish I could just focus on the happy dance part.

phoenix said:

Thank you, eqb, for that informative (and sobering!) post. I wish I could just focus on the happy dance part.

Click to expand...

You'll be amazed how the pain of waiting just *vanishes* once you hear the words, "We'd like to make an offer."

Oh, I so wish I hadn't stumbled upon this thread.

If you have an agent, and your book isn't sold, then... I can't calculate the odds on that.

But if I don't have an agent, then I'm in the lower left quadrant of the graph, in negative territory on both the X and the Y axis.

Oh, dear. (Feeling a little like Eeyore, here.)

... it's not altogether that depressing. Going by what O.H. says if one gets an agent there's at least a 1 in 2 chance they'll get published. Pretty fair odds, though nothing to be exuberant about either.

You have a sample size of 1 (your book) in a population (books accepted by agents) where quality varies enormously. It is statistically invalid to hypothesise on the chances of your book being published by taking the mean of samples from that heterogenous population*.

ie you don't know, and can't say, until the book has done the rounds. Once it's been rejected by a good number of publishers, then start hypothesising. If it's accepted, you're not going to care anyway.


Priene (bringing statistical enlightenment to AW since 2007)




*unless you start doing Bayesian statistics, but I could never understand a word of that stuff