Only 1% is publishable?

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Fruitbat

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According to one of my "how to write books," here is a rough breakdown of the submissions agents receive:

* 87% amateurish and unpublishable

* 3% targets the market well but is too poorly written or researched to
be fixed

* 4% pretty good with virtually no market

* 4% pretty good with a saturated market

* 1% good potential if revised and polished

* 1% with excellent potential that is ready for submission

What do you think about that?
 

seun

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Interesting. I'd like to think the figure is higher but I have my doubts. Hopefully, someone with more knowledge of the industry will have something to say about this.
 

gothicangel

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I think 87% is too low, I would have gone for about 97%.

The statistics will differ from slush pile to slush pile of course. It will be interesting to see how the advent of kindle will effect the size and quality in the slush pile.

Carole Blake [Blake Friedmann] claims 99.9% of submissions are terrible. The agency receives 6000 submisions at only takes about 6 titles on a year. So statistically it's 1 in 1000.

But I don't believe it is about statistics, but how good your novel is. Good enough, really isn't good enough. You need to be aiming to be in that top percentage.
 
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mscelina

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I can answer for the slushpile I'm in charge of. I keep very stringent statistics. We're a small, independent e-publisher of historical fiction.

So far, we have published 19 titles and have 18 more currently contracted. Of those 37 titles, 9 were reissues of 'traditional' publisher titles from established midlist authors whose rights had reverted. Another 4 titles were solicited and didn't go through submissions. 26 titles came through regular submissions and I've rejected 329 manuscripts to date. So I'm accepting about 8% of the manuscripts I receive.
 

KTC

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Statistics are for statisticians.

Get me out of here. Stat!
 

Priene

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Statistics are for statisticians.

Former statistician reporting for duty...


Publisher and agent slush piles are poor estimators of the success rates of manuscripts. Good ones will (on average) visit comparatively few places before being accepted, while poor ones will continue to circulate until the author gives up. In effect, agents are cherry-picking the publishable and passing discards on to other agents. Who are doing exactly the same to them. This effect exaggerates the number of poor manuscripts.

To get an accurate estimate, you'd need a reliable way of sampling authors to find their success rate and/or a way of knowing how much double counting is going on. To my knowledge, neither of these figures is available. Which means (whatever anyone says) the true number is currently not known, but likely to be substantially less than the amount experienced by individual agents.
 

Fruitbat

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Very interesting Priene. Thank you.
 

Terie

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It all comes down to one thing:

If you write a publishable book, your chances of selling it are extremely high, and if you write an unpublishable book, your chances of selling it are zilch.

Examining statistics and percentages is an exercise in futility, because it doesn't help you write a publishable book.
 

gothicangel

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Thanks for the link. Quoting this from Slushkiller as reasons for rejection:

  1. Author is functionally illiterate.
  2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don’t publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.
  3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.
  4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare’s breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.
  5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.
  6. Author has a moderate neurochemical disorder and can’t tell when he or she has changed the subject. This greatly facilitates composition, but is hard on comprehension.
  7. Author can write passable paragraphs, and has a sufficiently functional plot that readers would notice if you shuffled the chapters into a different order. However, the story and the manner of its telling are alike hackneyed, dull, and pointless.
(At this point, you have eliminated 60-75% of your submissions. Almost all the reading-and-thinking time will be spent on the remaining fraction.)
  1. It’s nice that the author is working on his/her problems, but the process would be better served by seeing a shrink than by writing novels.
  2. Nobody but the author is ever going to care about this dull, flaccid, underperforming book.
  3. The book has an engaging plot. Trouble is, it’s not the author’s, and everybody’s already seen that movie/read that book/collected that comic.
(You have now eliminated 95-99% of the submissions.)
  1. Someone could publish this book, but we don’t see why it should be us.
  2. Author is talented, but has written the wrong book.
  3. It’s a good book, but the house isn’t going to get behind it, so if you buy it, it’ll just get lost in the shuffle.
  4. Buy this book
 

CaroGirl

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IMO, there are too many variables to make this a viable statistic.
 
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I disagree. I think the statistics are close to the truth for the simple reason most submissions made are unpublishable shite.

(Clearly I'm not an editor or I would have been more professional about it, but let's face it, most aspiring authors will remain aspiring).
 

Phaeal

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Former statistician reporting for duty...


Publisher and agent slush piles are poor estimators of the success rates of manuscripts. Good ones will (on average) visit comparatively few places before being accepted, while poor ones will continue to circulate until the author gives up. In effect, agents are cherry-picking the publishable and passing discards on to other agents. Who are doing exactly the same to them. This effect exaggerates the number of poor manuscripts.

Makes sense to me. Thanks for the pro's point of view on this issue.

Myself, I don't worry about the odds. If I have to plunge into the damn asteroid field, I'll plunge into the damn asteroid field. Repeatedly. Ain't killed me yet. ;)
 
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A lot of authors spoil their chances by being divorced-from-reality fruitloops. Don't ask me how I know this, but let's just say if I can get published, you know how bats-in-the-belfry the rejects are.
 

CaroGirl

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Thing is, if you have some success, and believe in the 1% statistical theory, it feels pretty damn good.
 
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One of my publishers has said they take on 4% of their submissions and I've sold them two books so yeah, it does feel good.

I don't envy editors who spend their days trawling through slush piles, put it that way. I've only seen a small amount and it ain't pretty.
 

Jamesaritchie

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One percent is probably accurate, if you mean publishable somewhere. It's waaaayyyyy the hell off, if you mean publishable by one of the top commercial publishers.
 

LMILLER111

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It always surprises me how many people want to write, think they can write, actually sit down for hours on end and write, and are so blind to the fact that they really, really suck. It would seem that if you read books, you should be able to tell if your writing is comparable. I know people who have received 200+ rejections from agents for books and they keep going. I mean, give up already! Not everyone can be a professional writer.
 

seun

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A lot of authors spoil their chances by being divorced-from-reality fruitloops. Don't ask me how I know this, but let's just say if I can get published, you know how bats-in-the-belfry the rejects are.

Good point. ;)

One percent is probably accurate, if you mean publishable somewhere. It's waaaayyyyy the hell off, if you mean publishable by one of the top commercial publishers.

Too high or too low?
 
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