Poll: Number of Rejections Before Getting an Agent

Kellion, this is always a tricky question because of how many different manuscripts some writers have to write before hitting on one that gets an agent. You may either want to specify you are just talking about the manuscript that got an agent or if you want to know all rejections, specify that instead.

Does infinity count as more than 100?

More than 100, but I sent 2 or 300 before I knew what I was doing

Just saw the ETA . The second agent took about fifty

Two rejections, two no-responses. That's the full extent of my novel-submissions-to-agents history prior to representation.

kellion92 said:

Amarie, it would be most useful to include only the rejections for the book that got the agent. Or so I think.

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Oops. I selected my answer before I saw your clarification. I chose 51-75, because it took three different books before I found an agent.

Now, on the book that was actually signed, I sent nine queries and got four rejections and one non-response.

Interesting. So far, the two most heavily populated categories are at the extremes of 0-10 and More than 100. The mid-range is empty. I am already developing a hypothesis about this distribution, but it must await further data and the completion of my Cylon detector.

Phaeal said:

Interesting. So far, the two most heavily populated categories are at the extremes of 0-10 and More than 100. The mid-range is empty. I am already developing a hypothesis about this distribution, but it must await further data and the completion of my Cylon detector.

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This is a bit surprising, actually.

My conclusion is, either you know what you're doing from the get-go and send a commercially viable manuscript to an agent who's a good match, or you plug away and perseverance pays off in the end. The mid-range is empty because it's the "meh" manuscripts and less determined writers that fail to secure an agent.

Sounds about right to me

Oh, I didn't see the clarification either. I put 51-75 because like ChaosTitan, I shopped two earlier manuscripts that got rejected all over town. The third one that snagged me an agent, I only queried about 10 I think, and pulled the ms before I could get a lot of rejections.

Second agent, no querying (was a direct referral from a friend). When I moved on to my third agent and queried again, I sent out 4 queries, got one rejection, one offer, and two non-responses.

Anne Lyle said:

My conclusion is, either you know what you're doing from the get-go and send a commercially viable manuscript to an agent who's a good match, or you plug away and perseverance pays off in the end. The mid-range is empty because it's the "meh" manuscripts and less determined writers that fail to secure an agent.

Sounds about right to me

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Hey, stop horning in on my hypothesis. Although I do have a speshul corollary at which you merely hint, muhahahahaha...

Nick Blaze said:

This is a bit surprising, actually.

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The results or the fact that my Cylon detector is not yet market-ready? (Not my fault -- people and other entities keep distracting me.)

To the original poster: It was either 5 or 6 no response/rejections. I then took a break for about 4 months, reworked my query and fixed up my ms, and then received an offer of representation on the next query I sent out.

Phaeal said:

Interesting. So far, the two most heavily populated categories are at the extremes of 0-10 and More than 100. The mid-range is empty. I am already developing a hypothesis about this distribution, but it must await further data and the completion of my Cylon detector.

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I would respectfully request a copy of your plans for building a Cylon detector. We desperately need one at my house while playing the BSG board game.

No rejections.

Jess Haines said:

I would respectfully request a copy of your plans for building a Cylon detector. We desperately need one at my house while playing the BSG board game.

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Even though you are one of these disgusting people who get an agent within 0-10 attempts, I will ask Six to PM the algorithms your way. Use them at your own risk.

I see that the 0-10 responders now have a commanding lead. My hypothesis is undergoing some revision, to take into account a possible response bias. Much-rejected people, where are you? And bring chocolate and Scotch when you come.

I'm one of those 0-10 writers. My first query turned into a full and then an offer of representation within 24 hours. This query was sent in a batch of five, three others rejected, and one other partial request.

I understand why people could look at stats like this and get frustrated. But the fact is, I wrote six books before I wrote the one that got me my agent. Four of them were queried. A few of them came close, but otherwise they bombed.

I took everything I learned from three years of querying and several more years of writing and put it all into the book that got me my offer. It's not like the people who only send out a handful of queries before getting an offer spin off a quick book and send it out there and have agents clawing at their legs. The stats for a particular book, in my opinion, are really only half the story. You have to look at the whole career before you guage how a writer got their agent.

Otherwise, it's easy to get discouraged when your book has eighty rejects and someone else got an offer on their first query.

One rejection before my second query landed me my agent. But the book never sold.

PoppysInARow said:

I took everything I learned from three years of querying and several more years of writing and put it all into the book that got me my offer. It's not like the people who only send out a handful of queries before getting an offer spin off a quick book and send it out there and have agents clawing at their legs. The stats for a particular book, in my opinion, are really only half the story. You have to look at the whole career before you guage how a writer got their agent.

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Very true - my 4-rejections book is my first novel, but it took me four years and two writing courses to get there, and many years of unfinished novels before that. I'm a very cautious submitter, because I don't like to go into a competition I can't win

Too many to count, but who cares. It's part of the process. Some get lucky on the first time out, some never get lucky.

KTC said:

Too many to count, but who cares. It's part of the process. Some get lucky on the first time out, some never get lucky.

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It isn't luck that lands an agent or a pubisher, it's a combination of doing the research it takes to know exactly where to send something, and of having the quality to send.

Fascinating. The successes are following something like a geometric distribution, where most manuscripts get placed early with a mean of about 10 rejections before successes, and there's a very long tail stretching beyond a hundred. And getting all good manuscripts accepted involves something like the coupon collector's problem.

In short, you're most likely to get an acceptance early, but there's a continuing low probability even after you've accumulated dozens of rejections.

First book:
8 agents queried
2 requested proposal within ten minutes
4 passed, 2 no-response

Total time: 6 weeks before accepting representation

Note: First book didn't sell but second one did (on Monday).

Never give up, never give in!