All it takes is one agent. Hmm. Really?

Tastes vary wildly. On the book I sold, I queried eight agents. Four asked for the full, three offered representation, one said no but felt I'd find a home for it elsewhere, one said it wasn't his type of book, one form reject and one no response. The response from editors when my agents submitted it was about the same.

Not everyone likes the same kinds of books. That goes for agents, too. To have five agents with fulls is a pretty darn good response rate. Two willing to work with you on it is also very good.

No one knows how a book will do if it sells. But it's not uncommon to hear about books that took a while to sell and then did quite well. And an agent won't take on a book that doesn't wow them. All of their clients floored them. Not all of those books sell to publishers, and of the ones that do sell, not all of them wow readers, even if they did wow agents and publishers.

Publishing is a strange and unpredictable business.

"All it takes is one" just means that only one agent has to love it and offer you rep and then, presto, you have an agent. That's all. If you query the right agent who happens to fall in love with it, there you go, that's your agent.

"All it takes is one" doesn't extend much farther than that.

Procrastinista said:

Yeah, but there seems to be an implication that you should keep looking until you find such an agent. But maybe if agents' response isn't super strong, one should stop after querying x agents, where x isn't such a large number. Maybe x is only equal to thirty, rather than a hundred, or some such.

Click to expand...

Dude! I don't mean to be a jackanape, but those are HUGE percentages. I sent out 70 queries on my first book...got about 15 rejections so far. Two requests for a partial, and one full. The whole process is different for other people...H.P. Lovecraft got 200 rejections before he got one piece published. The walls in his room were FULLY COVERED in rejection letters. Never underestimate yourself. =)

Procrastinista said:

Yeah, but there seems to be an implication that you should keep looking until you find such an agent. But maybe if agents' response isn't super strong, one should stop after querying x agents, where x isn't such a large number. Maybe x is only equal to thirty, rather than a hundred, or some such.

Click to expand...

Sometimes it takes X number of agents to find the one with the contacts to sell a given book. Not all books are instantly recognizable as something that's going to sell - that doesn't mean they're bad books or poorly written.

Procrastinista said:

Yeah, but there seems to be an implication that you should keep looking until you find such an agent. But maybe if agents' response isn't super strong, one should stop after querying x agents, where x isn't such a large number. Maybe x is only equal to thirty, rather than a hundred, or some such.

Click to expand...

I agree, but I think you're reading into it too much. It's just an encouraging thing we say to each other

It does take only one, but there aren't a hundred good agents for a single genre out there. Not even close.

And, yes, when you have too many fulls rejected, something is seriously wrong besides taste.

Rare is the person who can:
1) write really well
2) think up great stories
3) tell those stories well
4) write awesome query letters

Many of us here have three of the four, but only a small percentage have all four.

IMO

I tend to think a lot of writers here are shotgunning their queries to any agent who lists their genre on some agent database, rather than targeting queries to specific agents who you strongly suspect (based on research of their sales) will like your particular story. If you shotgun, you'll rack up a ton of rejections, and significantly lower your percentage of positive response, making it seem as if you're just banging your head on a wall. Good research---using forums like this one, as well as Publisher's Marketplace, the acknowledgement pages of books similar to yours, etc---will narrow your choices to those agents who would really be interested. Ideally, every query letter would specifically mention books similar to yours that the agent has sold.

Remember, too, that agents rep books they believe they can sell, and like it or not, they're often following the latest trend. If your book doesn't happen to fall into that trend, then it may be harder to find an agent. If you write non-fiction, particularly non-fiction that contains a story, you'll be a lot better off than a novelist these days. And so on.

The whole ugly process---from finding an agent to getting your book reviewed---is fraught with worry, anxiety, manic-depressive reactions, and constant self-doubt. Somehow, at every step, you must maintain some degree of confidence in your writing ability. If you're getting requests for the manuscript, then you're doing pretty well.

Inspiring thread. Following with interest.

Becca C. said:

I agree, but I think you're reading into it too much. It's just an encouraging thing we say to each other

Click to expand...

It's a mantra, reminding you to never give up! If you ask almost any famed author, I'm sure they would tell you horror stories of getting rejected, then finding an agent who didn't work out...etc. etc.

From your stats, it sounds like you know what you are doing; you've got a good query, a lot of interest. My advice? Forget about this book (keep querying it and submitting, but don't waste time worrying over it), and start writing the next one.

What I would give for your stats.

My problem, after having had three agents over 20 years (with eight books repped), is that all of them loved the books-stories, and in some case multiple agents offered representation for the same book, but NO major editors picked up on the enthusiasm. I mean, Zero, Nada, 0, not a one. For me, at least, the gap between agent love and editor love is the one massive hurdle I've never jumped in all this time. Sure I've sold seven books by myself, some to medium-big houses, but the fact remains that an agent's love for the book means absolutely squat to me.

I wish the correlation was different, better odds and such. I've never received a re-write request from a major editor, which astounds me after about 50 agented subs.

Tri

I had so many zillions of rejections, I don't even know. I queried four different books. I got rejected on queries and partials and fulls and I kept writing books and I kept sending queries, and I got rejected on every single one of those books a million times.

I finally got the one offer. I told the agents with fulls. That turned into four offers. My first book sold, and my second, third, fourth, and fifth all sold at auction.

So yeah. I'd say it only takes one.

You really, really need to remember how widely taste and opinions can vary. I had over 10 partial/full rejections on my most recent query-go-round, but also 5 offers of rep. And the same week I got my 5 offers, one agent passed because, in her opinion, the story had no conflict.

Will the book sell? Who knows. But "awesome story" is subjective, and you really want an agent who loves your story (not just likes it) because that's the agent who's going to work their ass off for you. You can research all you want, but you can't know who that agent is going to be. I researched a ton, but my offers all came from agents who I didn't think would be as interested. All you can do is query.

Procrastinista said:

But look at your stats. 50% of contacted agents asked for a full. And 75% of those wanted to rep you. Those are some huge percentages, which suggest your book might sell well.

Click to expand...

But they're not runaway bestsellers like the numbers might suggest. They're doing fine, but my query stats have nothing really to do with the sales figures. Books that no one wanted and eventually were self published have taken the book world by storm, and books paid huge advances have flopped. You can't look at the numbers and expect to gauge future sales from it. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to play the numbers game like that.

One agent who loves your work and gets it to one editor who loves your work, and then readers find and love your work can result in major sales. Just like ten agents and twelve editors who love it can result in a total failure. I've read 95% of all first books fail. That means a lot of book agents loved didn't pan out.

Readers make or break a book. And you can't gauge what they'll love or when they'll love it.

i think part of the problem is you are looking at the phrase "all it takes is one agent" and somehow concluding that this means, or at least heavily implies, that one or twenty doesn't make a difference. I don't think anybody actually suggested the second part, that once you have one who the hell cares if your acceptance rate is 50% or 0.05%, or that since you only need a single agent there's no reason not to try to make your story and query as marketable as possible.

You only need one acceptance, but like with most things, more choices is generally better.

There are a ton of factors as to why an agent passes on a manuscript. I think if you're thinking of it like "If most of the agents are passing then it must not be good enough", well I think your being much too cynical. Agents aren't genies. They will ALL tell you that. They never really know for sure if something is going to sell, both to an editor and to the public (Editors, I'd imagine, are much easier to figure out than the public). Don't take agents opinions so highly that you think you're doomed as a writer because your percentages are not as high as you would like.
Believe in yourself and take the punches as they come. Pick yourself up and keep moving.

Something to think about too- you grow as a writer and if you're getting attention (ANY attention) then you are doing something right. And you will get better. Your growth will be higher with an agent.

I think it would be incredibly silly if you were to say "Well, I'm not getting the attention I'd like so I am going to stop trying and start over." even though you clearly have agents interested. Which, based on your view here, is really the only option your giving yourself.

Things don't always happen how we expect them. Don't put yourself down because of it.

One thing about the querying process, you have to have thick skin and to expect rejection. I've heard far more people query for months than stories of people who get contracts right away.
You've had a reasonable success rate, including agents who wanted fulls after reading partials. That says something.
You sound discouraged, and that's ok for a while, but then you have to get the fire back in your belly. You need to be your own best advocate for your book and to believe in yourself. If you hadn't gotten any requests, then I'd suggest getting new betas and asking them to take a look at pacing and POV.
Good luck.

Procrastinista said:

Are the second through fifth books the ones you queried a zillion times, or were they the books your wrote after the one that attracted an agent? If they were the ones you queried a ton with, that truly suggests agents don't necessarily gauge a book well. If they were written after you landed an agent, then that suggests you'd really grown as a writer and doesn't reflect on agents.

Click to expand...

All ones I wrote after. We did try to sub one of the ones I was querying and we got a lot of so closes but no cigar. We also had an adult book on sub that didn't sell. I didn't count those in my figures

I'm not meaning to comment on agents, though. Except maybe to say that agents don't turn down good books because they're good, but because they're just not the best agent for the job or it isn't their taste and they know they can't advocate for it as much as they need to. There are a zillion reasons why agents reject stuff. You just have to write the right book and find the right agent. It takes persistence, but it also only takes one.