When a writer receives a rejection, the response from others is often, "Keep querying other agents. All it takes is one." But I wonder about this. If you contact hundreds of agents, perhaps you might land one. But isn't the true goal to write an awesome story? If it's that hard to land an agent, maybe it's not time to find one yet. I worry this applies to me.
I've contacted about 100 agents. 11 agents (11%) have requested partials or fulls. Of those who requested partials about half have upgraded to fulls. At this point the field has narrowed to five agents, all with fulls. Two have requested R&Rs.
These stats seem to indicate that I've got a reasonably good query letter and manuscript. But an awesome story would likely generate much more enthusiasm. I know there are some authors who got rejected a ton, but finally landed an agent and their book sold really well. But these are likely outliers. If agents aren't floored by a book, how likely is it that readers will be? Don't you need that kind of enthusiasm for word of mouth to kick in for the book to sell well?
I'm wondering how many of you really struggled to get an agent, but your book finally got published and it sold quite well.
I've contacted about 100 agents. 11 agents (11%) have requested partials or fulls. Of those who requested partials about half have upgraded to fulls. At this point the field has narrowed to five agents, all with fulls. Two have requested R&Rs.
These stats seem to indicate that I've got a reasonably good query letter and manuscript. But an awesome story would likely generate much more enthusiasm. I know there are some authors who got rejected a ton, but finally landed an agent and their book sold really well. But these are likely outliers. If agents aren't floored by a book, how likely is it that readers will be? Don't you need that kind of enthusiasm for word of mouth to kick in for the book to sell well?
I'm wondering how many of you really struggled to get an agent, but your book finally got published and it sold quite well.