...how many full requests did you go through before an agent asked to sign you?
I realize this has no relevance to my own waiting game, but I'm curious anyway.
Doing anything I can to pass the time...
OK, you're absolutely right that this has no relevance, because each writer's situation is individual. And my own in particular is atypical. But fwiw...
Three requests for fulls. More or less. Here's how it all went down.
I'm writing what might euphemistically be called a big book, and it's still not finished, though I'm getting close. Some while back, when it was even less finished, I was at a writer's conference where a friend of mine met with an agent. The agent turned her down but said she was looking for a certain kind of book, and my friend said, "I happen to know someone who is writing that sort of book..."
So the agent passed along a request that I query her, which I did. She asked for a partial, which I sent, with the explanation that the story was not yet finished. She ended up passing the partial to another agent in the agency, who requested a full.
That was the first one. However, I never sent it because she wanted to wait until it was finished.
Later, a very smart and successful published friend suggested I break the book into volumes and start querying the first volume. In fact, I could start with her agent, with no need to query at all because she would offer an introduction. So I sent him what I imagined would be the first volume. I'm not sure whether that counts as a full manuscript request or not, since he ended up asking for a synopsis of the rest, but I'll call that request number two.
He ended up turning it down. Praised the writing but didn't get the way the story was structured and wanted a different character to be protagonist. Strongly intimated that if I were willing to rewrite, he'd reconsider.
I waffled (well, agonized) over this, but in the end, decided to buckle down and finish what would probably be the third volume (think
Lord of the Rings: One story sliced into thirds), and then figure out what to do with it. One day I was discussing the situation with another writer friend, whose first book was about to debut. He said, "Send it to my agent. He will love it." He proceeded to give his agent the sales talk of the century about my novel and the agent said, "Send me everything you have so far. Can't wait to read it."
Oh boy, I thought, nothing like pressure, how can it possibly live up to whatever my friend told him...but I emailed him the huge but still unfinished manuscript and told myself to put it out of my head, because there was no way he was going to like it anyway. I had actually met this agent, years earlier, and based on some generalized comments he made then, I was pretty sure what I was writing wouldn't appeal to him.
I sent him the full on a Friday. On the following Monday afternoon he called. He had read the entire thing in one weekend and was wildly enthusiastic. You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather.
So that's how I got my agent. At the moment, he's (very patiently) waiting for me to finish the final section, and then it goes on submission. We'll see what happens then. One step at a time.
Like I told you--atypical.
The odds of someone signing an agent on the basis of an unfinished manuscript are pretty miniscule, and probably not one agent in a hundred (or more) would even consider it. But--it happened to me, and it happened to another friend of mine (the one I mentioned first, whose agent turned me down), who went on to become a huge bestselling author.
For every story like this, though, you'll hear dozens about someone who queried and was rejected by fifty or a hundred agents before finding representation and success.
Really, it's all about patience and persistence and finding the right match.
Good luck!
