The reality of submitting?

!

First, you research agents that handle your type of book, and go by each agent's guidelines. Most probably don't want the whole manuscript, but just query, synopsis and sample chapters or something along those lines. You can check the section here where agents are listed and see what others have to say about them, for starters. Remember, anyone can hang out a shingle and instantly "be" an agent.

I wouldn't bother with the ones who list that they take only exclusive submissions. Sometimes they take many months to get back to you, and some of them don't answer at all anymore unless they're interested. I don't think it's fair or realistic to expect you to do it that way with the low percentage of manuscripts they accept, and it could take many years to get an agent at that glacial pace.

That said, I wouldn't sent it to dozens at a time, either. It could well be that you'll get helpful feedback on the earlier ones that helps you make the manuscript more appealing for the later ones. Some might give a helpful (or not helpful) comment or two, many will not.

How many agents you'll go through before you get one is really unanswerable. Maybe one or a few, maybe a hundred or maybe not at all. After a good solid number of them (I dunno, fifty?) it might be time for another read and revise or to consider going straight to the smaller publishers who don't require an agent.

If you get an agent, come back here so we can boss you about some more.

Good luck!

*Edited to add more thoughts.

JHM123 said:

1. Do I submit to one agent at a time or multiple? I've yet to get a straight answer on this.

Click to expand...

You don't submit to agents, you query them. You submit to publishers, where the editors take over. An agent acts as a wiser middleman/partner to represent you, and go before publishers.
Query as many agents (who deal in your genre/demographic) as possible, or until your MS is finally taken in. Try to pace yourself, as it's not a race. Waiting for one to get back to you can take anywhere from a minute, to 20 years.
Expect to query over 100 agents. Make sure you do your research on the ones that are interested in your work.

2. How many rejections should I expect, and what comments should I expect to get back?

Click to expand...

Don't count rejections, and don't expect any feedback. If you get a rejection with feedback, try to understand it from the agent's perspective and keep querying (note: Don't reply with a thank yous unless they took a lot of time out of their day to give you feedback).

3. Let's say I got an agent (YAY!) now what?

Click to expand...

Submission is after you've accepted the agent's representation.
The agent might ask for some revisions. (If they ask for editing and refer you to a editor that you have to pay, break from that agent. That's a scam.)
If the book is prepared, the agent will start submitting to publishers. It's out of your hands until a publisher wants to deal with it.

JHM123 said:

I am getting scarily close to submitting to agents. I just need one more beta read to look over my MS, and then it's off to the races. And after 2+ years of hard work, the feeling is completely surreal.

However, I do have quite a bit of questions to ask about how the process works, and who better to ask than people who've suffered through it before

1. Do I submit to one agent at a time or multiple? I've yet to get a straight answer on this. That's because it depends on the author. Some send them out in batches of 5, 10 or 20. One member here sent out over a hundred at once.

2. How many rejections should I expect, and what comments should I expect to get back? Don't expect any comments. As for rejections, depends. Expect some, probably the majority, but if *all* you're getting are rejections I would check the query letter and/or the opening pages.

3. Let's say I got an agent (YAY!) now what? Now, you ask your agent. You guys work together to decide what's next.

Thanks a lot!

Click to expand...

Good luck.

1.5 months into a query my stats look like this:

59 queries written, all sent via email over the course of the first month:
Requests for full manuscript / opening chapters: 20%
(all came within a week of query being sent. 5/6 agents I had met in person requested, which shows the value of the personal connection)
Rejections (both at query stage and having seen full): 29%
Unheard: 54%

So expect a lot of silence.

JHM123 said:

1. Do I submit to one agent at a time or multiple? I've yet to get a straight answer on this.
Do whatever feels right to you. It's also considered good form to let the agents know that you are doing simultaneous queries. If you enter into an agreement with an agent, you should let any other agents that have shown interest know that you are withdrawing your query.

2. How many rejections should I expect, and what comments should I expect to get back?
Expect all of the rejections. Seriously, you will get rejected until you get accepted. No one can estimate how many that will be (0, 1, 50, 50k...).
I queried one agent with a story once. I got a letter back rejecting and commenting on my story. It was a good critique, but do not expect that kind of reply. Most agents are too busy to be doing that for people, and I still consider my experience to be a crazy fluke.

3. Let's say I got an agent (YAY!) now what?
That's for you and your agent to discuss. They are the ones that are taking on this role, to guide you into the publishing world, so they are the best suited to decide what direction you should go in. Just remember, you have a say, too, so long as you keep in mind that the agent prolly knows more about this stuff.

Click to expand...

Hope this helps!

I'm about to go down this rabbit hole too... a Lot of good info here...

According to ***sources*** he best way to submit is in batches. The feedback from the first 6 will help with the next 6 and so on.

AAAAnd, I've put an edit in as with Old Hack below, my timings were skewwiff. But I still maintain it's a lot of waiting.

Treehouseman, I have to quibble with the timings you've given.

The last time I looked for an agent I had full requests within 48 hours and offers of representation within another three days or so; and I've taken books from signing to publication in less than six months. It doesn't always take as long as you say. But I recognise that it does usually take a while.

Old Hack said:

The last time I looked for an agent I had full requests within 48 hours and offers of representation within another three days or so; and I've taken books from signing to publication in less than six months. It doesn't always take as long as you say. But I recognise that it does usually take a while.

Click to expand...

Google "geologic time".

I'm always amazed at how optimistic about this "process" those are who have had instant success.

caw

Instant success isn't instant though.

Most people on here who have stories of fast responses from agents and quick, multiple offers of rep. spent a long time working on their ms., query, list of agents, etc.

If you believe in sending out queries in batches and that the first will suck, and that you may need to retweak your pages and etc., repeatedly, well, that's probably not going to yield great results.

If you spend the time beforehand, polishing everything as best you can, you're probably more likely to find "instant" success.

blacbird said:

Google "geologic time".

I'm always amazed at how optimistic about this "process" those are who have had instant success.

caw

Click to expand...

I was writing for about ten years before I got anything published.

The submissions I referred to above were made about twenty years after that first publication.

During those intervening twenty years I wrote more than a book a year, many of which were published, which meant I was working on revising books for my publishers while also writing new ones and pitching others. I also wrote so many articles I've lost count of them: I had anything up to five articles a month published through that time.

I also worked full-time because writing is not the highest-paid work in the world and I am so fond of being able to afford the luxury of eating.

I worked my socks off for what you've called my "instant success", blacbird, and I do not deserve to be sneered at or dismissed for that.

You are missing the stage where you write and rewrite your query letter.
Go a look at Query Letter Hell (on this site) and look at Queryshark for examples.

JHM123 said:

I am getting scarily close to submitting to agents. I just need one more beta read to look over my MS, and then it's off to the races. And after 2+ years of hard work, the feeling is completely surreal.

However, I do have quite a bit of questions to ask about how the process works, and who better to ask than people who've suffered through it before

1. Do I submit to one agent at a time or multiple? I've yet to get a straight answer on this. Multiple. I sent out batches of ten every week.

2. How many rejections should I expect, and what comments should I expect to get back? I've heard that the average query success rate is 5%...which is really low. Do yourself a favor and hop on over to Query Letter Hell. My success rate more than doubled after QLH.

As for comments, expect none. Most of the time the rejections would be form rejections or no replies.

3. Let's say I got an agent (YAY!) now what? Now you discuss with your agent about the next step...which is probably editing.

Thanks a lot!

Click to expand...

The best thing you can do for yourself is to go to Query Letter Hell, read the Stickies, read and critique as many query threads as you can, and then post your own query.

blacbird said:

I'm always amazed at how optimistic about this "process" those are who have had instant success.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the thirty years I spent writing and polishing and learning my craft before I started getting quick turnarounds on requests was certainly 'instant success'.

It took me two botched books by bad publishers, two agents that didn't do a damn thing, and hundreds and hundreds x2 submissions/queries and 5 years later to get "instant success."

I worked on a query, book proposal and three sample chapters (non-fiction) for almost a year while spending copious amounts of time researching agents. I made a list of 40 that I thought would be most appropriate to represent the book. Then I submitted queries in batches of 6 as someone else suggested. ANY feedback I received from agents helped me to revise my query.

For me the process went "fast" as in I had two offers of representation by the 3rd batch which took about 6 weeks (the first were all rejections but 3 gave feedback, the second group were 3 rejections, 2 maybes and 1 never heard. 2 gave feedback.)

My agent and I then worked on polishing the proposal and the sample chapters for a few months before submitting to publishers. Again, I had a relatively quick and painless process of a few weeks and two offers from two publishers.

So, yes, "overnight" is not truly overnight, but I know authors who think my "wait" time was minimal. However, I worked really hard, for a long time, at polishing my work before submitting anything to anyone.