Why do some agented manuscripts still get ignored?

I guess it depends on the agent and the editor. I have heard one editors say of one agent that she not only reads everything that agents sends, she contracts everything they send.

My guess is that the editors are only human and, when faced with a huge pile of submissions, errors happen. Manuscripts are misplaced or lost sometimes.

I had an agent who was unable to sell my manuscript. She sent it to 16 places and only 12 replied (with rejections). I think it was her fault the other 4 didn't reply b/c she probably sent the manuscript cold or to an editor who no longer worked there, etc. It's often due to lack of planning from the agent's end. And yeah, sometimes editors misplace things too.

I am curious, how do you know they're not being read? Maybe not immediately, like this week, but how do you know they won't be read?

A good agent shouldn't have to wait six months, a year, etc. on their hands hoping to hear from the editors. I think a good agent should be able to call for status, and they may even have a rapport with the editors to ask, what's going on? A good agent worth his salt wouldn't be "too hesitant to follow up." Editors are busy, but they're not evil monsters. An agent should be able to ask for status, I believe.

If your agent is sitting on his hands for six, twelve months, then you should be skeptical.

This sounds like a good question for Miss Snark.

maestrowork said:

A good agent shouldn't have to wait six months, a year, etc. on their hands hoping to hear from the editors. I think a good agent should be able to call for status, and they may even have a rapport with the editors to ask, what's going on? A good agent worth is salt wouldn't be "too hesitant to follow up." Editors are busy, but they're not evil monsters. An agent should be able to ask for status, I believe.

If your agent is sitting on his hands for six, twelve months, then you should be skeptical.

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I agree. That's one of the reasons I ended my relationship with my former agent.

I also think blacbird has it right--the best agents generally have the best connections, which is why you always want to shoot for the top.

Agent's Reputation

Like any business, the agents' passed dealings with a particular publisher may help or hinder your chances.

My agented (well-established) book proposal has been on submission for eight months.

I had an acquisitions editor inform me that they were, "wary of taking on another client of my agent, because of some passed issues with one of his clients." Not sure as to the specifics of the issue.

He did say the issues have been cleared up, so they will let me know of a decision soon, which tells me that they're still considering.

Hope that helps.

Yeah, big problem with this. My agent, who is relatively new, has made a ton of non-fiction sales and rights. But, in two years, hasn't sold one fiction manuscript, and there are 29 fiction writers in his stable. I did some investigation--read all of his fiction writer's chapter exerpts, and determined that the writing was great, excellent hooks etc,. I followed his blog and found that he had been to eight or so conferences, workshops, BEA, and other events, and that he did infact have personal contacts and relationships with dozens of top-notch editors, and called them on a regular basis.

I studdied my submission history, via his records, and I was out there big guns with eight to ten fulls at a time. Very surprizing here, since he got 50% of his/my queries rejected from his first initial contacts.

I found that where and to whom he sent my material was spot on, so there was no wasted connections there.

So I asked myself, what could possibly deter ALL of those fiction sales in a two year period? Many of our authors have multiple books with him, so it waaaay over 29 books out there. Possibly 50 or more.

My conclusion: Pulling only 50% response from my query is not good for an agent. I would expect it to be a tad higher. And I'm firmly convinced that because he is new, and hasn't even signed a deal with anyone (in fiction), that he is being avoided in favor of the big guns who've made repeated sales to these houses/editors that have been around since the last ice age. My last agent, Richard Curtis, consistently makes a sale with damn near everything he sends out. Reason: he's been in business for over forty years.

So is it who you know in the agent/editor relationship? I dunno, in just my case, that's what I'm seeing. What about older established agents who can't make a sale to save their life? Perhaps those people are difficult to work with? Bad reputation? Insufferable negotiator?

I dunno. I've got a real bad feeling about this.

Tri

You guys are getting me nervous! My ms goes out top editors inthe next week or two...

Nomad, I'm a bit curious as to how an editor reads submissions. Does she first read the cover letter and if she's hooked and excited by that, read the accompanying ms right away, or is it (as others have suggested above) the particular agent's clout that gives a particular ms priority? I can't see them all going on to a pile to be read strictly in consecutive order.
I realise you can't speak for all editors... but maybe you can hint at some kind of methodology behind the process!

Sitting on my hands, to keep from biting my fingernails...

blackbird said:

Does it have to do with who the particular agent might be? Is it that some agents are simply better and more motivated salespeople than others? Could it be that some agents may do something that rubs the editors the wrong way, thus hurting the manuscript's chances? Are some agents simply not aggressive enough in getting their clients read? Do editors tend to prioritize manuscripts according to the agent or agency that has submitted them?

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I say all of the above.

That's what's got me floundering. I'm seriously wondering if that dreaded 'F' word is entering the picture. Favortism. Could it be there is a social pecking order of sorts? I mean if an editor has had great success with some manuscripts tossed their way by certain agents, and if some of these books have been good/great sellers, is it not reasonable to think that the editor would be inclined to read/purchase that work first? In other words a prefered status?

That would explain MY situation entirely. I'm also wondering if editors are prone to check and see if the submitting agent is AAR. Because this CAN be a reflection on performance. What is it--sell 10 properties to legit houses in an 18-month time span for acceptance? My agent happens to be insufferably concerned with this and is striving to hit that mark. He's a hair's breadth away from full acceptance, but has from the start adhered to the guidelines and ethics of the AAR.

The oft spoken mantra that the BIG FIVE buy and publish 80% of all books has been thrown around on the internet. Could it be that a select tier of top-gun agents are making most of the sales? It would require a lot of investigation and number crunching to confirm any of this.

I don't mean to make any agented authors knees rattle here. This is certainly a subjective business where the project does have to fit like a glove, in all cases. I'm just curious about the human element. I wish we could hear from both small/boutique (newer) agents and their larger cousins on this matter.

Tri

But that is understandable, Tri.
Look at it this way: as an author, you start at the top, don't you? maybe with Donald Maass, or Binky, or one of those other legends. No matter how bad or good you are, you start at the top.
So the most powerful agents get first choice. First choice for the best and most salable mss.
Donald Maass says somewhere on his website than when he sees something powerful he rushes to request it, and then he rushes to read it. He says that he gives the really great-sounding mss an overnight read, so as to grab it before the other top agents.

What that means is that these powerhouse agents get to cherrypick.
Editors probably know that.
So they cherrypick too.
They;ll cherrypick the powerhouse agent submissions and probably leave the others for later.
That is my assumption. It makes sense to me. If I were an editor I'd do the same.
Just as Maass and co are reading the best (-sounding) mss quickly to get there before the other agents, so are editors reading the power-agents first to get there before the other editors, because they know that those agents probably snapped up the best mss.

Yeah, I gotcha, Aruna. I understand that part of it. Just wondering if cherry-picking the top successful agent material is all that is needed nowadays to fill ALL of the publishing slots. I've always been under the impression (probably misguided) that being repped by an agent gives you aproximately a 30% chance of having your book bought by a house. In my case, there's been zero--no percentages. If editors are slushing the new or medium-sized agents and picking only the powerhouse agent's material, and STOPPING there, because they have enough material for their list--well...then we are... In. Loads. Of. Trouble. It means the doors of new or future agents have just been slammed. I certainly hope and pray that this is not the case. If it is, this industry is mired a lot more than I thought it was.

I've also found that when agents are asked what their sell-through percentage ratio is, they him hah, or say it all depends. I read somewhere where one agent was quoted as saying that they consistently make a 70% sell-through. Another agent source admitted a 55% sell-through.

Certainly you have to take things into consideration. Like fiction v.s. non-fiction. Or other various rights sales. But I don't think I've ever seen such a chart of stats before, and it would certainly be quite the indicator about agent popularity--agency age--number of clients--number of staff/sub agents, and how all these factors tie in to the whole scheme of things. Mainly success.

I could only hazard a guess and say that I believe that, along with picking great books, many of the most covented agents are the ones who've been in business the longest. This long-term run would translate into the most experience. The most contacts. The best deals. An exception to this might be the sub-agent who works for PowerHouse Agency for 15-years, then decides to hang up her own shingle, dragging with her many of her parent agency's clients. Theoretically she could have a whopping business in three years.

All in all, though, I love my agent and he is a good fit for me. I just hope something starts cracking in the next year for him.

Tri

triceretops said:

Yeah, I gotcha, Aruna. I understand that part of it. Just wondering if cherry-picking the top successful agent material is all that is needed nowadays to fill ALL of the publishing slots.

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That's exactly why I posed my question above, Tri. Though I don't have a power agent, I do know I have a good hook and I'm hoping that will pull me through - at least get me an early read!
Oh well, the next few weeks/months will give me my answer. Everything else is just speculation.

aruna said:

But that is understandable, Tri.
Look at it this way: as an author, you start at the top, don't you? maybe with Donald Maass, or Binky, or one of those other legends. No matter how bad or good you are, you start at the top.
So the most powerful agents get first choice. First choice for the best and most salable mss.
Donald Maass says somewhere on his website than when he sees something powerful he rushes to request it, and then he rushes to read it. He says that he gives the really great-sounding mss an overnight read, so as to grab it before the other top agents.

What that means is that these powerhouse agents get to cherrypick.
Editors probably know that.
So they cherrypick too.
They;ll cherrypick the powerhouse agent submissions and probably leave the others for later.
That is my assumption. It makes sense to me. If I were an editor I'd do the same.
Just as Maass and co are reading the best (-sounding) mss quickly to get there before the other agents, so are editors reading the power-agents first to get there before the other editors, because they know that those agents probably snapped up the best mss.

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Aruna, you're right. It's what happened to me. I had two other agents looking at my full ms., when an agent with Donald Maass called, requested the full by email, read it overnight, and the next afternoon offered representation. As for my ms., he started with five publishing houses. Three editors responded within two weeks, the other two didn't respond and it was two months. He had to call or email or whatever (sometimes he lunches with the editors). They responded within a week of his "nudge." I also noticed he seems to have a great rapport with them.

Tri--I think I know who your agent is. He's seems well-versed in the field and seems enthusiastic. Once he gets a fiction ms. accepted by a publishing house, then I think his responses to fiction from them will be faster.

A while back, whenever I used to visit my previous agent at his one-man wreck of a cubicle in someone else's office I'd be reminded of Paul Newman in "The Verdict," the washed up has been clinging for his life to one last case.

My fantasy was that my book was that one last case that would pull both me and my agent out of the mire and back into the sunlight where we both belonged.

I finally gave up that fantasy when my agent persisted in not reading my book, to say nothing of not sending it out.

But now that I've left I notice he's been making sales all over the place, getting his own office, hiring assistants, and probably lunching at 21 and Elaine's.

What kind of movie is that?

agents

One thing to remember is this: When top publishers talk about their slush piles, they mean slush that comes from agents. For every good agent with a reputaion for finding quality, marketable novels, there are probably ten agents with the opposite reputation.

Some agents, even ones with some sales behind them, consistently send editors an incredibly large percentage of crap.

Just because someone sets up shop as an agent in no way means she has a clue what makes one novel marketable, while another, perhaps equally well-written novel is not marketable. And just because an agent manages to find and send an editor a good, marketable novel now and then does not in any way mean she can do so on a consistent, week in and week out basis.

When it comes to agents, "Established" does not always mean much, or anything at all. Nor does the fact that she may have sold a dozen novels, or has find six or seven writers who can write marketable novels.

It's often a question of percentages. As an editor, what are the odds that a novel sent to you by a given agent is marketable? If it's fifty/fifty or better, she's at the top of your want to see list. If it's one in twenty, well, you put that manuscript aside until you have time to deal with it.

Just having an agent does not in any way mean you have a 30% chance of finding a good publisher. Agents who have a high sales percentage have it for one reason, and it's not because of who they know, what contacts they have, or how long they've been in business.

It's because they know how to find writers who have written novels publishers actually want to buy. When they read a manuscript, they have a very good idea whether it's something an editor will buy or reject, and they're right more often than not.

This is as much a talent as is writing the manuscript, and not many people are capable of looking at a manuscript and telling whether it's marketable.
Good writing does not in any way make a novel marketable. Neither does a good hook. All these things do is help convince an agent or editor to read the manuscript to see if it has the things that really do mean a novel will sell.

And sometimes even very good agents do have to wait six months or more. CXalling to check on status is something all good agents can and should do, but they can't really rush things, and publishing operates on the editor's timetable, not the agents'. I iknow one top agent who had to wait two years for a decision from one of the top publishers in the business.

Of course editors have favorite agents. Favoritism means finding an agent who has proven that when he takes on a writer, it's probable that the writer will have a mansuript the editor wants.

Because an agent has contacts in no way means that agent has any ability at all to sell novels. Novels sell solely because the publisher's accountants, not the editors, believe a novel will earn that company money. Period. You can be a kissing cousin to the editor, you can have naked pictures of him with a poodle, but if the bean counters don't think a novel will earn money, that novel will not be bought.

Agents are just like writers. They must prove themselves be delivering marketing goods before anyone takes them seriously. And they must be able to do so on a consistent basis, or thier submissions go to the bottom of the stack. They go to the agent slush pile.

As an editor, I'd hate to come across an agent with forty-nine unpublished writers in his stable. Most of these writers are not going to be publishable. They just aren't. The odds of any agent, no matter how good, finding a dozen cold writers who are publishable are astronomical. Odds are high that no more than three or four of these forty-nine are going to be good enough.

Good agents build their stables slowly. They're extremely selective. And I mean extremely. They may take on six or seven writers, and only ones they are positive have an excellent chance of selling. Then they build from this point, staying extremely selective until they have a high percentage of selling writers. They add new writers slowly, and they keep the percenatge of unpublished writers they handle as low as possible.

This is the only way an editor can be sure that anything sent from this agent is probbaly going to be something he wants.

I think many writers believe that because an agent agrees to represent them, it's an automatic in. This just isn't true. Even with the best agents, it isn't true. With the rest of the agents, odds aren't much higher of selling a manuscript with them than without them.

This is also one of the big reasons I think sending out shotgun queries is a big mistake. Just because an agent os honest, hard-working, and has been around sveral years in no way means that agents stands a chance in China of selling a novel to a good publisher. There are only a handful of agents in any genre who have proven they can consistently find manuscripts the market wants, and a writers needs to do everything possible to land one of these agents, rather than a hard-working, honest, third rate agent who may well do no more than greatly prolong the time it takes a writer to sell.

And you have to watch out for fudged numbers. I know one agent who claims a 50% sale percentage because she has roughly twenty writers in her stable and has sold roughly ten novels. Fine, except all ten novels come from only two of her writers. That's a 10% sale rate, not a 50%, and 90% of her writers are unpublished, and likely to remain this way.

It's always best to avoid agents who have a high percentage of unpublished writers in their stables. The agent you want has a low percentage of unpublished writers, has fairly large footprint of sales to major publishers, and has at least one or two writers in their stable with recognizable, if not world-famous names.

Contacts are nice, but they don't sell novels. Relationships are nice, but they don't sell novels, either. Knowing what a marketable novel is sells novels, and giving an editor a high ratio of marketable to unmarketable is what makes an editor sit up and take notice when something from that agent comes in.

James, it's been a long day. My eyes are getting crossed so maybe I'm not reading your dissertation correctly.

It's common knowledge that it's all in the writing if a novel sells. Agents aren't gods, and can't accurately predict which ms. is going to take-off. But the original question was "Why do some agented manuscripts still get ignored?"

Although I don't always agree with James, I think this particular post is as cogent and accurate an assessment of an agent's role as you could hope to find.

But, rugcat, that wasn't the original question, nor what was being discussed up until James' post. Otherwise, yes, it was a good assesment of an agent's role.

Actually it was. There are a multitude of reasons for an agented manuscript to be ignored by an editor and James addressed many primary ones.