The Daily Rejection, Vol. 2

Status
Not open for further replies.

goddessofgliese

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
317
Reaction score
187
Location
Gliese, obviously
Website
www.katechenli.com
Sorry about your rejection! Here's your cake::Cake: And about that moving agent – my guess is she would send out an invitation to requery to everyone she hasn't answered yet. If she had already read and been interested in your query, she would have told you to send your full/partial to her new agency, wouldn't she? But, I don't really know, do I, so – personally, I wouldn't have read too much into it.

Thanks for the cake, Torill. I think you are right about the agent sending out invitations to everyone. Oh well. So far, dead silence on my other queries, but I cannot wait around so I sent another batch yesterday. Fingers crossed that I'd hear something soon.
 

goddessofgliese

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
317
Reaction score
187
Location
Gliese, obviously
Website
www.katechenli.com
A decent amount. There are tons of agents I haven't queried yet, but browsing their catalogues makes me think I'd be a fool to submit to them my MS in its current state. Most beta readers seem to really like the concept, but honestly I'm not sure if the commercial appeal is there. Oh well, there's always the "at some vague point in the future."

I read some success story interviews on QT. It seems that authors often get surprised when they get full requests from agents they don't think would be interested in their manuscripts, while on the other hand, an agent that seems to be a good fit rejects them in minutes. So why not give those agents a try? The worst you can get is a "no".
 

pingle

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
575
Reaction score
84
Location
United Kingdom
I finally sent out two more submissions, which brings me to five overall. As soon I pressed send on the second one today I realised that my cover letters had no contact details on, which I guess is fine when you are emailing the agent directly, but this was one of those agencies with just a single email address, where I presume a reader passes things along internally. No huge catastrophe, the chances any of them want to read more are so slim anyway, but I'm annoyed at myself for making all these errors.

Another thing I've noticed is how often the submissions guidelines suggest you write about yourself on the cover letter, which I've not done at all as I don't have a job/degree that makes me the best person to write this book, my hobby is writing and reading (obviously) and growing vegetables (boring), going to art galleries (pretentious), I'm a mum (yawn), urgh, it all sounds so pointless. I've written a little bio, but I'm not sure I'll keep it.
 

mistri

Sneezy Member
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
533
Reaction score
62
Location
UK
Website
www.livejournal.com
In fact, this was the advice written in the festival programme we got upon registration, too: don't go into the one-to-one sessions thinking of pitching your novel, go there to get feedback and advice from a professional. Sounds like the one you know tried the first approach and was disappointed with the result. And no, I didn't hear anyone else complaining about this, but – there were 300 delegates present, so of course there might be others feeling the same way…

Good luck with your submissions! I think it's a good idea to query in smaller batches, yes, not burn through your whole agent list in one go – but maybe four is a little too few? Perhaps six to ten or something? Anyway, fingers crossed and lots of waiting waffles and cookies and cakes to you!!!
I've just checked and it was definitely the same festival, but I think they were less complaining about the 1-to-1s and more about the general impression (were there talks as well?) that agents reject too quickly and how awful it was that agents might reject something because they're in a bad mood that day. I wonder if it was a sharp brutal shock to them to realise that so many agents are under such a deluge of subs that they can't possibly read every single page that passes their desk... I've read slush so it wasn't really a surprise to me!

I've subbed to seven now and complete silence. Might do one more tonight and then try to sit on my hands until they respond, or not!

Noooo. Ah, I wish this MS had been ready to query in the spring, which is when I started last year, and the replies were fast, mostly somewhere between a day and a week. Tomorrow will be two weeks since I sent out my first submission, and my new email address is empty other than one *test* email I sent myself :ROFL:
I know the answer is send out more submissions, and as soon as I get a quiet moment that's what I'll do. The synopsis is in a much better state and the cover letter has been polished too. Quite happy with this slowly slowly approach.

mistri
, are they very new to submitting? Before I submitted my last book, I had no idea how important opening pages were or really anything about how the industry worked (i.e. that YA fantasy could be saturated and so they might stop reading the second they saw those words in my cover letter). It can all seem a bit harsh at first, and not the cosy industry that people might think of before they've entered querying hell ;)
You must be right - I've been reading writing forums and agent blogs for years so though I have v little success I have picked up a bit of knowledge :D

I'm also facing silence at the moment. Torn between sending loads more out and waiting for an initial response to these early ones... argh!

Hope everyone else is doing well. I'll figure out how to reply to more people soon!
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,722
Reaction score
9,703
Location
USA
Bio:

I'd say if there is a way to go legitimately funny/quirky an agent would welcome it in the middle of going through slush.

I know, it's a risky move, I've seen Query Shark advise against it, but if you workshop some ideas and find one that lands, it might be a way to turn a bio that says "I'm a normal mom like every other writer out there" into something quite welcome.
 

RaggyCat

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
1,347
Reaction score
426
Location
UK
Bio:

I'd say if there is a way to go legitimately funny/quirky an agent would welcome it in the middle of going through slush.

I know, it's a risky move, I've seen Query Shark advise against it, but if you workshop some ideas and find one that lands, it might be a way to turn a bio that says "I'm a normal mom like every other writer out there" into something quite welcome.

This. I've seen so many overworked bios that make me grown. I've only ever mentioned my previous writing in a bio before, but in the query I've written but not yet used I'm toying with making a joke about the rave exercise classes I'm into being only mildly less brutal than the murders I like to write about... though that may be a bad idea.
 

Liz_V

Not my first rodeo.
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 30, 2012
Messages
933
Reaction score
129
Thanks for the welcome-backs! I'm hoping to be around a bit more consistently, though I see from the date that I'm not off to a great start. :Shrug:

Raggy - Finding the right writing group is a challenge. It's like trying to find a good crit partner/beta reader, only to the nth power. I'm currently going to the one I mentioned a few months ago, even though it's clear it's not going to be any practical help to me. But the people are nice and it at least gets me out of the house every couple of weeks, so I'm treating it as a mainly social thing.

Torill - Congrats on the live reading! Sounds like you're really nailing the pitch/query/synopsis part; may the full be equally successful!

I'm not thirty yet, and even if I was there's no race. Sometimes I just feel like I should be freaking PUBLISHED already, or have something to show for how long I've been doing this.

I'll be turning a lot more than thirty this year, and I feel the same way. Don't know if that's encouraging or depressing (okay, yeah, it's depressing, for me anyway), but there's the data point FWIW.

On bios: Happened across this today, because I was debating the merits or lack thereof of my own bio bit with someone who seems oddly hung up on the fact that I mention (briefly!) my cats. So even the Shark is on board with an entertainingly-written reference to an essentially mundane bio detail.

(And now I shall fling R cookies, congratulatory glitter, and apologies at everyone I missed, and get the bleep off the internet, because I can't believe it's What Time and I still haven't done All The Things.)
 

pingle

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
575
Reaction score
84
Location
United Kingdom
Thanks for the replies regarding bios. Hmm. So I think I will send a few out with my mortifying (and thankfully brief) all about me paragraph in. Without it I could be literally anyone, which kind of shouldn't matter (I know very little about most authors, even when I adore their books), but I suppose it's human nature to want to feel some kind of connection when considering actually working together, which is what this boils down to.
 

RaggyCat

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
1,347
Reaction score
426
Location
UK
S.Eli - Just saw Liz quoting your earlier comment about age and being published... Being published on the other side of thirty is no bad thing. In fact, from my experience, it's a good thing. I got a book deal when I was 23, and, argh, there's so much I regret that stems from youth, naivity, lack of experience and lack of confidence. Were the same to happen to me now, I'd do things SO much better, and I would take a lot less rubbish and ask many more questions. That's not to say other 23 year olds aren't incredibly savvy. But I feel like there's a certain level of... self, for want of a better term, that only comes when you've lived a little more. Wisdom is perhaps another word.

I think this works! Looking at that link Liz posted, I think it has the right tone.

Thanks, pingle. It sounds too "try hard" to me but that's my British reserve coming through!
 

litdawg

Helping those who help themselves
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
873
Reaction score
562
Location
California
This thread really is DAILY rejection--wow! I need to up my game and get more queries out there. Since August 30 when I last updated this thread, I have submitted two new queries, had one rejection of an earlier query, and one partial request from the most recent query. I have three others that I think are Closed No Response. My last category is part of the publishing minefield I didn't know about until recently: agents switching agencies, leaving the business, or starting their own firm. Those are like functional rejects--my query is dead in the water because it was at old agency. I've resubmitted one to the agent at her new agency. I'm dithering on resubmitting to the agent setting up her own firm. I don't want to learn firsthand why people say it's better to have no agent than a bad one!

I've got fourteen active queries: eight recent ones and six others that have been out for two months, so they are probably CNRs--maybe not the full request that I sent in a few months ago. For this mss, I have seven outright rejections, two clear rejections based on Twitter updates, and two I've already CNRed. That's twenty-five queries total over several months.

Pingle, I can empathize with going slow. My training and background is academe, which doesn't allow multiple submissions. Consequently, I'd spend years of my career waiting for a paper to find a home in a journal. Best solution then was to work on something else. When I was job-hunting, I found the best way to stop daydreaming about applications out was to track down new applications to submit. I'm slowly adapting to Creative Writing which does allow for multiple submissions.

Raggy, I think agents want to know we can interest others in material that would be mundane in someone else's hands. I think that gives you carte blanche for your bio sentences--anything relevant that makes me remember you!
 

JeanGenie

Such a Greenie
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 13, 2016
Messages
1,005
Reaction score
61
Location
Land of the Northern Lights
A decent amount. There are tons of agents I haven't queried yet, but browsing their catalogues makes me think I'd be a fool to submit to them my MS in its current state. Most beta readers seem to really like the concept, but honestly I'm not sure if the commercial appeal is there. Oh well, there's always the "at some vague point in the future."

What's the concept?
 

S. Eli

Custom User Title
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
421
Reaction score
54
Location
Philadelphia
@Liz thanks for the commisery--it gets hard when you feel stuck because your age changes even though everything else does lol

I definitely don't think I'm old or my season is over or anything. I don't subscribe to the whole "you have to publish young" idea. It's more so that I'm impatient in every aspect while at the same time KNOWING that impatience is unhealthy. I feel the same way in my professional life, too. I feel like I should have a house and car and six figure salary by now even though that literally makes no sense (and I work in education, so a six figure salary?? Where???)

@Raggy, I'm def on your side! I am more so concerned with knowing all that and still getting antsy anyway

I've been more dejection than rejection lately lol. I think I will actually query my MS to one agent after this weekend, because she invited me to send future stuff and she closes soon. Maybe my inbox will be less quiet after that!

@litdawg having a lot of queries out is overrated - i sent out over 100 just to see if i can and it's doubly stressful and i made lots of compromises in the type of people i wanted to work with - knowing the "bad agent is worse than no" thing makes sense until you hit, like 50 rejections. No need to up your game haha
 

MJG_Write

WriteTeachSleep
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 10, 2010
Messages
346
Reaction score
262
Website
linktr.ee
So, one of the agents with my full just emailed me and told me she really loved my MC and my book. Now she is asking to see samples from my other projects.

I'm nervous.

I'm also still waiting to hear back from the mega agent who emailed me telling me she was still reading.

This moment feels surreal.
 

RaggyCat

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
1,347
Reaction score
426
Location
UK
So, one of the agents with my full just emailed me and told me she really loved my MC and my book. Now she is asking to see samples from my other projects.

I'm nervous.

I'm also still waiting to hear back from the mega agent who emailed me telling me she was still reading.

This moment feels surreal.

Hey utes, I think you're in there - congrats! She is sounding out your other projects to see you're more than a one hit wonder.

If she does offer, you can say other agents have the full and give them a deadline to get back to you by. All perfectly standard. You probably know this though. Keep us updated!

S.Eli - I hear you on the impatience! I am not a very patient person so I'm the same (I also worked in education and so does hubs - hahaha at the idea of anything approaching six figures!).
 

litdawg

Helping those who help themselves
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
873
Reaction score
562
Location
California
So, one of the agents with my full just emailed me and told me she really loved my MC and my book. Now she is asking to see samples from my other projects.

I'm nervous.

I'm also still waiting to hear back from the mega agent who emailed me telling me she was still reading.

This moment feels surreal.

Sounds like you've reached the point where you don't have to second-guess your work; you are now just trying to find the right agent. Congratulations! I hope an offer arrives soon.
 

Torill

Not as trollish as you might think
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Messages
825
Reaction score
239
Location
Oslo, Norway
Raggy - good to hear Raggy Kitten #1 is fine now! Finding a dark note to Haverman Society, yes – but I can't think of how! :idea: I don't think it matters much though – the title will probably change anyway if (when!!) it's published, and as long as it's workable, I don't want to spend more energy on it. And since one agent said she loved it, then OK… I think your title is fine too, –signalling the genre, short and easy to remember, plus partying a big deal in the book. I like 'The Third Boy' too, intriguing! but it doesn't signal genre that much (which mine doesn't either, so…)

I like your thoughts on bio, too, sounds fun. But I don't think bios are a make or break part of the query in any way. I had one sentence about myself only, just a list of the few things to be said about me, boring and ordinary (and my two mistchivoius somali cats mentioned last, too, although I've heard pets are a nono) nothing original or funny at ALL – and the agent who commented said my query was "the perfect balance of information about the storyline and the author" So, yeah :e2shrug:

JeanGenie - if you're sick of 1p present tense – why not start/continue on another project in third person past tense while you wait? Then if the agent comes back with an offer, you can present your new shiny as well, plus discuss the whole issue with her – if you're still sick of first person present at that point. Still crossing fingers for you!! :Thumbs:

S. Eli and goddessofgliese - yeah, talking of age – I'm over 60 already, so no, no hurries for anyone below, I don't know – 80? (LOL) and it's never too late (well, one day it will be, obviously, but…) For me it actually did matter that I crossed the threshold to what some would call an 'elderly lady' (that's not how I see myself, but, you know). I, too, had a stern talking-to with myself a couple of years ago, saying, self, if you don't do it now it will be too late! How do you want to spend your last years on this earth, anyway? OK then, get going, get it ready, send it out there! And here I am, still fighting that roaring lion of procrastination (see the Ibsen quote in my signature) every single day…

CalRazor - I'm with goddessofgliese – you can't get worse than no, so why not try them all – except if you feel that the manuscript is perhaps not ready and you would need to rework it/revise it more before sending it out again. Then maybe it's a good idea to let it rest in a drawer for a while and work on something new instead. Good luck either way!

Good luck with your new batch of queries goddessofgliese!! :Thumbs: Silence is the hardest, especially since we don't know for how long we need to wait, and there's nothing we can do about it!! Having no control once we've hit the 'send' button really is the worst. It invites all the fretting, and panic, and paranoia, and imposter syndrome, and what have you to come right in. Sigh.

I'm definitely down from the festival high now, fretting and panicking and imposter-syndroming (shut up, that is SO a verb!) to my hearts discontent. Going from: they may have answered right now!! checking re-checking mail every ten minutes – through they will never answer, they think this is the worst/most ridiculous manuscript they've ever seen – to, but I don't WANT this to be published and the whole world to see and comment on my secret world and my beloved characters!! :chair rinse and repeat. All of it very rational and mature, yeah…

Congrats with sending out more queries pingle! :e2cheer: As for the one without contact details – what about resending the exact same submission, with the contact details and a short, matter-of-fact explanation that you resend because you forgot the contact details

mistri – I get it, not the one-to-ones, but the overall impression… Yes, there were speeches and workshops and etc etc. On Friday afternoon there was an Ask the Agent session with six agents if I remember correctly, taking questions from the audience, and they did of course talk about rejections, and what they were looking for, and what they would reject and how fast. Also how frustrating it is for us writers to get no feedback and how they absolutely understood that, but how they could not possibly find the time to give individual feedback to everybody. One of them said she always responded at least with a form rejection, another said, although she understood our frustration, her agency got more than a hundred submissions per day, so they just didn't have the time for form rejections… Maybe that came across as not really interested in our submissions to someone – it didn't to me, but there you are.

Good luck with your submissions and sitting on your hands! :Thumbs:

Thanks for the congrats Liz_V :Hug2: And good luck with All The Things (my Things are growling at me from every corner right now, get ON with it they're saying – and I pretend I can't hear them…)
Good luck with your still out queries, litdawg, here's a consolation cake for the rejection: :Cake: and congrats with the partial request! :partyguy:

And utesfanami – that sounds fantastic!!! Absolutely like you're about to get an offer of representation. I understand the nervous feeling, I would have been close to fainting – but yeah, you're nearly there! ]And another dream agent telling you they're still reading – very promising! Yohoo! :partyguy::e2cheer::e2cheer:
 

litdawg

Helping those who help themselves
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
873
Reaction score
562
Location
California
I definitely don't think I'm old or my season is over or anything. I don't subscribe to the whole "you have to publish young" idea. It's more so that I'm impatient in every aspect while at the same time KNOWING that impatience is unhealthy. I feel the same way in my professional life, too. I feel like I should have a house and car and six figure salary by now even though that literally makes no sense (and I work in education, so a six figure salary?? Where???)

@Raggy, I'm def on your side! I am more so concerned with knowing all that and still getting antsy anyway

I've been more dejection than rejection lately lol. I think I will actually query my MS to one agent after this weekend, because she invited me to send future stuff and she closes soon. Maybe my inbox will be less quiet after that!

@litdawg having a lot of queries out is overrated - i sent out over 100 just to see if i can and it's doubly stressful and i made lots of compromises in the type of people i wanted to work with - knowing the "bad agent is worse than no" thing makes sense until you hit, like 50 rejections. No need to up your game haha

Thanks, Eli. I didn't go crazy, but I have sent out four more queries in the past two days. One thing I've started doing is checking on QueryTracker for response rates/times. That helps set my expectations for how long I'll have to wait to hear from an agent. And every minute I spend researching/preparing for another query is a minute not spent waiting.
 

goddessofgliese

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 25, 2013
Messages
317
Reaction score
187
Location
Gliese, obviously
Website
www.katechenli.com
another said, although she understood our frustration, her agency got more than a hundred submissions per day, so they just didn't have the time for form rejections… Maybe that came across as not really interested in our submissions to someone – it didn't to me, but there you are.

In that case, why not just hire an assistant to send out form rejections?

At this point, I think even a rejection is better than silence. At least if I get rejections, I know I need to rework on my query/opening pages. But silence tells me nothing. Or, maybe I'm too impatient. Out of the 10 queries out there, half of them are 9 days old, and the other half 2 days old.

But I wonder if I should send out more queries or wait ... :e2seesaw:
 

pingle

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 6, 2018
Messages
575
Reaction score
84
Location
United Kingdom
In that case, why not just hire an assistant to send out form rejections?

At this point, I think even a rejection is better than silence. At least if I get rejections, I know I need to rework on my query/opening pages. But silence tells me nothing. Or, maybe I'm too impatient. Out of the 10 queries out there, half of them are 9 days old, and the other half 2 days old.

But I wonder if I should send out more queries or wait ... :e2seesaw:

Silence is frustrating, because the agencies tend to say it can take up to eight weeks for them to reply and only after that time period, should you consider silence a no, which is a long time to cling onto hope. But now I tend to think of no reply after a week as the equivalent of a form rejection. There will be exceptions of course, but I don't believe they aren't even scanning over submissions for months at a time. Unless you start getting requests for fulls which usually guarantee you at least some kind of feedback, you're going to remain as much in the dark as you are now. Best thing to do is post your query and opening pages in SYW if you want some insight.

Anyway, got my first R yesterday. The email account works! One little piece of paranoia that I can slice off.
 

Elle.

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Messages
1,272
Reaction score
734
Location
United Kingdom
goddessofgliese - to answer your question, why not just hire an assistant, because at the end of the day a literary agency is a business and their goal is make money for them and their clients. Paying a big expenditure that is a employee salary (and all the taxes that go with it) for that person to carry a task that will make exactly zero money to the business is a complete waste of their money. As much as I don't like not getting an answer, I understand the reason.

Did you have any feedback on your opening chapters and query from beta readers or have you thought about posting them in the SYW section here?


pingle - sorry about the rejection. How many others sub do you still have out?
 

Woollybear

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2017
Messages
9,722
Reaction score
9,703
Location
USA
I did the metrics on my queries, goddess, because I had the same experience when I started querying.

About half don't respond. Those that do vary from one day response to 8 or 10 month response times. The average response is around 40 days for a response, but with a huge standard deviation in that.

I saw this same pattern over the 16 months I queried.

If you aren't getting requests at three weeks, rework your pages first and query letter second. No response is basically the same as a pass. At least one agency that promises to respond and even goes so far as to say a lack of response is a positive thing because it means they are considering your sub... doesn't respond. I see the whole process a little differently now than I did when i started.

Some of this you can also glean from query tracker for free, in the comments for each agent etc.

(((hug))))
 
Last edited:

ap123

Twitching
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 4, 2007
Messages
5,648
Reaction score
1,732
Location
In the 212
Well, I've discovered the cure for querying anxiety. Get laid out with the crud (early case of the flu, maybe?) and you stop obsessively hitting refresh on your inbox.

Got an R on one of my queries from a couple of weeks ago. It felt very form, yet included the phrase ...someone else will scoop this up in a heartbeat and I'll kick myself for this decision..."

By now I thought I'd seen every form phrase there is, but that's a new one to me.

:Shrug:

If I can stay upright for more than an hour today maybe I'll send out a new query or two.
 

litdawg

Helping those who help themselves
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2019
Messages
873
Reaction score
562
Location
California
Pingle, congrats! Seriously, an R isn't what any of us are looking for, but it is proof that you are submitting work, not just mulling over your ideas.

AP123--yup, that'll work. I had pneumonia a few weeks back and didn't think about querying once. I hardly even read. However, taken to an extreme, I'd find a coma an even more effective way to pass time while waiting. Heh. That would wreak havoc on the other 90% of my life that isn't waiting but happening now--kids, work, housecleaning.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.