How to get through rejection after rejection?

Critique groups can be helpful. They may not be professional, but they are readers and as readers they will notice things that sound off. If you send lots of queries around and get no answer, then the problem is probably everywhere (query and pages), so honing your overall writing skills is also an option. Also, make sure you are sending a large amount of queries, not just, say, a dozen or so. Make sure you know the market, too. Sometimes it gets oversaturated with the same sort of story and then rejections will be common just because there's too much of the same out there.

Form rejections are tough, but the way in which you're getting rejected over a long enough period of time can tell you something about where the problem is. If you're getting a lot of form rejections, and you're not getting any requests for partials or full manuscripts, that can mean that a) either your query is not getting the responses you want, and people aren't interested in reading more, or b) if you have been including some opening pages whenever permissible by an agent, those opening pages also aren't gripping the agents enough to ask for more. I've had this happen to me.

If you're getting regularly requested, then that's great, your query is doing its job, but then getting form rejections on partials and fulls--which does happen--then the problem is with the manuscript itself, not the query you're using to intrigue the agent. I've also had this happen to me.

Realistically, you're going to get more form rejections than anything else, unless you're one of those statistical flukes who's writing is so genius you immediately get offers on your first 10 queries and then have those 10 agents offering their first born to you in order to represent you. You have to remember that there are many, many different factors at play that can lead to an agent deciding to respond with a form. If you're really concerned that your query is not getting the attention you want, run it through Query Letter Hell, here in the forums once you've got enough posts, and thicken your skin; the people there will definitely help, but depending on your sensitivity and disposition, you may not get away from the experience unscathed. Your query and your opening pages are basically your teaser to the agent. You have to try to make those as appealing as possible and then hope that the rest of your book lives up to the promise you've laid out in your query and first 5-10 pages. Just make sure that if you're putting this much effort into creating an intriguing tease, the rest of your book lives up that promise.

A lot of people here advocate putting out queries in batches to see if you're getting any "nibbles" and then, if not, reworking your query to see if it gets a better response. That's really good advice, and if it resonates with you, follow it. Just keep in mind that this can be for the long haul. I did eventually get offered representation from an agent, but it took a few years, and over 400 rejections on queries with different books to do it.

There are lots of different ways to go about it, depending on your market and your own comfort zone. I don't know what type of book you're writing but if you're writing for Middle Grade, for example, there are quite a lot of agents available because that's a big market. If you're in adult science fiction/fantasy, like me, there's a comparatively smaller number of agents. So just how many queries you're sending off is usually averaged out by the total number of agents available in your chosen market. I'd also recommend either picking up a copy of the year's current Writer's Market, or opening an account with QueryTracker and possibly subscribing to it (I believe it's about $30 a year) so you can get access to the full listing of available literary agents, plus a lot of useful data, such as favorite genres, percentage of manuscripts requested, rejection rates, response times, a lot of other information that can take an edge off the guesswork of predicting how agents may respond to your book.

But different people will have different styles when it comes to submitting. Some people here only submitting to about 10 agents per month, and then looking at feedback/response, or lack thereof, and tweaking the query/pages based on that. Other people will "revenge query" a new agent as soon as a rejection comes in from another. When I was querying, I averaged about five queries per week, but I also wasn't tweaking my queries at all, and I doubt I went about it the optimal way, so I wouldn't recommend following in my footsteps. I usually queried until I ran out of agents, shelved the book, wrote another, and started querying that, so I'm sure I didn't spend as much time optimizing my query chances as I could have. I just figured, "Maybe the next book will be stronger," and hoped that would be enough to overcome deficiencies in the query itself. But that's obviously not the best way to go about if you're trying to maximize your odds.

Those query stats sound fairly normal to me, KayMitch. You're not knocking it out of the park for some reason (need a slicker query, first few pages not engaging enough, trying for a very competitive and over-subscribed market niche...or maybe down to which way the wind is blowing, planetary conjunctions, or other entirely random circumstances).
Form rejections are the worst. No hint of what didn't work leaves you tearing your hair out It's not fun. Getting to 50 posts and sharing your query for critique is probably the best way to go.

Subbing to agents in rounds mean if you got nowhere with that query you can look at it again, tweak it, and send it back out.

Some good advice here already! One other thing I personally recommend is not rushing the process, much as you want to. I'm currently on a break from querying - it was getting me down - but because I haven't touched my MS in a while, now, looking at it with fresh eyes, quite a few improvements and changes have come to my attention, so I'm excitedly making them. I am now glad I did a batch of 10 agents or so then stopped! I don't think I could have figured these changes out without time or breathing space.

Form rejections in themselves tell you nothing - could be an agent is busy enough, they're not taking thrillers/romance/paranormal at the moment (delete as applicable), they don't like what you've sent, or a whole load of other reasons. Personally, though, I'd say once you've had 10 or so form Rs, it would seem to be the case that something isn't working, either with the query (if you're in the US) or (if you're in the UK) the sample material.

And like other posters have said, get other people involved. They can often spot problems more easily than the writer can.

How many rejections have you had? Are you getting rejections on your query without sample pages, query with, partials, or fulls? If you haven't had any requests, then your query and/or sample pages are probably the issue (or you just haven't sent out enough queries yet). If it's partials or fulls, your actual manuscript will probably be the problem.

It might comfort you to know that even great queries usually only get 10-20% request rates for material. This includes the ones that went on to secure representation. The business is so subjective that an author with a good query and publishable manuscript will still be rejected by around 80% of agents for any of a thousand reasons ranging from "the story is built around a trope that agent doesn't like" to "the agent just sold a similar book and probably can't place another one so soon."

If you're feeling down, look at your bookshelf and know that all of those authors were rejected, multiple times, in their careers.

KayMitch said:

I haven't gotten any requests for partials or fulls yet, which tells me the problem is either my query or my sample pages. My guess would probably be my query because this is the first time I've ever written a query. It's a new art form for me. I write young adult fantasy, and my novel is of that category. From what I've found there are so many agents for that genre so I've barely even scraped the surface on that front.

I'm definitely working my way up to my 50 post count so that I can get some critiques on my query.

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I recommend checking out the Query Shark blog if you haven't -- it's an amazing trove of information and queries critiqued by an actual literary agent, and is extremely helpful in developing your own query. I also write young adult fantasy, and I can tell you that we're in a pretty competitive place! (Not like all writers aren't, of course.) Queries have to stand out and make the agent want to read more virtually from the first line, and they're very tricky to get right.

Don't rush too fast to get to post #50, and in the meantime you can go and offer some critiques of your own on queries and writing samples. I've always found that being a critic for someone else improves my own writing vastly!

ReadWriteRachel said:

Don't rush too fast to get to post #50, and in the meantime you can go and offer some critiques of your own on queries and writing samples. I've always found that being a critic for someone else improves my own writing vastly!

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This is especially good advice. It makes a huge difference when you start seeing things in another person's writing that you think could be improved and suddenly it clicks in your head, "Kind'a, like what I do... in my own... writi... OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I KNOW HOW TO IMPROVE MY WORK NOW!"

Analyzing and finding solutions to another person's writing can often be a roundabout way of doing the same thing to your own, only now you've got that distance of being able to objectively look at someone else's issues and not have it clouded by being too close to the problem because you've been living and breathing it 24/7.

KayMitch said:

I haven't gotten any requests for partials or fulls yet, which tells me the problem is either my query or my sample pages. My guess would probably be my query because this is the first time I've ever written a query. It's a new art form for me. I write young adult fantasy, and my novel is of that category. From what I've found there are so many agents for that genre so I've barely even scraped the surface on that front.

I'm definitely working my way up to my 50 post count so that I can get some critiques on my query.

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Writing queries is hard. Possibly harder than writing novels. Definitely a different mindset.

KayMitch said:

I love Query Shark. I've been slowly working through reading all of them after one of my professors introduced me to it during a publishing class. I love that blog more than I probably should. I've thought about giving my own critiques but I'm worried that I won't know what to say or that I will have nothing to say. XD

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You could say what works for you or what doesn't in your critique of a query. Whether you could follow the query or if you found it confusing. Read through several query threads and see what comments other people are giving to get some idea of feedback. Every little bit helps the writer - even if you feel like you're repeating something other people have said about the query, it'll help the writer know if there's a particular part that's a stumbling block.

Dennis E. Taylor said:

Writing queries is hard. Possibly harder than writing novels. Definitely a different mindset.

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I totally agree with this. I find queries much, much harder than novels.

Shoeless said:

I totally agree with this. I find queries much, much harder than novels.

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Me three. I have such a hard time pulling out of the story enough to give a crisp, clear, compelling high-level description. I can often see things in other people's queries, but my own? Complete and utter mystery.

KayMitch said:

I feel this on a deep level. I could write novel after novel all day long but pulling out the main things of my own novel, and putting them into one page that is supposed to hook someone else into reading the novel is pretty much impossible. I know so much about my own story and my own characters it's hard to decide what's really important.

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Then you're definitely doing the right thing, researching Query Shark and getting your post count up so you can pay a visit to QLH. There are other resources available on the Internet as well, of course, including services that actually help you write your query, provided you do your research, make sure they're reputable, and are willing to pay for their services. I have no idea how reliable they are, but I have seen some editing services that now offer "submission packages" where you pay a fee specifically to have them help you go over your query and first three chapters, to make sure you're giving your book the best possible intro it can get. After that, it's all up to the rest of the book, of course.

Conferences are also a good place to go to get critiques from agents and editors. Is there an organization like SCBWI you can join for whatever category you're writing? ETA: That is, critiques on both your pages and query letter. That could help you determine if there is a problem with one or the other.

KayMitch said:

Well I got to 50 posts today after do some critiques of my own. So I posted my query up for critiques. The nerves are real! XD I'm sure its not a great query, but that is what I'm here for right?

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Good luck. Stock up on whiskey, or whatever is your favorite numbing alcohol of choice.

And something a lot of people forget, if you are a debut writer, make sure your word count is between 75k-100K.

The people who get quick rejections, material unread, will usually fall outside of these guidelines. It's such a common stumbling block and so well known, it's surprising the amount of people on Query Tracker who self-admit to having been rejected for outlier word counts.