What percentage of queries get some sort of response?

Woollybear

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Perhaps the passes at some agencies are handled by administrative staff, and maybe they do them on a separate schedule.

I queried somebody (with their name in the address, so I thought it'd go to their box) and had an auto reply from another person saying they were out of the office. From this, I infer that some agencies have administrative folks (and people here would know better than me.)

Whereas a positive response may have a different route of contact.
 

Woollybear

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And I also assumed that email queries have contact information on them, because ... email. As in, I don't need to clog up the query with my email address for an email query.

I had the odd thought today that this might not be the case. I am not grasping at straws, simply realizing that made an assumption that I didn't need to provide my email address or phone number in the query itself, and you know what, I think will from now on.
 

Kats

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And I also assumed that email queries have contact information on them, because ... email. As in, I don't need to clog up the query with my email address for an email query.

I had the odd thought today that this might not be the case. I am not grasping at straws, simply realizing that made an assumption that I didn't need to provide my email address or phone number in the query itself, and you know what, I think will from now on.

Yes, add your contact info (I put address and phone number) at the end of the email! (ETA: I also included email address.)

Most agencies say on their websites if no response means no and after how long. I put this info in my spreadsheet for queries so I knew when to close it out.

As a counter to interest usually coming quickly, my agent asked for more material after 5 weeks of sending the query, and then it was nearly 4 months after that for offer of rep. I think it really depends on the agent and where they are in their workload! (And yes, you do want an agent who prioritizes client work to queries!)
 
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Sparverius

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Re: Harlequin and lizmonster… I only have one example of this, but recently (when I nudged on a query with an offer) I did have an agent say "I've been holding it for further consideration." She had a query and 5 pages, for about a month after I queried her. I can only assume this means it went into a Maybe pile.
 
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lizmonster

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Re: Harlequin and lizmonster… I only have one example of this, but recently (when I nudged on a query with an offer) I did have an agent say "I've been holding it for further consideration." She had a query and 5 pages, for about a month after I queried her. I can only assume this means it went into a Maybe pile.

Well, just because I think it doesn't make sense doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about. :)
 

Fuchsia Groan

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My now-agent took more than a month to request a full from me, which came as a surprise since I'd read that if I didn't get a request in a day or two, I never would. But my belief that requests had to be instant did encourage me to forget about queries as soon as I sent them, which was better for my overall peace of mind. :) I never looked at response times, just reworked the letter and moved on to the next agent on my list, assuming the previous ones were probably nos.
 

Woollybear

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Well, for sure my strategy needs to change. I had thought that 'send out batches in 6 - 12' made sense because one could tweak.

But (1) with no responses coming and (2) the fact that most of these have pages attached anyway, and (3) my sense that I'll self publish in the end ... this strategy doesn't make sense anymore. I feel as though I've set this hurdle for myself of querying in small batches, gauging response ... but the math would work out to the querying alone taking like ten months to get through the list of ~120 agents. You guys would hear me moaning for the next year.

I think I'll send out twenty today and see what happens. I've been researching them, have even written some of them up.

Twenty queries. today's goal. Go from there.
 
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mpack

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Looking at a couple of the projects I've queried, it looks like about 1/3 never reply. Very few rejections give any personalized feedback; I've had more requests for additional materials than personalized rejections on the query.

For whatever it's worth, I query in batches. 5-10 to start and add a few any time I receive a rejection.
 
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Liz_V

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And I suppose I'll never know if I'm right about that, unless I somehow become an agent myself.

And even then, you'd only know for sure how one agent does it. ;)
 

Woollybear

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All of it helps for me to contextualize.

Halfway there. Ten. Need a break. Gonna bike.
 
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Harlequin

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Sage

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I have to admit that the idea that an agent pounces on requests at the query stage is baffling to me, since agents are constantly telling us that the reason it's taking them so long is that they haven't gotten a chance to look at their query inbox. How can they know what's a hot commodity before they read the query?

At the full stage, sure, I'll buy that an agent who was super-excited about the query (and maybe first pages) might have that full jump the line because they're worried about missing out, but at the query stage, how can they know?

However, it's totally possible that the agents who are faster to respond are also the ones with more time to read fulls, and so they might be more likely to request than an agent who doesn't have time to look at her inbox. And non-responses are waiting for infinity, so you have no idea whether the agent rejected you just as fast as they requested from someone else, because it never comes. I realize that as far as the author is concerned, it's the same thing. Still, I personally wouldn't write off an agent just because no response came in the first 2 weeks. But I also suggest not waiting on every individual query, anticipating when it will get a response, either. Save that for the full requests ;)
 

Harlequin

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in the video she stresses that things happen quickly once she's read the full BUT that getting to the actual query can take time. So a bit of both I suppose.

Knight Agency has an intern who reads the queries (or seems to, since all rejections come signed by the office assistant) and their turn around is about 0-3 days for quick rejections. Suzie Townsend, Ginger Clarke, and all the Triada gang say they'll answer in 2 weeks or not at all. But then others takes months I guess.

Anyways. I'm probably overanalysing.
 

WeaselFire

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My question is, is this the normal definitive response rate for a no? Do 85% of agents really not respond at all (besides the auto reply 'got your query')?

There are no absolutes. On percentages responding or time responding. I actually once got a response to a query six months after the book had been published by a different agent/publisher. The two agents I know well will say they probably respond, other than a canned response no, to about .001% of the queries they receive. The vast majority of non-responses are because they get queries like "Hi, will you publish my novel?" or "I have written a 6,000 word book about the history of the world that will alter your beliefs!"

They also seem to get a ton of queries for stuff they don't rep. Amazing how many people are writing LGBT porn and sending it to agents who rep children and preteen books. But for every writer responsible enough to check the agent's credentials and look to see what genres they are looking for, there are a thousand who blast emails off to every agent listed anywhere for anything.

The magic of email the internet and electronic societies today is that stuff comes in greater volume and with a far wider range of quality. It's only natural that agents will simply ignore the drivel, hoping it just goes away. There's plenty more coming in tomorrow.

Advice? Six weeks is nothing, especially when agents are getting their kids out of the city on summer break. Be patient. And stop looking at response rates unless you're also reviewing your query's appropriateness and effectiveness. Send a dozen queries, wait a few weeks, send a dozen more. If you're like many writers, eventually you'll get a really good and encouraging response.

Jeff
 

Liz_V

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On the subject of Maybe piles, I just happened to run across this:
http://www.michelle4laughs.com/2015/07/query-questions-with-heather-flaherty.html

...in which the agent says that she frequently holds on to queries to give herself time to think about them before responding. Now, that interview's a few years old, so maybe this is more of a new-agent thing, but clearly some agents do it.

I'm sure I've seen other agents saying that they never/hardly ever "hold" a query; it's yes or no on the first read.

Which means it's down to the individual agent's working style, and you can't predict one from another. Which sums up a heckuva lot about this business.
 

Woollybear

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Funnily, if I had an agent, I'm sure my feeling would be "Why are you looking at queries when you should be helping sell my book?"

:) I would never want to be an agent.

I'm happy with my new strategy. I had the wrong idea going in: Six queries, tweak based on the response, six more, rinse and repeat. If there is no response, or the response can take this long, then you know what? that strategy simply doesn't work.

I only made it to ten the other day, but that's OK. I'm up to 18 overall. Still only one response of the original six. Each one has been researched. :)
 
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Treehouseman

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My last 2 agents read through Queries, Partials, to Fulls, to offers, both in under a week. I'm just suspecting that if it doesn't come hugely quickly than the chance of a positive reply may fall sharply after a fortnight, or it may be down to luck.

I got a whole rash of requests and replies at the 4 month mark though, and I made a habit of querying "responders" mostly. So in the end about 60% got back to me.
 

Woollybear

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I'm only at 10% response (2 rejections of 20 queries; 18 non-responses) including having queried agents who claim to respond.

I doubt 90% did not read it, which likely means my story is not something they see as marketable. I knew that going in. It's also an important topic (climate change.)

I really suspect my outlier data point here, is down to those two things. Important topic and some agents probably emotionally agree, but hard to market a book that says we are killing ourselves.
 
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Harlequin

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10% is fine, considered a good rate. I was at 10%, on track to drop to less than that. Chasing up with receipt at offers means my final tally for people actually answering was only slightly better than 10% in the end. (Even then, 3/10 people I chased up didn't bother answering.)

It sounds like your query package is doing all it should.
 

mpack

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I'm only at 10% response (2 rejections of 20 queries; 18 non-responses) including having queried agents who claim to respond.

I doubt 90% did not read it, which likely means my story is not something they see as marketable. I knew that going in. It's also an important topic (climate change.)

I really suspect my outlier data point here, is down to those two things. Important topic and some agents probably emotionally agree, but hard to market a book that says we are killing ourselves, folks.

So my guess is this is why I'm getting so few responses - It's easier to ignore the query and put it into some sort of limbo, than to face to topic or reject it outright.

According to the posts in this thread, your oldest queries have been out about two months, and the newest queries aren't even two weeks old yet. You can't reach any conclusion from the lack of response at this point. You're still well within the response time frame for many agents.

As for putting your query into limbo, I don't see it. According to tenqueries and similar twitter projects, agents receive a lot of message fiction, and they have no problem rejecting queries that don't work for them.
 

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I'm only at 10% response (2 rejections of 20 queries; 18 non-responses) including having queried agents who claim to respond.

I doubt 90% did not read it, which likely means my story is not something they see as marketable. I knew that going in. It's also an important topic (climate change.)

I really suspect my outlier data point here, is down to those two things. Important topic and some agents probably emotionally agree, but hard to market a book that says we are killing ourselves, folks.

So my guess is this is why I'm getting so few responses - It's easier to ignore the query and put it into some sort of limbo, than to face to topic or reject it outright.

10% is fine, considered a good rate. I was at 10%, on track to drop to less than that. Chasing up with receipt at offers means my final tally for people actually answering was only slightly better than 10% in the end. (Even then, 3/10 people I chased up didn't bother answering.)

It sounds like your query package is doing all it should.

Actually, I believe she was saying she has 10% of any kind of response, not of requests. 10% is considered a good request rate, not a good response rate.

However, I agree with mpack that it's too early to say this bunch of queries have any definitive stats at all. 2 months is nothing in the world of querying. Really and truly.
 

Harlequin

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Ah, sorry, my bad. Although, I was keeping track of my response rate, so I guess mine is low too (because I didn't have a 10% request rate until nudging) but as before, it's not been very long.

I don't know of any agents who opt for no response because they dislike a query; they'll have a blanket policy one way or another.
 

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When I was more actively querying, and before QT changed so that non-subscribers can't see data beyond querying, I was more often than not the person who was the longest wait before response. I don't know if that's because most people who waited that long or longer gave up on keeping track on QT, or if I just had the misfortune of hitting agents at their slowest times or if something about my novels were just interesting enough to request but not interesting enough to read in a timely manner. There were times when I was on the earlier or middle of the stats too, but I just couldn't believe how many times I'd be waiting beyond the longest time. But rare were the times when a request didn't get a response (back then, at least).

I don't remember what my stats were for queries. I track them on a spreadsheet for my own uses, but I tend to send out queries and forget about them, after the first 10.
 

CharlesXav

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I pulled up the ‘premium’ query tracker report on average responses for qt users.

49.1% - no response
35.9% - rejection
6.1% - still out (qt marks as no response by default at 120 days)
5.0% - full request
3.9% - partial request

Wow! Thanks for that information. I was always curious as well. Looks like I'm ahead of the pack with an 85% response rate although they all were rejections - ha!