What percentage of queries get some sort of response?

Woollybear

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This isn't the same as the other thread asking about the summer slowdown, although it's related.

I just don't have a firm grasp on numbers (percetanges) of responses to expect to a query. So that's my question here.

I've sent seven queries beginning about six weeks ago. I'm holding now, to gauge response. I expect seven rejections, because I think this is the way it is, and I'm not bothered by that part of it.

One agent said no fairly quickly.
Two of the agencies said if they don't answer in 4 - 6 weeks = No.

I suppose I was sort of expecting to get responses on maybe half, that those would be no's, or possibly a request for pages followed by no's.

But for 6 out of 7 I've heard nothing at all. I'll put the two that said they don't reply with 'no's' into the no pile at six weeks, not a big deal, but that still leaves four up in the air. I don't really feel like emailing to check and that's not my question anyway.

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')?
 
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Marissa D

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I don't know about precise percentages but yes, the "no response means no" thing, whether stated as policy or not, is becoming more and more common. I think enough agents have been burned by nasty responses to rejections that they're finding it easier (and probably less exhausting) to not respond. And response times can vary wildly. When I was last querying agents a couple of years ago, I never expected to hear anything sooner than 3-4 weeks, and usually assumed after 8-10 that it was a no...but sometimes I'd get requests for mss. at 12 and beyond.

It's a messy business and not really amenable to quantifying, unfortunately.
 

Thedrellum

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Yes? It really depends on the agents you are talking about because the norms of responding or not responding vary a lot from agent to agent. There are no guaranteed ways to know what's going on with your query at a particular agency until you receive a response BUT if you have the money QueryTracker has some tools which might help. Specifically, you can see when people report sending in their queries and when they report getting a response (you can also get this through the BR&BC section of the forums here and through comments on individual agent's pages on QueryTracker, but that requires more wading), and this can give you an idea as to whether the agents you've submitted to take (on average) 4 weeks, 3 months, or never respond at all.

When querying, I found it best to just assume my queries were sent into the void and continue to send out more regularly. Anyway, best of luck with the (draining, sometimes demoralizing, sometimes exciting) process.
 

Woollybear

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I feel like there should be metrics out there for the actual percentage of agencies that simply don't reply at all.

I feel like ... we have estimates on a lot of other things, and this seems like an obvious one to look at too. Do 20% of queries get a definitive response on average? 50%? 2%?
 
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Collie

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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
 

Woollybear

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Exactly what I was wondering. THANK YOU. :) :Hug2:

I don't have the premium. Was just browsing the QT net there and thinking that if I had one more forum in my life any last bit of writing time would evaporate in a puff of gibberish.
 
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Old Hack

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There's no one answer to this question, I'm afraid.

Every book is different, so every book will get a different response.

Some books have no chance of getting a response at query stage because they're so poorly written no agents will know what to say. Some books have such a good chance of being published that they'll get responses from almost every agent queried.

If you want to understand how this works, look up Slushkiller, on Making Light.
 

Harlequin

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Query tracker stats and my own experiences so far is that agents respond VERY quickly if interested. Not always, but many do. (Qt shows you how quickly people record responses and where you are in a queue.)

And it makes sense. If you see a hot project, you leap on it. Or you lose out to faster agents.

The consistent trend I'm seeing is faster agent responses overall, but at the expense of No Reply Means No now being standard.

Unless the agent consistently takes a month to reply (some British agents do) then I write them off as CNR after two weeks. On average.
 

Woollybear

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Thanks Harlequin-

I assume this to be the case. My book will be a tough sell on basis of subject matter alone, but I'm not writing to be a famous author, as mentioned too many times before - - - :) - - - But rather to get to the point where self publishing the clearest and most engaging book I can write makes sense.

I don't want to query all 120 agents at once if feedback on a couple queries ends up being ... actually ... helpful to a subsequent round. Cuz I would take an agent if one was interested. And I think the process does result in a more engaging book ...

Another issue here, is that some agencies have multiple agents who could fit but I need an R from one before subbing another at that agency. I think.

So, the metrics several posts are useful.

Maybe I should find on QT which SFF agents are good about responding, query them for the feedback they *might* give, and then tweaking for the rest.

OldHack - thanks for the tip on slush killer.
 
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Harlequin

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Good about responding only means they respond at all. I've got a spreadsheet listing sff agents by responsiveness but all that means i s you get form rejections, mostly. It is VANISHINGLY rare to get personalised rejections IME, even on partials and fulls (the latter is based on what friends have told me).

I think my query is decent (I hope that doesnt sound like a brag). I am estimating I will end up with a 10-15% response rate at best. Either way, I've had NIL feedback on the query -- agents simply dont tend to give that.

It sucks but it is what it is.
 
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Woollybear

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In my book, a form rejection 'counts' as feedback.

I do think we all understand the vagaries of this particular business. The problem of non-response is hardly limited to publishing, either.


Thanks again!
 
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Sparverius

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At least 30% of my queries garnered no response at all. Though a lot of agents (like mine) may simply miss a query and like to have a reminder nudge if it’s been over their stated time frame. Usually/hopefully they state this preference somewhere.

Here’s a good BookEnds rant about agents/agencies not responding to queries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVmLcwJkQ4
 

Carrie in PA

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Non-response would be more palatable if they at least had an autoresponse so you know your query was received at all.

% of response is just as subjective as the rest of this business. An amazing query might garner a 90% response rate, and a really terrible one might not get any response at all.

When I was querying, I had about a 70% response rate overall. 90% of those responses were "no thanks," but those were better than no response.



The whole industry reminds me of the intro to Whose Line is it Anyway: "the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter." :tongue
 

Undercover

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Query tracker stats and my own experiences so far is that agents respond VERY quickly if interested. Not always, but many do. (Qt shows you how quickly people record responses and where you are in a queue.)

And it makes sense. If you see a hot project, you leap on it. Or you lose out to faster agents.

The consistent trend I'm seeing is faster agent responses overall, but at the expense of No Reply Means No now being standard.

Unless the agent consistently takes a month to reply (some British agents do) then I write them off as CNR after two weeks. On average.


I agree that agents respond quickly if they're interested. Although requests for fulls still happen after, but very rarely. IMO I think the no response thing is getting worse. BUT luckily there are still places that respond either way.
 

pingle

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From the 12 I sent out earlier this year I got 10 form rejections. All UK agents, and all within a month I think. I've got a handful out now and it definitely feels like a longer wait, only one responce so far.
 

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I agree that agents respond quickly if they're interested. Although requests for fulls still happen after, but very rarely. IMO I think the no response thing is getting worse. BUT luckily there are still places that respond either way.

Given that AFAIK agents read queries in the order they arrive (apart from personal referrals), I'm not sure how this makes sense.
 

Harlequin

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Things that look good they seem to respond quickly to. Lots of stuff seems to get put on a maybe pile, and only gets read jf an offer comes in from elsewhere. If no offer does then it gets jettisoned with the crayon queries. Not saying it works that way for everyone but some agents seem to work that way and qt appears to back that up.
 

Liz_V

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I think about 85% of the agents I've queried have responded.

However, I tend to give preference to agents who do send responses. I won't refuse to query a NR=N agent if they sound good otherwise, but it's a point against them. And it's a big point against an agent if they say they respond, but reports from writers (on threads here, and elsewhere) indicate that they actually don't. (I prefer to work with people who do what they say they'll do.) So my data is self-selected toward responders.

Also, 7 is a pretty small sample set.

Here’s a good BookEnds rant about agents/agencies not responding to queries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVmLcwJkQ4

Jessica Faust is a class act. She read my full a while ago; her turn-around time was fast, and her rejection, though brief, was polite and detailed enough to make it clear she'd read the whole book and given it due consideration. I'm not surprised that she makes a number of very good points in that video.
 

lizmonster

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Things that look good they seem to respond quickly to. Lots of stuff seems to get put on a maybe pile, and only gets read jf an offer comes in from elsewhere. If no offer does then it gets jettisoned with the crayon queries. Not saying it works that way for everyone but some agents seem to work that way and qt appears to back that up.

One of the few things I learned while agented is that they don't look at incoming subs every day. Sometimes it's weeks, or even months, before they return to their backlog. This isn't callous disregard; it's them having work to do for paying clients. If you send them a requested partial the same day they (for example) learn they have to negotiate film rights for a client, you're going to be waiting, even if you're the second coming of John Grisham.

If they've requested a partial and you tell them you've got another offer, of course they're going to stop what they're doing (assuming they have any bandwidth) to take a glance at it at that point.

I may be completely wrong. But based on what I see discussed on Twitter, and what I heard while I was agented myself, very few of them have time for a pile of "I'm not wildly enthusiastic but I'll keep it around to maybe look at on a slow day" subs. They read when they can, and they decide when they read. But delays between us subbing and them reading is really unlikely to have anything to do with us at all.

It's also worth remembering that QT data is self-reported, and I don't think they get the participation level of a place like Submission Grinder. I'd take any data there with a big grain of salt, and I wouldn't do much interpreting of what I saw.
 

lizmonster

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I know the data is dodgy, but it goes back years, and lots of agents (at least on my list) have a faster yes/request time than a no/reject time. Sometime by a significant margin.

You may very well be right. But I can't get past the fundamental illogic of the premise, and there are too many simpler ways of explaining the data.
 

ap123

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It's been my experience that requests usually, but not always, come quickly.
It's been my experience that the percentage of non-responders has increased over time.
It's been my experience that the percentages of both requests and responses are variable with the genre being queried.

One final--I've only been able to see average percentages after a large number of queries. In other words, let's say I sent 100 queries, and when all was said and done, I had a 20% request rate, and 40% non-responders. There is a chance that in the first batch of 10, I had 0 requests, and 1 non-responder. In the next batch of ten, I might have had 4 requests, and 6 non-responders, etc. Inevitably, there are some stragglers: a request that comes 3 months after the query was sent, rejections that come 5 months, 7 months, even a year after querying, long after I closed them out as non-responders. I had a rejection arrive in my inbox last week on a requested full sent 2 years ago.
 

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When I used to do blanket querying, I would be very lucky to get a 10% response, but these days I do a lot of targeted research and send out small batches of queries (4-6 at a time) for a 50-75% response. This is probably because the research means I can personalise the query, which agents, I think, appreciate and makes them more likely to respond.

But as others have said, positive responses and manuscript requests tend to come back within a few days and I find that a response after two weeks is highly likely to be a rejection.
 

Harlequin

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I guess I dont see it as illogical.

If I were an agent, I would absolutely prioritise queries that look amazeballs, otherwise I risk losing out (esp if newish and still building a list). The rest I'd leave and either not answer or follow up later if I'm still interested and/or the hot stuff I've prioritised doesnt pan out.

A lot of agents now seem to say they will respond within 2-4 weeks or not st all, but if you bring up their data, the vast majority if requests are within 0-3 days in many cases, with only a handful of outliers being requested much later.

In a way, it's better. I write off most agents as CNR after a couple of weeks (you can track whether or not people who queried after you are getting requests which helps). I'm not sat here holding out hope four months down the line. Mostly.

British agents seem slower but they're usually more inclined to reply. Not always.
 

lizmonster

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If I were an agent, I would absolutely prioritise queries that look amazeballs, otherwise I risk losing out (esp if newish and still building a list). The rest I'd leave and either not answer or follow up later if I'm still interested and/or the hot stuff I've prioritised doesnt pan out.

Which doesn't seem logical to me at all.

Based on what I read, there is no "if I'm still interested" list. They either love it enough to request, or they pass. There's no prioritized list; there's just yes or no. I've seen folks like Laura Zats talk about having "maybe" feelings about a query before deciding. The time between thinking "Hm, I wonder..." and deciding yes or no is possibly twenty minutes.

I just disbelieve that this "well, if nothing better comes along" list exists. Agents don't have that much time to put into queries - the fifteen-second yes/no decision takes far more bandwidth than a lot of them have to spare in the first place.

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