How many rejections before success?

Spicyqueso

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Good day!

I struggle with rejection at times but I force myself to read them and then keep on. However, they can get quite discouraging.

My question is, how many rejections have all of you had before any type of success? I am currently trying to re-write my query letter based upon some of the resources here but I am unable to post it in QLH for feedback. I'm not sure if it is my query letter or the subject matter is just unappealing to some of these agents. I find it hard to find agents who accept unsolicited manuscripts... Anyway, I guess I'm just looking for some encouragement through other people's experiences.
 

Shoeless

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I had an agent make an offer after 430+ rejections across multiple books, so, yeah... Definitely not a speedy process for me.
 

Calla Lily

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Shoeless beats my count. :) 385 rejections before landing an agent. A bunch more before the first book deal, and then the agent and I parted ways. Later this year I'll be on the query-go-round again with a brand new book, because the big publishers talk to agents. Also countless short story rejections before I got the knack of writing a publishable short.

There is no hard and fast number. It's skill plus timing. This month agents/pubs might not be interested in a particular WIP. Next month a window may open up.

Never give up. Never surrender.
 

ChibiUsagi

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60+

1st book, though.

Sounds like chump change around here but it sure as hell felt like a lot to me.
 

Dennis E. Taylor

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Use QueryTracker. There are lots of agents that take unsolicited queries, although it probably varies with your genre.

Don't think of them as rejections, think of them as feedback. Some agents want just the letter, some agents want the letter and 10 pages (or some number). Some agents will respond with a request for pages.

If you get no bites at all, even on query-only agents, then your query needs work. If you get responses from query-only agents, then nothing, then it's your manuscript. If you get R&Rs, that tells you something else again. Extract the data. Learn from it. React. There are places to get queries banged into shape (including this forum). There are places to get chapters critted. There are places to get beta readers.

Querying and getting rejected is the beginning of the journey, not the end.
 

polishmuse

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Book 1: trunked, gave up after 65 rejections
Book 2: got an agent after 40 rejections, then got rejected by 8 editors on sub, trunked, left agent because she didn't like next two full books (+2 rej there)
Currently querying a new thing, have had about 15 rej so far.
 

RaggyCat

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Wow, I salute you guys who are persistent. Very heartening!

For me, I think it was in the region of 8-15 for my first time getting an agent. Second time round, I got 14 rejections before returning to the first agent. Bear in mind my pool of potential agents (UK YA) is only about 50-60, though, so those stats are worse than they first appear.
 

Chris P

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For me it's hard to say. The first novel I seriously queried got about 50 rejections/no replies (only two partial requests) before I became convinced the book itself was making the query process harder. I stopped querying to fix the book (trust me, it was the book and not the query letter that was the problem) and got distracted by other projects and never re-queried it.

The second novel had fewer than ten queries when a "hot tip" about a publisher who accepted direct submissions resulted in success. "Success" at least in terms of getting published. Sadly, this publisher went for quantity of books and didn't invest in the marketing or promotion and overextended itself. The publisher folded about a year later.

For short stories, some got accepted on the first try, while others never got accepted after 15 or so tries. For one, Dennis's suggestion to see it as input is right on. I sent a story to a market who said "I like this, but I wasn't convinced by . . . Take 300 more words and make me believe it." I added a scene, sent it back, and he loved it but couldn't convince the board to accept it. I sent it, unrevised, to a different market who snapped it up immediately.

The "no response" or form input is much harder to discipher. I make no revisions based on no-input input. Until someone can tell me what needs changed, I have to go forward on the assumption that the story could have been fine, just didn't fit for them.
 

ShouldBeWriting

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Wow, I salute you guys who are persistent. Very heartening!

For me, I think it was in the region of 8-15 for my first time getting an agent. Second time round, I got 14 rejections before returning to the first agent. Bear in mind my pool of potential agents (UK YA) is only about 50-60, though, so those stats are worse than they first appear.

I wasn’t going to weigh in because I didn’t get many rejections either because it happened so fast with both my agent and my editor. With my agent, I actually got the same amount of requests as rejections (5). But that only tells part of the story. In truth, I think I self-rejected hundreds of times... deciding my trunked books weren’t good enough, and thinking my novel needed just one more revision before submitting. I think self-doubt actually hindered me more than hundreds of rejections would have, because I wasn’t getting feedback, and thus my writing took longer to improve.
 
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Atlantic12

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I think me and shouldbewriting were separated at birth. Only 4 rejections before I got my agent. I only queried 5. But I spent many years learning from my trunked books and rejecting my own work until I finally hit on a book I thought might live up to my expectations. If I'd queried my earlier work, I know I'd have a huge stack of rejections.
 

noranne

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I wish there was an answer to this question, but as you can see, it varies widely.

For me, so far I'm at 282 (I think) for agents. That's across 5 manuscripts, although only 3 of them fully queried (one I abandoned quickly, the other I've only recently started). There were some partials and fulls in there as well. But no real "success" yet. I've also racked up a few (not sure the count) publisher rejections, both from bigger ones doing open calls and smaller ones that don't require an agent. For short stories, I've had 67 rejections from 12 pieces and so far no acceptances.

Just keep swimming.
 

Treehouseman

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Before someone comes in with the meme...

JK ROWLING ONLY RECIEVED ONE REJECTION BEFORE FINDING AN AGENT. ONE. ONLY ONE.
 

Harlequin

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Word, Treehouseman. I do an internal void scream every time JK Rowling and her one rejection get mentioned (conflated with her 12 publisher ones).


I had over 130 rejection for MS1, and although I found an agent relatively quickly for MS2, I still had a couple dozen rejections for that as well.
 

JeanGenie

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What’s the deal with Rowling and her rejections? Is it that they try to make what is actually a little seem like a lot? And wasn’t she rejected by almost all publishers?
 

RaggyCat

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What’s the deal with Rowling and her rejections? Is it that they try to make what is actually a little seem like a lot? And wasn’t she rejected by almost all publishers?

I'd be curious for an answer for this to. Is it simply people getting agents and publishers confused?
 

Harlequin

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I think it is both. A lot of people are under the false impression that getting an agent is a guarantee of a book deal, when the reals stats are rather more depressing. So they hear about her twelve rejections and assume that means agents, perhaps, since that is the stage most people get stuck at.

Rowling herself propagates the myth, I think unintentionally. She is on record as having told fans she had "loads" of rejections (as part of trying to be encouraging.)
 

Woollybear

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I bet it's from the notion that HP is so huge and so successful (in hindsight) that the fact that she got any Rs at all is great comfort to queriers the first time they hear this. It proves that publishers make mistakes. So, the meme is comforting.

Lolita was a best seller too, and was rejected by most every publisher. Because of its subject matter though, no one points to that one as proof that publishers make mistakes. But it was also wildly successful, with movies and everything. Jeremy Irons played the main character. The works.

I doubt we could start an effective meme about Lolita and how many rejections it got, because our instincts tell us that that one would be a tough sell.

HP is so outrageously successful at every level, and there is very little in it that suggests that it should be a tough sell. No one (to my knowledge) has said its 'one of the best novels of the 20th century' but it is certainly successful. NPR's list of 100 novels for the 20th century puts Lolita at #8 and HP is not on the list.

In case you've not seen other rejection stories, here are some. they are fun to read. (e.g. "You can have le Carre. He has no future.")
 
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Shoeless

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Word, Treehouseman. I do an internal void scream every time JK Rowling and her one rejection get mentioned (conflated with her 12 publisher ones).

So... how DID the myth that J.K. Rowling "struggled" with publishing spread anyway?
 

Treehouseman

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What’s the deal with Rowling and her rejections? Is it that they try to make what is actually a little seem like a lot? And wasn’t she rejected by almost all publishers?

So... how DID the myth that J.K. Rowling "struggled" with publishing spread anyway?

Preaching to the converted, but this is mostly for the lurkers...

After you get an agent, they will submit (ie: go on sub) to all the publishers. (note: check out The Next Circle Of Hell Thread for everyone in that boat!) And hopefully one will say YES.

One said YES to Harry Potter... a major publisher, Little Brown, division of Warner Brothers. Respectable advance and hardcovers too. An achievement because as everyone in the Next Circle knows, even with an agent even ANY publisher is a 20% chance.

...But of course being the good agent JKR's agent subbed to EVERYONE IN CHRISTIANDOM AND SOME OTHERS TOO. So clearly she got rejections from places like The Horticultural and Garden Publisher Inc and Beast Mode Military Press and Bondage Comics. (*Maybe I'm being only a little facetious. But before HP, middle grade wasn't as huge, and when you hear the agent subbed to FIFTEEN presses you can bet your bottom dollar there were some choices on that list that were not going to be suitable for the kind of book HP was.)

But still, a rejection from Butt Enlargement Plastic Surgeon's Journal is a rejection, and added to the "struggle" mythos.

Technically going on sub isn't counted as a *personal rejection as you are out of the equation, and you may not know until your agent tells you. I don't know how many I got before I got my deal. Over five, I think. So getting your agent on the second try and him selling your book to a major publisher without you having to write another one? Absolute dream run.
 
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JeanGenie

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One said YES to Harry Potter... a major publisher, Little Brown, division of Warner Brothers. Respectable advance and hardcovers too. An achievement because as everyone in the Next Circle knows, even with an agent even ANY publisher is a 20% chance.

You mean there is a 20% chance of getting a publisher after you have an agent? I can't decide if that's a high or low number...since I don't have an agent yet, any number higher than 0,00003% seems good :p

And yes, preaching to the choir, but perhaps there are people lurking here who don't also lurk in the next circle and therefore know how publishing works-
 

Treehouseman

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You mean there is a 20% chance of getting a publisher after you have an agent? I can't decide if that's a high or low number...since I don't have an agent yet, any number higher than 0,00003% seems good :p

And yes, preaching to the choir, but perhaps there are people lurking here who don't also lurk in the next circle and therefore know how publishing works-


I think 20% is me being optimistic. I have a feeling it's much lower.

(THIS website says it is 10%, but obviously some agents will get big hits all the time)