- Joined
- Aug 19, 2019
- Messages
- 54
- Reaction score
- 8
About a month ago, I was feeling sky high. All my beta readers really liked my novel. They're trusted readers, very qualified for giving feedback. This is the best thing I've ever written. I really believe that, and I usually don't.
It's my third novel. My first novel never reached the querying stage. It was just bad. My second novel got 10 full requests out of about 50 queries, but after ten very nice personal rejections, I decided to trunk it. The novel had too many structural problems to fix.
So I decided to change genres to sci-fi (think Black Mirror, not space opera). And now, crickets. I'm up to 18 queries. 4 form rejections. Nothing else. I've rewritten the query three times now.
I know it's only been a month since I started. But I use Querytracker's data explorer, and most of the agents I submitted to will usually request materials within a couple of days or give no response at all. This was also my experience with my last novel. Most of my requests came within a week of sending the query. So out of the 18 queries I sent recently, I think I still have a chance with 3 of them. 0-15 is a pretty bad indicator.
Is sci-fi a tough sell? I didn't think it was since I see so much of it around in books, TV, and film. But it seems like everything is YA, literary, or fantasy. Anyone have anything out there to give me hope? Maybe it's just the time of year or perhaps agents have a "maybe" file and they're still looking for the time to review my pages. I don't know.
I know I will try to get feedback on my query, and if this is only a problem with my query, then I'm okay. But I fear it's a problem with my concept and genre. I'm worried that the best thing I've ever written won't even get read.
It's my third novel. My first novel never reached the querying stage. It was just bad. My second novel got 10 full requests out of about 50 queries, but after ten very nice personal rejections, I decided to trunk it. The novel had too many structural problems to fix.
So I decided to change genres to sci-fi (think Black Mirror, not space opera). And now, crickets. I'm up to 18 queries. 4 form rejections. Nothing else. I've rewritten the query three times now.
I know it's only been a month since I started. But I use Querytracker's data explorer, and most of the agents I submitted to will usually request materials within a couple of days or give no response at all. This was also my experience with my last novel. Most of my requests came within a week of sending the query. So out of the 18 queries I sent recently, I think I still have a chance with 3 of them. 0-15 is a pretty bad indicator.
Is sci-fi a tough sell? I didn't think it was since I see so much of it around in books, TV, and film. But it seems like everything is YA, literary, or fantasy. Anyone have anything out there to give me hope? Maybe it's just the time of year or perhaps agents have a "maybe" file and they're still looking for the time to review my pages. I don't know.
I know I will try to get feedback on my query, and if this is only a problem with my query, then I'm okay. But I fear it's a problem with my concept and genre. I'm worried that the best thing I've ever written won't even get read.