Nathan Bransford - The Forums

SONG OF A CROCUS MOON

Sent about 70-80 queries

@20 requests for partials

@5-10 request for fulls (only a few of these, however, were after reading the partial first)

Maybe about 10 agents I didn't hear from at all.

@5 agents I didn't hear from after sending partials or fulls.

Rest were form rejections or semi-form rejections

These might sound like pretty good stats, but I recently stopped sending queries for this ms. My gut is telling me this one is a close-but-no-cigar ms (I've revised it a zillion times so I didn't think a revision will fix it). I've started another novel and I'm excited about it.

Well, I just got my first round of rejections, so I'll join in!

Genre: YA urban fantasy
Total queries sent to date: 9
Queries still awaiting response: 4
Rejections to date: 5
Form rejections: 3
Personalized rejections: 1 (sort of... the agent in question wasn't even supposed to send rejections, but she e-mailed me just to say that she wasn't a good fit. I have no idea what to make of that, but hey.)
Silence-means-no rejection: 1
Request for partials: 0
Request for fulls: 0

I sent a revised query letter to the last four, so hopefully that'll get me better luck.

Genre: Adventure/Fantasy fiction
Total queries sent to date: 10
Queries still awaiting a response: 6
Rejections to date: 4
Form rejections: 2
Personalized rejections: 0
Requests for pages: 0
Requests for manuscript: 0

I agree that form rejections are frustrating. One form rejection came with an offer to buy the agents book on how to write a novel. Funny thing is that the agent never read a single page of my novel so how do they know that I need a book on how to write one.

I am taking it all in strides and will continue to move forward by examining what may be the glaring problem... my query letter I suspect.

Time to update my rejection stats!

Genre: YA urban fantasy
Total queries sent to date: 12
Queries still awaiting response: 2
Rejections to date: 9
Form rejections: 7
Silence-means-no rejection: 2 (I found out about one through the agent's Twitter)
Request for partials: 0
Request for fulls: 1 (One week into a two week exclusive, waiting for a response)

Keeping my fingers crossed that the agent who has my MS enjoys it...

JaEvans wrote:Genre: Adventure/Fantasy fiction
Total queries sent to date: 10
Queries still awaiting a response: 6
Rejections to date: 4
Form rejections: 2
Personalized rejections: 0
Requests for pages: 0
Requests for manuscript: 0

I agree that form rejections are frustrating. One form rejection came with an offer to buy the agents book on how to write a novel. Funny thing is that the agent never read a single page of my novel so how do they know that I need a book on how to write one.

I am taking it all in strides and will continue to move forward by examining what may be the glaring problem... my query letter I suspect.

If you get no requests at all it has to be the Query. Sure your MS might not be great either but you have to think positive to achieve positive results. I'm guessing your novel is much better than your query. Most people who can write creatively cannot write a query well without a lot of research and trial and error. I should know. I would definitely suggest posting your query here, on query shark, on The Public Query Slushpile, on Ask Daphne!, and anywhere else you can find feedback.

That bit about the agent's book is lame. They must be selling enough copies not to need to have an assistant customize their queries even a tiny bit.

My own stats:

Genre: Upper YA
Total queries sent to date: Over 50
Queries still awaiting a response: ~10 (assumed rejected, over 2 months old minimum)
Rejections to date: 36
Form rejections: 34
Personalized rejections: 2
Requests for pages: 3
Requests for manuscript: 1

There is an interesting story to all this for me personally. Well it's interesting to me, others will probably be bored to tears. If you're curious please visit my blog by clicking one of the links below. On it I've been baring my query woes for all to see. Eventually I will share the details of examples that found success but for now it's the worst of the worst. Make fun of me, sympathize, or vent some anger. Please just visit, follow and comment and hopefully we can share some info or advice that another novice writer can use to avoid the mistake I or others have already made.

matildamcc wrote:SONG OF A CROCUS MOON

Sent about 70-80 queries

@20 requests for partials

@5-10 request for fulls (only a few of these, however, were after reading the partial first)

Maybe about 10 agents I didn't hear from at all.

@5 agents I didn't hear from after sending partials or fulls.

Rest were form rejections or semi-form rejections

These might sound like pretty good stats, but I recently stopped sending queries for this ms. My gut is telling me this one is a close-but-no-cigar ms (I've revised it a zillion times so I didn't think a revision will fix it). I've started another novel and I'm excited about it.

This is almost exactly where I am too (similar stats as well, although cut in half -- 40 queries, 9 fulls, 1 partial). Got great feedback on my first MS, and a few agents still have it, but I've stopped querying for the time being. I'd rather go back to the agents who liked my writing and wanted to see my next one -- especially since I'm really excited about the next one. Plenty of great authors have "close but no cigar" manuscripts before finding "the one"!

I just started out a few weeks ago so I'm still in the newbie phase. So far though, my stats are:

Genre: YA Paranormal
Total queries sent to date: 22 (I may have gotten a wee bit excited and sent out a few to many right away. I probably should have started with ten or fifteen at first. I did end up learning a few things, revised my query and sent a couple of the new one out)
Queries still awaiting a response: 12 (as I said it's only been a few weeks and most of these agents cite months for a response)
Rejections to date: 8
Form rejections: 4
Personalized rejections: 4 (one said I had a great hook but they just didn't connect to the story as they hoped, another said she wanted to personally encourage me to keep querying as she had no doubt I'd find an agent, and another gave me an explanation as to why agents sometimes have to reject talented writers and she also encouraged me to keep trying. They made me happy but I also wanted to e-mail back and say, "but if you think I'm good then you should represent me! Really!" :) ).
Requests for pages: 2 (the first request was off the old query that I hadn't revised, the second request was off the new revised query so I have no idea what that means. I'll probably stick with the revised one though, it looks cleaner to me).
Requests for manuscript: 0

So far no mean responses. Hopefully I won't get any though, if I do, I have a pretty tough skin so I probably would just shrug it off.

2:8 ratio. You're doing well =) Congrats

really? Thank you! After the eight I'd started to get a little used to the rejections so when I got the first request I almost didn't notice and went to hit the delete button before going waaaaaaaaait, did that say "I'm interested"?????

You guys are amazing to share your experiences in the open like this, us lurkers really appreciate your courage, it's even encouraging.

Mine so far are:

Fantasy novel-
Query packages sent- 5
Yet to respond- 4 (it hasn't even been 3 months yet, let alone 6, so I'm not worried)
Full requests- 1

(I also write short fiction, I've got 92 rejections (53 of which are personal) and 1 sale so far)

My stats so far:

Genre: YA
Queries sent: 2
Rejections (Form): 1
Full Requests: 1

Ok, I'll join too.

Genre: Children's
Total queries sent to date: 35
Queries still awaiting response: 25
Rejections to date: 10
Form rejections: 9
Personalized rejections: 1 She said the voice didn't grab her as much as she had hoped but she was sure that another agent would snap me up. I wish that other agent would hurry up and do so then. :-)
Request for partials: 1 rejected
Request for fulls: 1 still pending

The waiting truly sucks!

21 Sent
9 Still Out
0 Partial Requests
3 Full Requests
8 Rejections
1 Closed / No Response
Updated: 6/9/10

Not bad at all, congrats! :)