While updating my submission spreadsheet I noticed that it’s been just over a year since I started searching for an agent for my second novel manuscript. A year is a fair amount of time and, despite my mixed feelings, I decided to pour into the data to see exactly what the results of these past 12 months have been. Here is a candid window into the actual process I’ve been through over the past year, in submitting to different agents in the UK (and a handful in the US too). Here we go:
Submissions: 36
Rejections: 29 (of which, no response at all): 10
Full manuscript requests: 3; (of which rejected): 2
Outstanding replies: 7
Those are some pretty bad stats on the face of it, hey? It’s a sort of rites of passage – the #1 thing to expect as a writer trying to be published – to see the rejections stack up. It would be very easy to become disheartened, especially by the non-replies, if I didn’t fully understand how the industry works. And still, when actually looking at the stats more closely, I realised there were a few positive take-aways.
I’ve had just under 30 rejections but 3 requests to send in my full manuscript. That’s 1 manuscript request for every 10 submissions – not too bad going for a fledgling, as far as I’m concerned. So I can take heart from knowing that my cover letter and the ever-taxing synopsis are in good shape, and that my concept is subjectively good. After 2 full manuscripts were passed up I wanted to have some beta-reader feedback into whether there were more fundamental issues with the novel that I wasn’t aware of. It remains to be seen whether this feedback will pay off or not but I feel positive about it; I enjoy the story when I read it, and I believe in it. I also have to have faith that someone out there (in the wilderness of my spreadsheet…) will believe in it too.
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