How do you stay sane while querying agents?

[CakeRage]

I finished my first book earlier this year (after saying for years I was going to write it), and started submitting to agents 3 weeks ago.

I’ve had a couple of replies, both really encouraging, but ultimately both rejections, and I feel like I’m losing my marbles. How do you keep it together while waiting? Not sure I can take the emotional rollercoaster

The first agent replied within hours to ask for the full manuscript, emailed again the following day to say she was halfway through and absolutely blown away by it, then a few days later to say she did love it, but thought it needed a few changes making. I revised the whole thing (10,000 extra words of work), then she replied just to say it wasn’t working, and she wouldn’t be taking it further.

To be honest I’ve been pretty gutted by it. How do you stop the little judgy voice in your head which tells you you were an idiot for getting your hopes up?

The second agent replied to say she was really impressed by my writing, but didn’t feel I was a good fit for her list at the moment, and recommended another agent (different agency) who she thought would like it. I handled that one much better, even though I guess it was more of an abrupt no.

Please tell me how you cope with this stage - or come commiserate with me at its horribleness!

(Sorry for my crazed rambling - feeling all my feelings this week!)

Draining, isn’t it? Must be the day for it.

Hope your feedback is helpful, although by the sound of it it’s contradictory and not at all useful!

I just got ‘doesn’t fit into our plans for this year’.

The feedback was indeed contradictory again so I don’t know what to do with it...
Think I’m getting to the point of deciding that I should probably just focus on Book 2 instead and think of Book 1 as a learning experience!
Although might submit to Avon - thank you for the link, Preparing.

Also Bookouture have really good reputation Cake. Great royalties.

I have heard... nothing back! Chased third and fourth agent who I would count as outstanding telling them that two top-tier agencies have the full. I named the agencies as thought that sounded a bit more definite. I have heard nothing at all from them, both young agents at top agencies building their lists, not even a form rejection. Is this normal? It feels like the rest of you are actually getting rejections whereas i'm not getting anything!

Also have heard nothing back from the new agent who has the full. I consider that bad news.

But am submitting something COMPLETELY different to the CB prize!

I’m on 12 rejections and 2 outstanding fulls now out of 30 total submissions, Boiling, so 16 just total ghosting! I guess it is standard.

One of my last week’s rejections was from a digital publishing imprint, though not the ones mentioned here, and not my first choice of the two I did submit, to be honest. I only sent it as my editor acquaintance sent me a message saying she had read a few books by them and none were as good as mine. They obviously don’t agree!

On waiting for full news, one of the agents who has mine made it clear she wasn’t going to start reading it immediately, so if you don’t hear straight away I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I think some stockpile fulls from all the submissions they like, then work through them when they have the time. Don’t give up yet

Same story here on the ghosting front.
22 submissions in two batches.
2 form rejections
2 nice personalised rejections of query
3 rejections of full
3 fulls outstanding (2 been with agents for MONTHS, the other one just been asked for)
And 10 no responses.
I agree with Cake, Boiling, that they do take their time over reading fulls. One of the agents who requested a full from me told me she was VERY keen (from the partial) and assumed I’d be snapped up quickly (hah!) and asked me to let her know when/ if I got another offer and said that she’d then be able to read the full within a week. So maybe these stories we hear about people having several agents competing for them within days of submission are not the norm. Like when you’re pregnant and you hear billions of horror stories about acquaintances of acquaintances but no-one ever says my sister’s friend’s cousin had a healthy averagely-weighted baby yesterday.

So maybe these stories we hear about people having several agents competing for them within days of submission are not the norm. Like when you’re pregnant and you hear billions of horror stories about acquaintances of acquaintances but no-one ever says my sister’s friend’s cousin had a healthy averagely-weighted baby yesterday.

I think that’s exactly it. I would guess that when people DO have several agents competing for them immediately they either have something that’s very different (in a good way), there is something very on-trend about their writing or their story or that they themselves are extremely marketable.

I agree completely, we hear so much about the authors who have bidding wars over them, yet no one ever tells you about all your full manuscripts which sit there for months on end...

I've just had my first request for a full and I'm trying not to get too excited or read anything into their quick response time or apparent enthusiasm (she said my manuscript is exactly what she's been looking for, but I'm under no illusions whatsoever!). I'm on 6 submissions so far with 2 rejections, 3 non-responses and the 1 full request today.

It's a slow, slow, game, this!

That sounds really promising, Sickof! Everything crossed for you!

Ooh, exciting news Sick! Fingers crossed for you 😊

Gave myself a kick up the backside and have sent off three more submissions. I rewrote my query letter and slightly tweaked the synopsis. Still feeling there isn't much point, but telling myself it's equally pointless not to submit the novel when it's sitting there on my laptop.

Tally -

Full Request - 1 - rejected
Form rejections/expired without reply - 10
Queries out - 5

Congratulations Sick - fingers crossed!
And good luck with the new submissions Preparing.

Thanks Preparing, Cake and Lurking! And good on you Preparing for doing those submissions. I'm going to push myself to do at least a couple more this week.

I had a chuckle just now because the request for the full had a glaring typo in it - the second email I've had from a literary agent with one. That would be fatal for our submissions though I'm guessing

Goodness, yes! That's one reason why I don't like to send my submissions out in batches that are too large - in case I later spot a typo in my material, even though I've proof read it 90 billion times.

Same, Preparing! I had a sudden burst of confidence yesterday, totally re-wrote my covering letter and synopsis, and submitted to two more agents.

I also obsessively researched how long you should wait after a full request before giving up, and the general consensus was months. I saw one writer who waited 8 MONTHS after sending off a full but was then still signed by that agent. And a few different sources said that if you haven’t heard after 4 months it’s ok to nudge.

So maybe all is not completely lost for me and the others with MIA fulls? I live in hope

8 months! that's unbelievable! Just when you'd think all hope was lost. I've also heard the reverse is true, that a quick response for a full is unlikely to mean anything other than you catching an agent at the right time!

Do you mention that you have your full manuscript with an agent when making new submissions?

Just to say that I managed to submit 10k of the completely new thing to CB prize!

It's quite rough and ready although I do have a very meticulous plan (which is TOTALLY different in approach to the book that's out) so I don't hold out much hope (was editing it this morning at 6 am with a three year old on my knee 'helping' .

HOWEVER, the most important thing is that it really has trailed me onwards from just sitting thinking about Book 1. I actually feel a bit vague like 'oh yes, that one... i must get around to sending it out more times'. Also entering a couple more comps for different kinds of writing - just generally focussing on creating new work. I was in such a slough of despond a month ago that this is a really Good Thing.

Best of luck, Boiling! I'm glad that your competition entry has been motivating in a wider sense. There's so much silence in this process, it's easy to lose sight of yourself as a writer and fall back into the 'it's never going to happen, what's the point' abyss, where you can't do anything at all.

I've just sent off another sub but got the agent's OOO because she's on holiday. It feels strange whenever I get an agent's bog-standard OOO (has happened a few times) just like the dozens I get in my day job - as if I'm a person in legitimate business correspondence with them, rather than a desperate mortal trying to attract the attention of a super-power!

Oh, fingers crossed Boiling!

I gave up on the CB comp in the end because I was still wallowing in abject despair and started questioning absolutely everything about my new idea. I didn’t want to write in that mood. It never turns out well!

I read an interesting article this week though, which was talking about high concept novels, and it reminded me of what we were talking about here with response times. The article was talking about how some books like that are so easily pitched in a single sentence, and it’s usually these kinds of books which you have the immediate agent responses and multiple quick offers for. It almost doesn’t matter if the writing is any good, as they can fix it all in the editing process. It’s all in the idea.

That said, it did go on to say that publishers are also more likely to pick up these kinds of books, especially for debut authors. Which is probably bad news for books like mine, which don’t really have a punchy summary

Yep, I've heard the same Cake, for example the book Friend Request generated a huge buzz amongst agents because of its central premise was viewed as being so tantalising - that of getting a friend request from someone who's dead. I do wonder how a lot of literary fiction gets published because it doesn't lend itself to a punchy premise or hook.

I'm a bit annoyed because the agent who wanted a query letter only and nothing else now got back to me over a month later with a few questions based on my letter. Just read my material and decide! No chapters, no synopsis, nothing. It seems a very strange way to go about the process

That’s just weird, sick. What if you’re a hopeless recluse with no social skills but have written the greatest work of our time? How will they tell? Just read ten pages and stop faffing, random agent!

It almost doesn’t matter if the writing is any good, as they can fix it all in the editing process.

Ummm they don't fix it, the author does! They make suggestions eg "This might work better in the present tense" or "I want to know why she acted like this" or "I love this kind of scene, could we have more?" or "This bit doesn't work for me" but you are the one who has to write it! If they can't see potential in your writing then they just won't take you on.

You're looking at it the wrong way around. Yes, that initial hook is what they love and what they use to sell to a publisher, to a store and to readers. There's no point in being able to write beautifully but not have a plot that will make people keep turning the page.

My thoughts exactly, Boiling! Fingers crossed for you for the CB competition.

Absolutely gutted right now - the request for a full I got just 2 days ago just got rejected. It feels like a huge punch to the stomach because I saw the email and thought them getting back to me so quickly had to be a sign of interest, but no, I guess they just knew quickly from reading on that they didn't want it there was some nice feedback in there and they said they really liked my writing and would be interested in future work but still, so very gutted - it's been a rough week and not a great note to end it on!

I don't think other people get how crushing this process really is.

Sorry to hear that, Sick, very disappointing, but also encouraging that they said they’d be interested in future work - agents don’t say that to everyone.

Thanks Lurking - I replied straight away and asked if they would consider looking at it again if I did edits based on their feedback (as I felt the feedback was more positive than not) and they said yes. Anyone ever edited and resubmitted to the same agent?