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!)

Tons of luck cakerage and everythingcrossed!

It’s nice to hear everyone’s news. Best of luck on submission cake and everything and best of luck snaring an agent, tea! I’m working on revisions, nearly done, so all going well will soon be on submission as well. My agent has taken on a few people in the last week including from the twitter pitch event so I can see she’s very busy. I’m finding that makes me more nervous they all sound so good! 😭

Thanks for your wishes, everyone!

I'm enjoying the sense that this stage is someone else's responsibility

I know exactly what you mean. It feels like I’ve done everything I can, and now I just have to sit back and hope.

I’m also enjoying having someone else in my corner, particularly someone knowledgeable. When I was submitting to agents I always had the thought in my head that maybe my novel wasn’t as good as I thought it was, but now I can reason that my agent loves it, and she’s in a position to know!

Another weekend of silence has passed for me. Cracking on with the second book (writing a trilogy) in the hope it might distract me.

It’s been 2 weeks since I began querying and I’m going insane.

I’ve had one (very nice) rejection and nothing else. Am I right in thinking that they would’ve requested the full manuscript by now if they were interested?

I know they are extremely busy people but pretty much everything I’ve read online seems to suggest people had full requests very quickly.

Just feeling quite down-heartened about it all today.

It can take months and months for a full manuscript request. It's hard waiting, but two weeks is just a blink of the eye in the publishing world. At WOWCON, the online writers conference last weekend, an agent mentioned that one of her authors signed a contract with a publisher for a picture book in 2017 and it won't be published until 2021.

Thanks @soma it’s helpful to hear ‘real world’ stories

2 weeks is really no time. The agent I ended up signing with asked for the full after 5 months. I had definitely given up on her by that point!

Also important to note that the entire publishing industry is on its head at the moment (like most of the world). Things are still happening, but try not to base your hopes on people’s pre-2020 experiences, cause the landscape of absolutely everything has changed.

Write your next book while you’re waiting and keep your fingers crossed.

I've only had around a 50% response rate too. Some queries I sent out in May and June and have not heard back from. I know they're madly busy, agents at the mo.
I keep getting a lot of "I really liked your story but not enough to completely fall in love with it."

50% response rate is frustrating! I get that they are super busy too but it’s frustrating to not get any response at all.

Well I’ve had one very lovely rejection from an agent who had my full upfront (part of their submissions process). She said she was ‘intrigued’ by the concept and while she enjoyed reading it, she didn’t fall in love with it. Taking it as a positive that she took the time to reply and wasn’t negative about it!!

Radio silence from everyone else still - I’ve queried 14 in total now. I’ve booked an agent 121 for a few weeks time to get some feedback on my submission material so hoping that will be useful.

@Teaandbiscuits88 - how did you manage to book an agent 121?

I booked it through www.iaminprint.co.uk/

They run them throughout the year - £60 for them to review your submission materials then give you a 15 minute zoom call. They offer one free session per agent for low income/underrepresented writers.

Thanks for the info x

I submitted my debut novel to about 30 or so agents, and I've only forgotten form submissions so far. I'm not really keeping my hopes up.

Hello, Is this thread still going? I hope so as you've been keeping me sane over the last 2 weeks. I've submitted my second novel (fantasy/historical/romance/suspense) to 14 agents over the last couple of weeks. 1 of which came back with a no straight away, then radio silence from all the rest. I've improved my pitch and started my third novel (standalone but part of the same series as the one I'm querying) on your advice to keep me sane.

I'm down in the dumps tonight as I've realised I'm behind where I was 10 years ago when I did the terrible cliche of writing an chick lit autobiographical first novel. I got serious interest from 2 agents (one gave editorial feedback on the full and read it twice then suggested I submit another to her, one passed on that book but asked for my other ideas for books which I never sent). But at the time I had young kids, no time to write and was such a sensitive flower I just gave up.

Since then I've worked for a publishing house, got a better feel for the industry and really feel like I've found my voice and cannot stop writing. I'm worried my boat was there 10 years ago and I wasn't determined or confident enough to get on it.

SexNames you're doing the most important thing, you're still writing. If someone liked your writing style then, they'll like it now. It's a case of finding an agent who is looking for what you're writing and knows where there is a market for it. It's difficult to get there but if you believe in yourself and what you're doing then you'll get there!

I’d say getting that sort of early interest from agents is a really strong positive and should give you encouragement. Kind of the same thing happened to me, I queried too early a few years ago and got those sorts of comments. When I did it again later after many revisions I got an agent. Don’t give up.

How are peeps on submission doing? We’ve recently gone on submission and not heard a thing yet but live in constant anticipation of all the rejections surely about to roll in 😭

Thank you, that's a really kind and reassuring reply. I'm my own worst enemy, plagued by self doubt. I'm worriedi nterest the last time was just a fluke.

I knew what I wanted to write at the time (Think 'The Other Boleyn Girl' meets 'Game of Thrones' meets 'Fifty shades of Grey' - except more feminist and less shit than the last one). I just wasn't' brave enough to put pen to paper in my own style and definitely too embarrassed to voice the idea to either of the potential agents.

I've got a gap between contracts now (just ran out of work and not really a chance of getting anything new until Jan) so I'm determined to give it everything I've got this time.

I found this competition yesterday - looks interesting for those of us who write romance: www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk/2020-exeter-novel-prize.html

It is being judged by literary agent Kate Nash, I looked at her submission guidelines and she revealed she's getting 400 queries a month since lockdown! So maybe it does just take ages for them to get a chance to look at our material after all?

SexNames, if you're writing romance or something with a romantic theme running through it then look at the Romantic Novelist Association. They run a New Writers Scheme and you get to go to all of their events, meet agents and most importantly you can have a full length novel critiqued by a published author once a year. They are hugely supportive of aspiring authors. It's not easy to get on the scheme you have to email the second the submissions open because they only have about 12ish places open a year but once you're on the scheme you can stay on it. I was on it and met my agent at a 1-2-1 at the RNA conference and I am now published. I don't know if I'd have done it without the support of the RNA.

That is an amazing tip @LouisaMayAlcott - thank you so much.

I guess the thread is still going in a publishing type way which means you get one new post every 6-8 weeks

Best of luck with querying, SexNames - it can be a bit of a slog so I wouldn't think too much about not hearing back immediately from agents. As someone else said, they're probably inundated at the moment with everyone's lockdown novels!

I'm still on submission, still twiddling my thumbs. Have had some really amazing feedback, but so far everyone's either said loved it but recently bought something similar, or loved it in editorial but the commercial side said no. Still a fair few to reply, but not really getting my hopes up, to be honest. Putting all my energy into book 3 instead, which is only about 5-10k words off being finished!

Congrats on such great progress with book 3, Cake! That’s amazing.
And best of luck with your submission, I hope you hear something more positive soon. It does seem to be a very tough market right now. I’m wondering what impact this PRH buyout of Simon & Schuster will have too. Along with Covid caution it’s all a bit worrying. Sticking my fingers in my ears and trying not to think about it too much as it’s all out of my hands.

Just I could really get going on book 2! I’ve written loads but it hasn’t clicked yet. Just better keep going I guess and hope it falls into place.

Thanks jd! I had some interest in the concept from publishers (it's definitely more marketable than book 2), so had to light a fire under myself.

And it is a really tough market. Seems like you have to perfectly fill a gap in their list, or be wildly marketable to get anywhere right now. I guess at the very least I feel a little reassured that publishers like my writing even if no one wants to buy it right now.

The only thing to do, I guess, is keep writing and hope that one day the stars align.

I love this thread and wish everyone the best of luck.

For me the question is not just how can writers stay sane, but...are agents sane?! I just had a rejection - okay, I know it was kind of Agent to give me a personalised reply and feedback, but - there was all this stuff about how it takes huge passion and commitment and how the gap between the exceptional novels and the very excellent ones publishers don't take on is large and getting larger. Agents should only take on books that make their hearts sing. It used to be 'love it enough', but now their hearts have to sing. Goalposts just got shifted again.

Do they hear themselves? I far prefer the good old form rejection or silence than this marshmallow-coated gobshitery. There must have been happy golden days of yore when an agent could just look at a book and think yep, I can probably flog this, let's give it a go. What's with all this bullshit about love, passion, commitment, making hearts sing? It's fucking ridiculous.

By the way, I've had one request for the full, so I'm not entirely bitter and twisted! Happy writing to you all.

I hear you, Violette! You'd never think anyone had ever read a dud paperback. I think that might have been a typo for 'makes the wallet ching'.