Friday Scorecard
by Richard Perkins
I’ve received two more rejections since my last update, one of them in response to a requested partial. The agent liked the writing but found the plot and action too much like a video game instead of a novel. I found that very interesting, and more than a little unexpected.
I’m coming to the end of my first round of target agents at this point. They have ranged from superstars with fifty or more science fiction and fantasy titles under their belts to new agents just starting to build their client lists.
I’ve had some interest in the manuscript, with three requests for partial so far. Unfortunately, none of that interest has extended to requests for full or offers of representation. I still have four agents with outstanding queries. One of them is even an exclusive request for a partial. I expect responses to trickle in on those queries over the next few weeks. But after 25 attempts, it’s time to regroup.
What have I learned from this group? I think my initial conclusions should be revised in light of new data. I thought that my query letter was doing its job, but that the manuscript wasn’t closing the deal. Now I think the query letter is decent but could be better, and the manuscript still isn’t up to scratch. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Agents who received a stand-alone query letter: 9
Of those agents, 3 requested partial manuscripts, 1 rejected the query due to lack of interest, 3 returned form rejections with no feedback, and 2 didn’t reply at all. A query letter hit rate of 1 in 3 isn’t great, but it could be worse.
Agents/Editors who received some number of sample pages: 12
Of those folks, 0 requested full manuscripts, 3 rejected the query with comments, 5 returned form rejections with no feedback, and 4 didn’t reply at all. A partial manuscript hit rate of 0 in 12 is… depressing. Sure it’s not an easy time for a new author to break into the market right now, but when is it?
Evidently, my writing doesn’t stand out enough from the modern agent’s daily deluge of slush. I’ve gotten some promising feedback on Renegade, like this shows talent, or this is better than most of my unsolicited material, or even, I enjoyed the writing. Unfortunately, that encouragement has always been followed by a rejection for other reasons. Those are the reasons that I’ll have to work on, if I ever want to get published (with this book or some other). Hopefully the folks over a Critters or Absolute Write will be able to help me with that.
In other news, one of the job applications I mentioned in my previous post has panned out well. I’ve had two phone screens, and one first round interview for a position with a Bay area PV company. I’ve been invited for a second round of interviews next week. Here’s hoping it goes even better than the first one did.
