How many agents did it take before you got a yes?

@manuscript_mona OP

2mo ago

I'm 40 queries deep on my literary suspense novel and sitting at three full requests, zero offers. The silence is starting to mess with my head and I keep wondering if there's a number where I should just stop. What did the road actually look like for the people who eventually signed?

11 comments

@query_trenches2mo ago

82 queries, 6 fulls, 1 offer over fourteen months. The thing nobody tells you is that the offer didn't come from my dream list at the top, it came from agent #71 who I'd almost cut because her wishlist was vague. Three fulls is genuinely fine at 40 queries for litfic suspense. If you're getting full requests at all, the pages are working. What you want to watch is the full-to-offer conversion, and right now you don't have enough fulls closed out to read anything into the silence.

@the_red_pen2mo ago

Worth separating two things people lump together. Query rejections test your hook, comps, and opening pages. Full rejections test the whole book. If you're at 3 fulls from 40 queries your query is doing its job, so don't go burning it down. Sit on your next batch of 8-10 and see if the full rate holds before you touch anything.

@manuscript_monaOP2mo ago

This is the reframe I needed. I've been treating every silent query like a verdict on the book when really I've had almost no fulls actually close. Sounds like the move is to keep querying in batches rather than dumping the whole list, and judge by full conversion not by the quiet.

@foggy_chapters2mo ago

Batch is right. I sent in waves of 8, and after each wave I let the partial/full ratio tell me whether to tweak the query or the pages. When my first 16 came back as straight passes I rewrote the opening 5 pages, and fulls started landing in wave three. Querying all 60 at once would have wasted my whole list on a weak opening.

@inkstainedmara2mo ago

Mine was uglier: 117 queries, 9 fulls, 2 offers, and the second offer only showed up because the first one triggered the nudge. I'd stop only when you've revised and re-queried and STILL get nothing but form rejections on fresh batches. A no-response is not a data point. A full that comes back with the same line two times is.

@nocturne_writes1mo ago

Counterpoint to the 'three fulls is fine' chorus: it depends how long they've been out. I had four fulls sit for nine and eleven months and read it as interest. It was not interest, it was a backlog. Send a polite nudge at the agency's stated timeframe plus a few weeks. A stale full is closer to a soft no than people want to admit.

@draft_zero1mo ago

Two and done here, which I share only so the 80-query crowd doesn't become the whole story. Agent #2 offered in three weeks. The difference wasn't talent, it was that my comps were two recent books in the exact subgenre the agent repped, so I landed in front of someone actively hunting for it. QueryTracker's 'who reps what' and their recent sales is where I built that list, not Twitter wishlists.

@comma_kira1mo ago

On the comps point, I'd push it further. Vague or aspirational comps ('Gone Girl meets Beloved') got me form passes. When I switched to two titles from the last three years that actually sold modestly, agents could picture the shelf and the P&L. Your comps are secretly a market argument, not a vibe.

@once_more_writer1mo ago

I quit at 60, shelved that book, wrote a new one, and signed off the new manuscript at query 22. Sometimes the honest answer to 'how many agents' is 'a different book.' Not what you want to hear at 40 with three fulls out, and I'm not saying shelve yet. But keep writing the next thing while you wait, because it's the best insurance against the silence and the best thing you can do for your craft regardless.

@kovac_ink1mo ago

The number that matters less than people think is total queries. The number that matters is how fresh your list still is. I 'queried 90 agents' but really I'd queried 30 good fits and 60 reaches who don't rep my genre. Prune to agents with verifiable recent sales in your lane and your real list is probably shorter and more brutal than the raw count suggests.

@slowburn_sam1mo ago

When the silence got loud I started a spreadsheet of every full request with the date sent and the agency's stated response time. Turning the wait into a tracked timeline instead of a feeling was the only thing that kept me sane. Also, no full is wasted intel: the two that came back with even one sentence of why told me more than 50 forms.