Stats as of early May 2024:
Total requests: 15 (11 fulls, 4 partials)
Rejections: 4 partials, 5 fulls
R&Rs: 2
Outstanding: 4
(With some outstanding queries too, of course!)
After a year of planning, writing, and editing, I began querying my novel titled I’M THE PROBLEM. Which, while I do love Taylor Swift, her song Anti-Hero was not the inspiration behind the name, although once the connection was pointed out to me, I didn’t mind. And, in fact, when I
was uploading my first full request to Query Manager, I realised the song was playing in the background on the living room speaker. What were the chances?! Another cool thing was that it was a year to the day between first coming up with the idea for the novel, and finishing the final proofread ready for agents.
So, querying. First, a sneaky little secret: I sent my first query before I finished that final read. Why? Because there was an agent open for only one week, who wanted novels that featured struggles in early motherhood. Perfect (potential) fit! So I queried her, with the knowledge that I was only a few days or so away from actually having the novel ready, and besides, what were the chances she would reply before then?
As it turned out, she did. Two, maybe three days later. The response wasn’t a request, but it wasn’t a rejection either. It was a referral to her colleague at her agency! The query was automatically sent along, and then the very next day, that agent requested the full manuscript. It wasn’t technically 100% ready, but I was worried it would ‘look bad’ if I didn’t upload it straight away, which, while I have seen many agents not touch manuscripts for months, I have also seen a couple say that sometimes they send a request and very eagerly wait for it to land in their inbox because they were ready to read right away.
Anyway, I figured it would only be a few possible typos etc., so I uploaded it, continued with my final proofread, then re-uploaded the new version hoping that wouldn’t look bad either!
It’s been just over 5 months since then, and this is actually one of my remaining outstanding fulls, so I have no end to that story other than I ended up sending her another version again in early April after another round of edits (which I will get to in a moment).
In my first two weeks of querying I had 3 full requests and 1 partial. Then I had silence and a couple of rejections for a month (over the Christmas & New Year period). In January I got a couple more requests, including three in one week! This sounds like a great thing, but this is actually when I started checking query timelines more than once or twice a week and began to check my email too much.
Ugh! I had been doing so well. I’d had my first full rejection at the beginning of January, and I was fine. But then with these three requests, one of the agents came across in the LOVELIEST way, and I had never felt more of a I want her to love my book feeling, than I did after her request. So when she rejected my full two weeks later, I actually cried. It was the first and only time I cried after getting a rejection. It probably didn’t help that I had a partial rejection within the same twenty minutes (and I saw them both at the same time), but I didn’t care about the partial, I cared about hers.
I was fine within a few hours though (I might share a separate blog post about my overall querying mindset and what overall helped me) and life went on with sending more queries here and there, and still receiving rejections.
It was about a month of just rejections before I got another request. There is so much chance involved. If I’d queried those agents earlier, and not the ones I got my first requests from, I could have gone through the first month with rejections instead of a request from my first query (okay, technically second, but if I hadn’t sent that first, it wouldn’t have gotten to the second agent from the referral, so I like to think that my ‘first query got me my first request’ because technically it is true, hehe).
In that month before getting any more requests, I began to feel more glum and hopeless about it all. I was into writing my current work in progress (WIP) though, and getting to a place where I wouldn’t mind so much if this particular querying journey didn’t work out because it would mean I would get to query the WIP in a few months’ time.
At this point I had a fresh critique on my first 10 pages, and I loved the feedback so much I sent my first 50 pages, and then, after that, the full manuscript. I dived into a new round of edits which mainly involved adding a lot more setting detail (I added 4,000 words) and some line edits here and there. With her feedback I added one scene into the first 50 pages, and cut a scene towards the end of the middle. So I was still confident with the plot and characters, but was happy to have completed some new line edits. I re-submitted this version to my outstanding agents.
After this month of editing with no requests (but rejections on requests) I then got a new request, and two weeks later, one more! At this point I was at 13 requests, but honestly when I got to 12, I decided I was happy with not getting anymore, especially because I was excited about the prospect of querying my WIP next instead.
At this point I was about finished with sending queries. I had sent a lot, and there weren’t a lot of options left. I hadn’t been super organised either with my querying spreadsheet, so I didn’t know which agencies I could query a second (or third!) agent, though I had at times gone back to the website to check after getting some rejections (but not all… it was a very inconsistent thing). I went back through some of the agencies to check again, and sent a few more, but I came to a point where I didn’t really want to spend time sending more.
It was in my last handful of queries that I got two more requests though, and these both became R&Rs. While both agents are very nice, I’m not sure if I’ll pursue these. First, I have my 4 outstanding requests (and some queries so maybe I will get another?), and aside from that, I really am okay with potentially having to query the next project instead of hanging onto this one for a longer time. That doesn’t mean I won’t be void of disappointment if this one doesn’t work out, of course.
15 requests is great! Fabulous! Some authors have found their agent on less requests, and some haven’t found theirs after many more requests. And there are so many reasons why this can happen, but at the end of the day, that’s the way it is. I do think my WIP has a more commercial appeal and easier to pitch concept—I’M THE PROBLEM (ITP) is more of an internal story (still plenty of external, don’t worry!) where the protagonist is also the antagonist (hence the title: my MC is literally the problem! Or, is it just that that’s what she thinks? You’ll have to read it someday to decide, but I can see it being argued both ways)—so, we’ll see if I need to query my WIP later when it’s ready, but I would definitely prefer to focus on it than dive back into more edits for ITP. Give me an agent, though, and I’ll be all over those edits!
So, that’s pretty much it! For now, at least. 15 requests, with 4 outstanding (and possibly another one or two coming? Maybe?), and the awareness that they could go somewhere, but they may not. Either way, in the meantime I am going to continue focusing on my WIP. I’ll write a follow up post either when I have no outstanding requests and decide to ‘shelve’ ITP for the moment, or, when I have an agent. If you’d like to see what happens,
please subscribe to my email list. I will also share some more reflections on my R&R feedback there. 🙂
If you have any questions, I would love to answer them, or, if you feel like sharing your own journey, please do! There are so many unique experiences, and it can really help querying authors to hear about others.
You can email me directly at [email protected] or
comment below. 😊
