Like a bottle thrown into the ocean…
I finished my first novel and have begun querying agents. I am up to nineteen rejections so far. I keep telling myself I won’t get worried until I am at fifty rejections.
Every “no” is one step closer to a “yes”, I say.
Good things come to those who wait, I say.
Patience is a virtue, I say.
@^%$*!!!, I say.
I find searching for agents to query rather like online dating. I use Query Tracker to help me search for agents. You can sort and filter agents by things like genre, location, agency, and whether they are currently accepting queries.
I write science fiction for an adult audience, so I searched for agents currently accepting queries for that genre. I think I got about 160 agents to look at (160 agents - 19 rejections = only 141 agents to go!)
Click on an agent and you get a profile with their agency website, email, twitter if they have it (and most do), as well as other information depending on what they choose to share. The first thing I do is go to the agency website and see what sort of books the agency publishes.
Most do a variety of books, but you can tell when they have a focus, say romance, with lots of bare-chested men on the cover embracing a sexy woman, or perhaps embracing an equally bare chested man. Or maybe it is non-fiction, self help, and memoirs that grace their webpage.
I do judge the books by their covers. If I don’t see very many spaceships, or robots, or attractive humanoid beings with blasters posing on the covers with futuristic cities in the background or any image that implies such things might be happening inside the spines, I think this may not be the first place to try.
One handy thing that Query tracker has now as a sortable tool is Reply Rate. At first, I was sort of aimlessly picking agents and agencies. After you have looked at a dozen or more, they all become a blur, and I would feel overwhelmed. I would go back and forth trying to prioritize and analyze but would just sort of end up picking by gut instinct after my intellectual capabilities had melted.
I also like to know what an agent thinks of my query attempt, even if they reject it. I feel a definitive ‘thanks, but no thanks’ is better than the silence of the void, so I have sorted the agents by their reply rate.
The highest have reply rates in 90th percentile, the lowest zero response unless they want more. I have been working my down the list. I look to see if the agency has sci-fi books, read the agent bios to find out who is the best fit at the agency since sometimes there is more than one that does sci-fi. I check out the agent's twitter and blog if they have one. If they look like a potential fit, I fire off my query and whatever else they want. Then I patiently wait for my rejection, I mean, answer…