This blog won’t make any sense unless I explain what I’m doing. I have written what I consider to be a literary novel versus something like a mystery or science fiction novel. As far as I know, publishers will no longer read manuscripts you sent them. They use agents as their first filters. Agents specialize. The first division is between fiction and nonfiction. An agent representing nonfiction authors will specialize further. They might only handle cookbooks or books about history. The same thing goes on in fiction. There are at least 20 different categories commonly used in fiction. Just because I had representation by an agent in one category doesn’t help me at all when I switch to another category and that’s what I’ve done. The other important fact is there is an immense amount of great talent out there trying to get published. Talent is not lacking. An example you might be familiar with are the various shows on television about everything from hopeful singers to hopeful dancers. It’s clear from those shows all the talent that’s out there.
There are a very limited number of ways you can submit material to an agent for their consideration. The most popular seems to be email and there are even some agents who still prefer snail mail. A growing trend in submissions is filling out an online form to submit your work. Each little bit different, but generally you fill in your name and address the title of your novel, the length, a sample, and so on. There are usually some strange questions included such as who is your favorite Harry Potter character or if your novel had a color, what color would be? Regardless of the method, the majority will never reply. I use a spreadsheet with the agent’s name and date of submission. I have arbitrarily set the date of 60 days with no reply as a no. If an agent, says no within the 60 days or asks to see more of my novel, I will also note that in the spreadsheet. I just went and looked and as of today, I have sent out exactly 200 queries about my literary novel.
Most of the replies you get are in the form of a standard rejection letter. Besides the rejection, it will thank you for contacting them and wish you luck finding an agent at the very minimum. Occasionally, I’ll get what is obviously not a form letter. I recently got one that said that the agent really liked my pitch, but it was not for him. Another said that she felt it was a great novel, but she didn’t feel that she had the “skills” to sell it. Another said essentially that I was an idiot and had misclassified my novel. It was not a literary novel. It was a book club novel. I have no idea what a book club novel is. It’s like many things in life and it comes down to a matter of luck. I have to query an agent at the time he or she is looking for a literary novel about a man’s life. You might think that’s discouraging, but to me, it’s great because that means there are tons of talented writers out there still unfound that I can read!
