Having other writer friends who have been through the
process, I knew enough to be optimistic, without being unrealistic. Following
the advice of some agents who are active bloggers online, I came up with a list
of 20 agents to start with. From there, I divided them into groups of 5,
starting with the 5 I wanted to work with the most. Of those first 5 agents,
these are results I have from my queries:
-
3 flat out rejections – 2 were form rejections and 1 gave honest, encouraging
feedback of why that agent wasn’t the one for me, but gave me hope by saying
that I was “doing everything right.”
-
1 request for first 50 pages – from the initial query, the agent was interested
in reading part of the manuscript; still don’t have final word yet
-
1 still waiting to respond
It would be easy to get down and discouraged…”if nobody has
picked it up yet, nobody will”, “why does it have to take so long”, etc. And
those feelings are certainly present, especially after you have put all your
blood, sweat, and tears into your story, your baby. But there is silver lining
in all the rejection, if, as a writer, you are open to looking for it. For
myself, I learned that my query was good enough for a couple of requests, but
something must be missing. The 1 agent who told me I was “doing everything
right” was very sincere and really helped me keep a positive attitude. So
before my next round of submissions, I am going to get some critiques on my
query, synopsis, and first 10 pages (usually what agents request). Then after I
send the next round with my submissions tweaked, hopefully, I’ll get a
more positive response. If not, well then it’s back to the drawing board.
When it’s all said and done, be thankful for rejection,
because it means two things: 1) you are willing to submit your work and as long
as you keep doing that it means you are not giving up and 2) even with
rejection, you are still getting feedback on what directions to take next.
Happy writing!
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