I plan on starting to send out queries this week in earnest, so I’m feeling compelled to inoculate myself with a little excessive ego, resilience and perhaps, delusion. Normally the Black Knight is a figure to mock and quote as an example of the most comic caricatures. Reality Check
But let me give you some pseudo statistics… I say pseudo, because I couldn’t FIND an actual set of statistics giving average number of queries sent. I suppose part of the problem is the denominator. Do we want the number sent per successful novel? Per agented novel? Per total novel? The former is probably out there somewhere, but we don’t know if our book falls into that category or not. The last number includes probably a bizillion books that have no business ever being published. (Hopefully we aren’t one of those)
So how many letters DO need to be sent? Probably a novel or two a year is so stunning that nearly NOBODY would pass on it, and so only needs a couple (even one) sent. Some very readable novels don’t fit neatly in the market, so they will take a truly remarkable visionary agent to get it out there and that may require many many queries.
What I’m going with is that agents receive thousands of queries a year, and represent tens of books. That gives a figure of about 1 in 100.
Because it’s all about ME
Now I don’t believe for a second that CONFLUENCE falls in the bottom quartile, or even half, quality-wise. I’ve seen many novels that are not as good, and that ISN’T to say those others didn’t merit publication, only saying CONFLUENCE DOES (did I evade that offending agents thing?). But it IS long, which makes it more challenging to market. So I am just steeling myself now for the rejections I am sure to get before finding that ‘right’ agent.
I’m sure I will get arms, legs, even my head chopped off, so I am calling on my HYDRA superpower now--for every head chopped off, I will grow two new ones! (and aren’t I fierce Just look at me!)
But I also want (because however fierce I look, I still believe it is about the karma) want to encourage all of you to believe in yourself. Whatever stage you're at, keep writing, and find a support system to nurture you, because there are many things to discourage us, and those really need to be balanced so we can regenerate, rather than calling threats out as King Arthur runs away. My writer’s group, my friends, my readers--they will be the balance that generates those heads when those fierce agents all begin sending rejections, and eventually, we will succeed!!!
Special note: The motivation picture is from a blog called 101 Reasons to Quit Writing that is pretty funny and has a number of these little 'motivators'