Query Quest: What Are My Chances Part II

I started querying my novel SECOND DAWN in earnest back in early June, and since then I’ve sent a total of 40 queries, netted some full manuscript requests, and racked up a fair amount of rejections and CNRs. In July, I posted some stats from QueryTracker, detailing the chances the agents I’d queried would respond to my queries, how often they asked for full manuscripts, and so on. Well, I’ve got more data points now (and I’ve learned a thing or two about the process), so it seems like a good time to revisit this topic. So let’s dive in.

As I said, I’ve queried 40 agents so far, and here are my general query stats.

• Total Queries: 40 (20 pending)
• Rejections: 15
• CNR: 2
• FMR: 3

Percentage-wise, I’m looking at a 42.5% rejection/CNR rate (this is sure to rise) and a 7.5% manuscript request rate (this is sure to fall), but what does that mean in comparison to other querying authors? Well, QueryTracker gives you that information. According to QT, the average querying author sends 44 queries, has an 87.8% rejection/CNR rate and a 5.9% request rate. So my numbers are in line and even a tad better than average, but I’m still waiting on a A LOT of replies, so those numbers could improve (less likely) or get worse (more likely). Still, for a first-time querying author, I’m happy with how things have been going.

But what about the agents I’ve been querying? What do their stats look like? How many queries do they get? What percentage of those queries do they actually reply to? Let’s find out.

Here are the average query response stats of the 40 agents I’ve queried.

• Queries received in past 12 months: 1598
• Query Reply Rate: 58%
• Manuscript request rate (full or partial): 2.4%
• Average Response Time (Positive): 21 days
• Average Response Time (Negative): 38 days

Positive replies are full or partial manuscript requests and negative replies are rejections and CNRs. These numbers are very ballpark, and averages might not be the best way to look at them, but they give you a general sense of what to expect. Let’s look at things in a slightly different way, though.

• # of agents that respond to 20% or fewer queries: 8 (8/45)
• # of agents that respond to 80% or more queries: 13 (18/15)

Interestingly, the agents that respond to queries more often actually receive FAR more queries than the ones who respond at an under 20% clip. It’s not even close, actually. The 20-percenters receive an average of 500 queries per year, while the 80-percenters receive over 2500. Now, if you look a little deeper into these numbers, you quickly realize that the 80-percenters are generally more established agents who work at or even run large literary agencies and, most importantly, probably have assistants that help them answer queries. Most (but not all) of the 20-percenters are less established and often working on their own. The numbers in parentheses are the average days it takes the agent to respond (if they respond). The first numbers is a positive response, the second a negative one. Again, the data is interesting. The 20-percenters respond quicker with requests and the 80 percenters respond quicker with rejections.

Okay, now the numbers that give me nightmares. Let’s look at some response numbers for manuscript requests.

Here are the submission response numbers for the three agents where I have FMRs pending.

Agent	Subs	Positive Replies	Negative Replies	Response Rate
1	106	2	12	11.3%
2	50	0	31	62.0%
3	59	4	20	32.2%

Subs is the number of manuscript submissions the agent has received over the last twelve months. Positive replies are when the agent responds with an offer of representation, a revise and resubmit, or a request for more pages. Negative replies are, well, rejections. Finally, the response rate is how often the agent responds to a submission of a full or partial manuscript. That last number is what worries me. It is absolutely possible and even likely that my FMRs are going to become CNRs. That’s a bummer, but it’s just reality, and I have to roll with it. I just have to believe that my full manuscript is compelling enough to at least elicit a response, but we’ll see.

Unfortunately, you kind of have to dig for submissions response numbers on QueryTracker, so I’m not gonna give you the stats for all 40 agents I’ve queried, though I might do that in a future post.

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Data is interesting, but I think we should take all these numbers with a grain of salt. It’s important to keep in mind that querying for an agent isn’t a lottery. Getting an agent has more to do, in my opinion, with having a book that’s ready to query and then putting it in front of the right agent at the right time. The numbers can give you a general idea of what querying agents is probably going to look like, but we’ve all heard about folks getting agents after a single query or getting one after three hundred. Right book, right agent, right time. Those three things are like tumblers in a lock–you have to trigger all three at the same time for the door to swing wide no matter what the numbers say. 🙂

Thoughts on these numbers? Tell me about it in the comments.