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Agent hunt: the numbers

December 22, 2007 by Ally Carter Leave a Comment

What are the odds of getting an agent? I hear that all the time. What are the chances of that? How many tries did it take to do this?

People are funny creatures, in other words. We want to figure things out, quantify the un-quantifiable. Master the random and just, in general, work the system to our feeble advantage.

And, don’t worry, I’m just as bad. I spent the better part of September stalking NY Times bestselling books to try my best to figure out exactly what kind of sales it would take to join those ranks.

So, in honor of the end of the year, my fabulous agent, Kristin Nelson, has posted a round up of statistics for the year.

I’m hoping Kristin doesn’t mind if I share some of the highlights. (To read the full list, go to Kristin’s Blog.)

30,000 estimated number of queries read and responded to (and yes, that is up from last year)

74
full manuscripts requested

8 number of new clients

22 books sold

6 new deals for previously published clients

5
deals for new clients (4 of which were debut authors—as in not previously published)

And no, that’s not a typo. Kristin really did receive approximately 30 THOUSAND queries this year and, of those, she only asked to read 74 full manuscripts.

Of the 74 full manuscripts (and the 30 THOUSAND) queries, she only took on 8 new clients.

Now do you see why I’m completely torn between laughing and crying when people email me with questions like “Do I really need to rewrite my book before sending it to agents?”

YES–rewrite your books. Yes, put your books in a drawer for six months, write another book, and then pull it out again to see if you still think it’s good.

But keep in mind that of those 30,000 queries some people got through. They got an agent and then they sold a book.

How does that happen?

Well, unagented writers come up to me at conferences and ask how many agents I queried before I got an offer of representation (and honestly I don’t remember. It was somewhere around 20.)

People ask me how many books I had to write to get an agent: 1.

People want to know how many drafts that book went through to get an agent: I don’t know. Probably 25

People want to know how many books I had to write to get a book published: 2

People want to know how many books I sold before I quit my day job: 6

People want to know how many drafts my books take before they’re published: impossible to say. Cross My Heart took maybe 20?

People want to know how much money authors make: also impossible to say; some get rich, but most are barely scraping by

People want to know what they have to do to be one of the 8 out of the 30,000: write a really, really, really great book.

People want to know how hard that is: hard. Very hard.

People want to know what advice I’d give new writers: simple. This business isn’t for wusses.

People want to know what I’m doing for Christmas: Food, family, and GG3!

Happy holidays, everyone!

Ally

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