I just sent out a batch of queries through a website I just discovered, WEbook.com.
The first batch of queries I sent in late January have been a so-so experience thus far. I've received responses from a little over half of them. All but two were canned responses citing that they're too busy, not interested and other sorts of reasons why they did not want to represent me. One asked for a small sample and then quickly sent a "not interested" soon after, while the other just recently asked me for 40 pages, a synopsis and my bio... still waiting to see if I'm going to send it and how that turns out.
But back to the other ~10 auto-response rejections. I acknowledge that such rejections are in no way personal. After all, they don't know me or my book. Assuming they read what I sent, they only had a brief one-page query by which to judge my entire novel. It makes me curious as to what a query of Harry Potter or another massively successful book looked like and what it took to be given the chance to share the entire manuscript. I honestly believe all it will take is one agent or one publisher reading the entire thing to see what I and the people who have read it so far see... but getting just one is much harder than it sounds.
My research thus far has shown me that the agent/query process is somewhat like being told to make your own lightning rod out of only plastic materials and then running through an open field on a cloudy day and hoping for a miracle. A query doesn't even give you the means through which to adequately represent an entire novel, but I understand the reason why agents require such a flawed representative by which to judge a project... it's a necessary evil.
My research has also shown me that being rejected by numerous agents is about as predictive of literary success as your favorite flavor of ice cream (i.e. there's no correlation). Stephanie Meyer was kind enough to share her query and rejection story on her website... and after numerous rejections, she was one of the lucky few to have lightning strike through an absurdly lucky series of events. That lightning strike may have been the only thing that turned Twilight from a personal project into a multi-million dollar literary, film and pop culture empire.
Similar story for Madeleine L'Engle, author of the Wrinkle in Time series... many dead ends and one final lucky stroke of good luck was the only thing that made the difference between obscurity and becoming required reading for young school children.
So, in sum, I've patched together another plastic rod and begun to run through yet another open field on a cloudy day. I'm not entirely sure I want or need one of these agents to respond positively... what if my book's best chance of success is the self-publishing/self-marketing route? I know I have it in me to make it a success, but I'm not sure if the world around me will fall into place in just the right way and time to allow that success... there's always a bit of luck and timing in every success story. As a former athlete, I know that all too well. I was NCAA runner-up twice in my career... what if the guy who beat me both times was sick? What if I was sick and had finished 9th? Life is chock full of "what if", but that didn't stop me from trying then, nor will it stop me now.
As Ted, my protagonist, would say in this situation, "No guts, no glory!"
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