Writing the manuscript is the easy part. Getting noticed is the challenge!

A friend of mine received one too many rejections where it was obvious that her manuscript had not been read. This was after she did the right thing and queried the agent first and she was asked to send in the chapters. After the normal waiting period - 6 to 8 weeks - her manuscript was returned untouched. Why do they ask to see it if they have no intention of reading it? But that’s a different story so I won’t go into that now.

After this happening several times, she was frustrated enough to email the editor and ask politely what she should do to ensure her manuscript would be read next time. Apparently, the reply was a little agro but pushing that aside, she was given some inside information that really hit home.

This is the important part of what my friend told me:

She said that she receives so many submissions a week that she reads none of them first off. Even though the letters are addressed to her they automatically go to her assistant who doubles as her reader. The assistant reads the submissions and she picks out a tiny percentage to pass on to the agent. The figures I got was that perhaps 3 submissions out of 200 would be passed on to the agent. The rest get sent back. Even with the submissions she does read, the agent still may not request to read the full manuscript. She said that she takes on between 2 and 5 authors a year. According to the agent, this is the usual system with literary agencies (the screening assistant system) because they receive so many submissions and are nowadays acting as readers for publishers because the publishers won’t accept anything unsolicited.

So now we see just how difficult it’s becoming to be noticed. Right, this means a change of plan!

Filed under: Agents, Publishers & Assessors, Writing: