Querying is the time that many writers will experience the most rejections in their lives. It’s a grueling process that is filled with very few ups and many, many downs. Because of this, it can be hard to gain perspective of when you’re still doing the right thing and when it’s time to throw your word processor away. That’s what we’re here to help you uncover.
The easy answer to when is the right time to quit is when it starts costing you more to participate in querying than not, but there are checkpoints along the querying journey that can help you achieve success. The average querying writer will experience 100 rejections before finding an agent or publisher to represent them. Even at an average, you should still see some milestones before you arrive at the magic 100. This will help you stay sane and determine when it’s time to ask for help:
When Rejection Blues Affects Other Parts of Your Life
You probably deserve a break. Honestly, I don’t care how rejected or busy or lazy or important you feel. There’s a really great chance that you deserve a break. It’s the first thing I prescribe to my frustrated authors. How long have you been working on this project? Probably years. When was the last time you took more than a week to not even think about it? I bet it’s been a while if at all.
When you’re really close to a project, you’re liable to make mistakes. A constant push to query, edit, adjust will lead you to selecting agents that aren’t right for you, making changes rashly, and losing sight of your vision for the book. This is even more true if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, depressed, or anxious about rejections and letting that take over time slated for the rest of your life. Querying is just one part of who you are. Take a break from it to give yourself the best opportunity at success.
If you’re feeling very down and still want some feedback to get you back on track, we would suggest reaching out to a beta reader. Having a fresh perspective with more than one line of insight into your book can breathe new life into the process.
When You’ve Received 25 Rejections and No Partial Requests
If you’re a quarter of the way through the average query lifespan and have seen no additional interaction beyond an all-out rejection, it’s a good time to make some tweaks to your query package. Provided you have a reasonably interesting book written (and how could someone with your taste write something completely boring), you should be seeing some pulls from the slush pile.
You haven’t yet made it to half of your query lifetime, so I wouldn’t worry about diving in too deep just yet. This is not the time to shell out for a developmental edit. How would you even know if there’s a problem with your story if an agent hasn’t read it? Instead, start with a query letter editor or a pitch editor to help you polish your first impression.
When You’ve Received 50 Rejections and No Full Requests
Half way through the lifespan of your querying with no full requests must be tiring. If you’re getting the occasional partial request, your query letter is doing a good job. In this case, it’s possible you might be falling down on your first pages.
A book coaching session specifically devoted to the reader experience of the first few pages can give you feedback quickly based upon a gut response. If you’re wanting more analysis of these pages and specific instructions on how to fix them, a copyeditor can give you a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of your pages while cleaning up the spelling and grammar too.
When You’ve Received 100 Rejections and No Meaningful Feedback
Some writers are lucky and get a lot of feedback from agents in rejections that help them adjust their books for market. But for many of us, we only receive shallow information like “I just wasn’t connecting with the characters” or “I don’t think I’m the right agent for this story.” It’s exhausting.
If you’re past the average number of rejections received and still haven’t gotten any more information, it may be time to pull out the big guns. That’s right. This is the point when I would suggest a developmental edit from an indie editor. There’s something about your story that isn’t catching the right people’s attention, and you need an industry perspective to find out why it is, diagnose it, and help you build a plan of attack to get you back on track. If this isn’t your first rodeo, you might be able to get away with using a great team of beta readers, but everyone, especially a debut author, is most likely to see success with a full breakdown of their work.
When You’ve Received Feedback You Need Help to Implement
Another great time to bring in some additional help is if an agent has asked for you to revise and resubmit with bullet points on what they’d like to see. These are crazy helpful to keep you on track, but sometimes the edits don’t give you enough information. What you don’t want is to check their boxes technically without the right nuance and then get back another dreaded rejection.
One good way to tackle this list is to bring it to a book coach. If it’s their first time working with this novel, they may ask you to do a beta read first. But once this is done, you can tackle the requests in the R&R together with someone who understands the industry and review your changes before resubmitting for your best possible chance.
When You’ve Received 150 Rejections Total
If you have reached this point in the blog, I am so sorry. You must be so tired. You have queried 50% more than the average lifetime of a querying author. By now you’ve blown past all your dream agents, participated in numerous pitch events, and you’re ready to accept just about anything. You’ve made it to this section, expecting to read that your book is clearly horrible and you’re doomed to failure. I hate to break it to you, but you still have options.
When you make it this far into your querying journey, it’s time to double check the checklist:
Have you given yourself a breather in the last three months?
Have you worked with beta readers to get their emotional reactions to the story? Did you provide them with a beta reading questionnaire to do the best possible job analyzing what you need?
Have you worked with a query letter editor and then submitted another 100 queries since?
Have you worked with a book coach for your first pages and then submitted another 50 queries since?
Have you done a deep dive with a developmental editor and the submitted another 30 queries since?
Wow, that list has gotten long. But if you haven’t taken the chance on any of these bullet points, now is the time to really go in deep. If you have done everything on this list, no wonder you’re still reading. You have gone to the moon and back for answers. You clearly have people responding to your work, but the industry just keeps saying no.
At this point in your book’s life, you have two options: You can set your book aside, focus on your next work, and try selling it again once that story has sold. You’ll have more experience and more tools at your disposal then that can help you do a great job. Or you can consider the option of self-publishing your book. The industry isn’t a reliable indicator of success in this business anymore, and self-publishing will allow you to fully realize your vision for this book. Still, you should know the advantages and disadvantages before you start and make sure you have a plan for strategic spending before publishing. You’re the heart of a business now.
Querying is an exhausting journey, but knowing the road signs of when you need help can make a huge difference in your experience and your success. Whether you’re querying right now or preparing for it, good luck to you. If you ever need help along your querying journey, drop us a line. We’re working to help get authors like you published.
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