Why Querying Novels Right Now Is Such a Hot Mess
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Whether you've recently entered the querying trenches or have been stuck in them for a while, you're likely feeling a level of frustration, self-doubt, and disappointment. Querying novels has always been arguably the most challenging part of the traditional publishing process. After all, literary agents only offer representation to a small percentage of the authors who reach out to them, making the querying process fraught with rejection.
But even while knowing that, querying novels seems especially tough right now, and I've seen tons of authors expressing their frustrations in online writing communities, such as Twitter. I've also seen agents responding to these comments trying to explain their position, so in this article I want to address why querying is so difficult right now to give you more insight. Hopefully, this encourages you to keep moving forward with your publishing dreams!
With that, let’s dive into the reasons why querying novels sucks right now.
The Industry Shake-Ups
Recent shake-ups in the publishing industry have caused backlogs in the production process. In 2022, there was a slew of editors, mainly from Big Five publishing houses in the US, who resigned in quick succession. There were also some literary agents and other publishing professionals who also resigned, creating a lot of tumult in the publishing industry.
These resignations had a ripple effect where agents found themselves having fewer editors at publishing houses to submit their clients’ manuscripts to. This was a large issue because a literary agent's job is to present their clients’ manuscripts to editors, who in turn will hopefully make them a book deal offer. With the resignations, remaining editors were overloaded with work, as they had to take over some authors from the resigned editors along with their regular author list.
These dynamics have created a backlog that doesn't seem to have gone down quite yet. It seems to be still plaguing the industry on both sides, with editors having more manuscripts to consider from literary agents and literary agents having more queries that they can’t respond to yet.
I have had personal experience on both of these sides, and I will say that when it came to being at a publishing house, there were typically a dozen or more submissions from literary agents that needed to be reviewed at any given moment. When I was at a literary agency, there were typically hundreds of queries that needed to be reviewed at any given moment. I can only imagine that now that problem is exacerbated.
Agents Are Being Even More Selective
The next reason why querying novels is so hard right now is that agents are being even more selective than usual. Literary agents have always been selective when choosing which authors to offer representation to. They want to truly love and feel passionate about the books they are representing, because again, their job is to pitch these books to publishers and try to convince them to offer a book deal.
In the industry’s current state, it seems that agents have to be even more selective than usual by necessity. There is pressure to present highly polished manuscripts to editors at publishing houses because everyone is already overburdened with the backlog and additional work that has fallen to them. There's less time to do as much editorial work with an author as perhaps they would like to in other circumstances. This means it's more compelling for agents to present more polished books versus books that aren’t as polished, because they don’t want an editor to say, “Hey, I like this story, but it needs too much work and we can't take it on at this time.”
The other factor going into agents being more selective is that they also have to consider the client projects they currently have on deck. Literary agents will usually have an ongoing list of clients that are in various stages of publication, whether they are currently negotiating a book deal, submitting a manuscript to editors, or editing a client’s manuscript.
Thus, agents want to ensure that any new author they extend representation to isn't going to overlap with an author's work they are already committed to representing. It's not going to make sense for them to present two similar books to the same editors. If an agent already has a YA rom-com manuscript to submit to an editor who specializes in YA rom-com, they will want to put that manuscript in the best position to make a book deal with that specific editor. It’s less likely that they’ll be willing at this specific time to take on a similar novel.
This is something that, as a querying author, you can't control. You don't know what books the agent has on deck already and you don't know what their clients are working on, so the best thing you can do is ensure that your manuscript aligns with a literary agent’s profile.
Agents Have Less Time to Review Queries
Agents have even less time than usual to review queries. This is another point about agenting that has always been true but has become even more pronounced recently. On top of supporting their clients who are going through the publishing process, agents have to also make new book deals, make foreign rights and sub-rights deals, negotiate contracts, and work editorially with writers whose manuscripts are not quite ready to go out to editors yet.
With all of these responsibilities, reviewing queries falls to the end of their to-do list. To give an example, agents might have a half hour in a day to review queries if they're lucky, and that doesn’t allow them to get through very many of them. One agent tweeted that it takes her around 10 minutes to review a query, including the sample pages. The same agent said she gets 60 queries a day on average. So if you think about an agent only having 30 minutes to work with, they're only going to get through maybe three queries a day. So you can see how the backlog adds up fast.
Don't forget that on top of queries, agents also have to review full manuscripts that they have requested from querying authors. One agent on Twitter said that reviewing a full manuscript takes them anywhere from 6 to 10 hours. So if you are in the position of having sent a full manuscript to an agent and you haven't heard back yet, just know that they likely haven't gotten to it yet, because it does require them to carve out a significant amount of time.
There Are More Scammers Than Ever
The last thing that's making querying novels especially difficult right now is that there are more scammers than ever. In this fraught publishing landscape, more and more scammers have emerged to target authors who are frustrated with the querying process. Some of these scammers go so far as to spoof real agents’ names and emails.
This makes querying even more challenging and confusing–how can you tell who’s a legitimate agent and who is faking? It's important to know what to look out for with agent emails so that you know what to expect and what is a red flag or a scam.
What Should Querying Authors Do Now?
With everything I've just said, is it hopeless to get your book traditionally published? I've heard a lot of questions in this vein recently and I want to be as realistic and encouraging as I can be, despite how tough querying is right now.
As an observer, I am continually seeing agents on Twitter requesting queries, opening their inboxes, and listing their manuscript wishlists. They are even participating in pitching contests on Twitter. That tells me that agents are still looking to take on new writers and get new voices published.
I also subscribe to the Publishers Marketplace deals newsletter, which is the leading industry database and news source for book related deals. Through that, I’m seeing debut authors get book deals with major publishing houses regularly. So this tells me that the industry, as slow as it may be, is not dead by any means. So if it is your dream to be traditionally published and you have the patience and stamina, I do recommend keeping your head up. Do some research, bide your time, and try to stay as optimistic as possible.
I hope this helped you better understand why querying novels is so challenging right now and gave you a peek into what's going on on the other side of the industry. If nothing else, I hope it gave you some reassurance that you are certainly not alone in feeling frustrated while querying.
Thank you so much for reading, and happy querying!