Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Love/Hate Wednesday

LOVE

Diving back into action!

Publishing is waaaaking back up again, and I love rush rush rushing and pitch pitch pitching! This is a busy month, but here's a secret: I feel most motivated in busy months! So don't be afraid to query or check in if you have the perfect project for me! I'm waking back up too.

HATE

Not being able to share awesome covers right when I get them!

A lot of the time, publishers and editors will send over the cover for the book, but not want to release it wide to wait for a cover reveal, blurbs, finalization, or until it's up on Amazon and the website. This can mean months of sitting on a lovely cover I want to share with the world...and can't! *cries*

But, as I heard yesterday and loved: champagne problems. 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Breaking Down 2013

Happy New Year!!

Here's how my agent life stacked up in numbers for 2013:

Queries (unsolicited) rec’d: 2,244

Request rates (based on above):

Partial: 2.9%
Full: 1.6%
Offers: .4%

This means, roughly, that I request a partial three times out of every 100, a full twice out of every 100, and offer on less than 1 out of every 100 queries I receive.

In case the above is too depressing, once I do make a request:

  • I am 12% likely to end up offering when I request a partial
  • I am 56% likely to request the full from a partial
  • I am 21.6% likely to make an offer on a full request

So wow me with your query and get into my read pile!!

Avg. response time:
Partial: 7 weeks
Full: 8 weeks

I was surprised to see this, until I realized how I'm reading: I read in order (unless there's a deadline or I'm super excited...), regardless of whether it's a partial or a full (I do prioritize client work). Methinks I need to adjust the read times posted on my blog!

R&R’s requested: 9
Offers from R&Rs: 1

Four of these R&R's have yet to come back my way, however, and one is in that I haven't read yet. So, it's really more of a 1:4 ratio for offers from R&R.


Months with most requests: January, February, September

Months with most queries: January, February, July, September and November

Most active period of offering and signing: May-June

Offers: 8
Signed: 5

My agent resolution: increase turnaround time (to respond) on requests and edits

For more insight into Bradford Lit and agent stats, check out my agent-sister Sarah LaPolla's post here on her 2013 in Queries - it's a pretty kick a** post!

Cheers to an AMAZING 2014!