When do you stop "pushing" a book?
Let's suppose you have finished your novel, through all the appropriate stages of drafting and editing needed. You begin submitting the book to various agents and/or publishing companies, but none of your queries gets answers.
I'm talking about a worst-case scenario, where you either get copypasted replies or no reply at all, and no feedback about how your work could be improved.
Given this grim setting, when do you stop, if ever, sending queries for that particular novel? Is it safe to assume that it's either badly written or there's no market for it? Do you keep it in a locker and try to publish it again years later?
Edit: To be completely clear, I'm not in this situation right now, but I figure it's an interesting question to ask.
2 answers
Converting comments to an answer as suggested by @wetcircuit
WHY BOOKS SUCCEED
I was in the same place with my first novel. Many writers assume that the doors aren't open to them or there's some magical query that will open them. Remember: books are picked up based on how marketable they are, not how good they are. So, ask yourself, is it as good as the bestsellers in your genre? If it's not, then you know you should write something else. If it is, keep going.
WHY QUERY LETTERS ONLY GO SO FAR
I took the difficult decision to shelve mine (it was 130,000 words and took 5 years to write, so it was no easy decision) and wrote something I knew would be marketable. I sent ten queries and the doors flew open. Writers place so much emphasis on query letters. But there was nothing special about mine. It just explained the story in one paragraph, why I was targeting those agents specifically, and a little about my writing experience. Half a page and no magic formula. As @DPT says, no query letter in the world is going to sell an unmarketable book. This was a story that was marketable and I wrote it because I knew it would sell. It got me 6 agents. Remember this is a business, and I took the decision to write for that business. But only you can make an educated guess as to whether your book could be a bestseller.
WHETHER TO SHELVE
Whether to shelve a novel takes deep introspection about yourself and your work:
In terms of the work, you need to step away from it and analyse it coldly for what it is. How does it compare to other work that’s been published? Have professional writers read it and analysed it? Do you know exactly where it would sit on a bookstore shelf and which books it will sit next to? Is it better than those books?
In terms of yourself, you should think about what you want from your writing. Do you want the kudos of a traditional publishing deal? Is it important to you to be able to tell your friends and family that you’ve been published by Penguin Random House?
THE TRUTH ABOUT TRAD
You see, @wetcircuit is bang on. Publishers have a marketing budget. That budget is largely blown on one or two books a year and these are known as super releases. These are the books they paid a 7-figure advance to procure. Michelle Obama’s biography for example. And the publisher throws their budget at making this the most talked about book of the year. As the advances go down through proven writers like Paula Hawkins and Sarah Pinborough, so does the marketing budget. Eventually, they get to the unknowns who are a risk. It’s a business. They have to do it this way. It’s how they make money.
So, unknown authors usually end up with between £5-50,000 advances. Fifty if you can get 5 publishers in a bidding war. But they often split that in half with a two book deal. If you consider that they’ll take 2-3 years to get your book out, that is very little money. Hence authors earn less than minimum wage. And forget earning back the advance. Royalties are so low that most authors don’t earn them back. They had little to no marketing so how can they? I’ve seen royalty statements in negative figures.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
This is where your introspection needs to turn inwards. Many writers ball and whinge about the faulty system instead of playing it. And you can play it, but you will earn very little as a new author. So, what do you want? Do you want the kudos of a traditional deal? Or do you want to get paid for your writing?
Readers are out there for the strangest of genres, from erotica to reverse harem and genres you won’t even know exist. Traditional publishers won’t put the budget behind finding these niche audiences, but you can. I know a writer making 5 figures a month writing reverse harem.
Traditional publishing has shrunk dramatically and the indie world is now a very different space. Editors, proof-readers, cover designers etc. who were previously only available in-house to traditional authors are now contracting. Which means, without an agent or publisher, you can put your book through the exact process that a traditional book would take (if you're prepared to invest in it). Readers don’t care who published it. And you can market to them through Facebook, Amazon Ads, and Bookbub.
So, analyse your book and yourself coldly and decide what you want:
A traditional deal with less than minimum wage and no marketing? Then write something that works the system.
A self-published book that’s indistinguishable from the traditional books it sits next to? Then write what you like. You’ll have to invest a few thousand up-front. And nobody will have heard of you, but your niche readers will love you and you could earn 4-5 figures a month.
Kudos or money?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45071. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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The most likely explanation is that your queries are poorly written, or the agents you are querying are poorly suited to your work (or feel they are after reading your query).
If you are getting rubber-stamp rejections, look online for lessons in writing queries; one example is at Query Letter, but there are many such sites.
I would also look for agents at Agent Query and at Manuscript Wish List, so you can find agents suited to your genre. There are other resources online as well.
For submissions; the advice (from agents) is to submit a query to about six agents at a time, so you can look for feedback. If you get none, learn more about writing queries and revise. If you get feedback with your rejections, revise your query. Do NOT send out the same query to more agents!
By submitting to a handful at a time, you give yourself room to adapt, revise, and learn what you need to know to write a successful query.
This is a case of "judging a book by its cover", in this case: It's cover letter, which is your query. Remember, agents are looking for ANY unprofessionalism in your query. Any mis-formatting, any mis-spelling, any weird grammar or word choices.
In their mind, the query letter is a sample of your writing skill and ability to follow the rules; and they are looking for a reason to reject queries because they don't want to work for an author they have to babysit, or a prima donna, or somebody that can't be bothered to check their own spelling. They want somebody that can write a tight half page description of their work that intrigues them; because if you can't write that, why should they think you can write a whole book?
Agents love new writers. Published writers are hard to come by, they already have agents. New writers are up for grabs. Unfortunately, this is a "buyer's market", the supply of wannabe writers is far larger than the population that agents could actually represent. So they don't make the mistake of confusing "unpublished writer" with "amateur writer", they want to represent new writers that seem immediately publishable, with very little work on their end, other than representation. And that means rejecting about 95% of queries.
Your query letter (and any sample pages permitted with the query) need to reflect that you are in the 5%.
One reason publishers consider the recommendation of most agents very carefully is because the agents act as a filter for them and typically can be trusted to bring them quality work. You have to work to not get snagged by that filtering process.
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