Sit-rep

Sorry, I know sit-rep makes me sound like Jeremy Clarkson but this is a situation report, so what can I do?

In my last post, I said that I was starting to submit my novel-length manuscript. Between then and mid-February, I submitted to 28 agents and 7 publishers that accept unagented work. That's the situation. Now here's the report.

Of the 28 agents: 13 (46.4%) have sent me rejections4 (14.3%) have passed their own deadline for response without responding, i.e. elapsed11 (39.3%) have sent no response but have no deadline for doing so, i.e. are still "live"Of the 7 publishers: 2 (28.6%) have sent me rejections1 (14.3%) has passed their own deadline for response without responding, i.e. elapsed4 (57.1%) have sent no response but have no deadline for doing so, i.e. are still "live"

Bottom line: 20 of the 35 submissions have been unsuccessful thus far. Most of the rejections had kind things, positives, in their emails, and I tell myself they're not just boilerplate messages, even though they probably are. And there are still 15 irons in the fire. Besides, if you're a writer who's not ready for some rejection, well, you're probably not really ready to start submitting either...