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My Christmas gift was a second rejection letter from an
agent I originally queried in January, 2018. The rejection back then (received the same day), contained a
sentence with personal, direct, actionable feedback to which I could respond. She was
absolutely correct and I spent several grateful months revising my story into what I KNOW is a
much better book.
Now, I am of the mind that a rejection from an agent is a
rejection, so I had no intention of re-querying the woman who’d been so helpful…but
then at the beginning of December I looked her up again. A FAQ page on her agency
website included this:
You turned me down a while back,
but I’ve thoroughly revised my work. Can
I try again?
If
you’ve genuinely made it substantially different (and, one hopes, better) then
we don’t at all mind if you come back to us and offer it again. Just be up
front about it when you do, and if we think that a re-read might be to our and
your benefit, we’ll be happy to do so.
Oh what the heck. I sent another query. Three weeks later, I received
the following:
Thanks
for thinking of me again! You’re a good writer and this premise is inventive.
That said, I’m just not finding myself invested on this second time
around—speculative/magical content is always a tough buy-in for my taste...
Am I disappointed? Yeah. Accepting? I guess. Pleased at
least that the response seems to be
personal? Absolutely. Hanging on to the phrase, “You’re a good writer?” More
than anything.
Why is this one rejection so important to me? Well, here's the thing. Right
now, my query-tracking spreadsheet lists ten open queries out
for between 4-8 months to which I have received NOTHING…not even an automatic “Not
for me, thank you.” I received one request for a full manuscript that’s been
out since August, also with no further feedback. (Note to self. Follow
up.) The above statistics don’t include queries I sent prior to my re-write, which
I’ve marked “assumed rejection” after hearing nothing over many months. In my
limited experience, when querying traditional publishers, no news is NOT good
news. So, a simple, quick, marginally personal response says to me an
agent is thoughtful, caring and respects writers’ feelings. And, while I won’t
make a habit of it, this experience also taught me that the world didn’t come to an end because I
queried twice.
In truth, I’m questioning whether this poor book is going anywhere.
That said, if I haven’t attracted an agent by the time I’m ready to query my
next book (which does not contain
speculative or magical content), she’ll be the first on my list.
Wishing you a happy New Year and a 2019 filled with writing success.
