This Week in Rejections - November 13, 2020

 

This week I received 3 rejections from literary agents. 

The first one was personalized, but just barely. The way the agent responded let me know that she had read my personalization, but she didn't give me any feedback. Simply that my book wasn't right for her list. I don't ever expect feedback from an agent, but it is nice to know that my query actually got read. 

My second rejection was definitely a cookie cutter form. It didn't have my name, or my book's name. 

The third rejection was nice, but the agent forgot to put my book's title in the available space in the rejection form. Lol. So the rejection read a little funny as a result. Otherwise, the response was a very cordial one. In fact, if the rejection wasn't obviously a form (with the omitted space), it didn't read like a form. 

These were all queries I sent in the same batch. In fact, that batch was larger than I normally do. As the rejections come in, I am taking a look at why they might be rejecting me. 

First thought: The query? 

I've had some good responses to this query, some requests. It still might not be AMAZING, but it makes me ask: Did any of these agents have more than just my query?

One had the first five pages, another had my query only, and another had the first three chapters.

I might need to revise my query, but where I have also gotten requests using that query, my attention is moving to my first pages. Especially where I recently (not this week) also got a rejection on a partial. 

Maybe the first couple of chapters aren't as attention grabbing as the rest of the book?

So, for the last few weeks I have rewritten my first couple of chapters, let them sit, edited and edited, had them critiqued by outside sources, and am preparing to query with my new beginning.

We'll see if it works out better.