Now that you have walked 50 queries in an agent’s shoes and likely pictured yourself answering 50 queries a day stretching on into infinity, how would you handle your slush pile if you were an agent?
Would you personalize? Would you form reject? Reply-if-interested? Crawl under your desk and hope no one finds you?
I’m really curious to hear everyone’s submission policy. Knowing what you know now.
Just_Me says
I’d probably start by trying to respond to ever query with a personalized rejection. I found myself leaving a note under every form rejection on the blog. It took longer, but I felt I needed to explain why I was passing.
I’d probably eventually fall back on form rejections.
I did like the luxury of time. I spent 3 days reading through just these 50 queries and placing my top 17 choices in a MAYBE pile so I could review them after a few days of objectivity. The ones that still called to me after a day or two, I requested.
I know a real agent doesn’t have that luxury, although you might have a little more time to read queries. I think I’d try to do something similar if I were interested in a query I might place it in another folder for reading later… it might mean a slower response time but I think I’d be more confident in my choices if I didn’t have to make an impulse decision for every book.
sally apokedak says
I would definitely do “the reply if interested” deal. I do not feel a need to reply to every person in the world who wants a minute of my time. And if it takes even 30seconds to cut and paste a form rejection and if you are form rejecting 70 queries a day that’s 35 minutes you’ve spent rejecting people who are not going to appreciate the form rejection because it tells them nothing more than that you received their query.
35 minutes a day. That’s almost three hours a week. Spent on people you don’t know and you don’t want to work with.
All to let them know you received their query. Why not just tell people to send a read request? That could be the electronic version of the SAS postcard. Is there some reason people object to read requests other than we decided early on that they would be the mark of amateurs?
Lucy says
I think I would do pretty much what I’ve done here: craft the kindest form rejection I could make, and use it for the majority. I would reply to every query, but it might be one of those auto-reply things.
To me, a personalized rejection has always been a kind of pat on the back for a job well done, even if the query didn’t fit the agent’s interests; and I would personalize only when I felt it was really needed and/or deserved.
I’ve collected my share of form rejections, and the forms don’t bother me unless they say something like “please refer to our agency guidelines” when I’ve studied those guidelines until I could recite them in my sleep. I’ve also gotten some really kind personal rejections, but those are an “extra.” I don’t expect them, but I so much appreciate them–and those agents are on the top of my list for other projects.
Anonymous says
I was going to say I’d form reject because I think it’s really rude to just say ‘no response means no’ but then I read someone else who put a time on it – if you don’t hear back in two weeks the answer’s no. I think that putting a time on the no response thing makes it fair. So I’d either do a ‘if you don’t hear back in a certain time’ or just form reject. If I saw something really promising I like the idea of personalising a rejection letter but I wouldn’t do that very often.
PurpleClover says
I think the “no unsolicited queries” just means they have a full book and aren’t signing any new clients unless they were referred. But that manuscript better be the creme de la creme to be considered.
I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere. …so it must be true. 😉
gwen says
I just love this blog. It is so informative. I enjoy just hanging out and lurking. I learn so much.
Thank you, Nathan, for taking the time to keep up with this. 🙂
**Side note: I felt dumb because I realised I rejected one particular query in the contest because I wasn’t interested, but right after I posted it I realised I’m not allowed to do that. Since I’m a non-blogger person, I can’t delete it, so oh well!
I had fun either way and I am very interested to see which novels went on to sell.
Megan says
i think firstly i would make it very clear what i would take on and what i wouldn’t. if i had time i would like to offer suggestions but i think, given this experience, i should be realistic and think that i’d probably just send a standard form rejection.
Davien says
I can’t tell if I misposted, if the Internet ate my post, or if my thoughts on this were deleted. =(
But I tend to be a techno-nerd. The time it takes to formulate a few semi-specific templates to cover the handful of commonly seen issues (didn’t follow submission guidelines, really should have an editor, needs more maturity in the writing, not really marketable, too cliche, unbelievable, etc.) should be fairly trivial.
If you take the time to read, dragging for response should be pretty straightforward. But, I’m not sure I would be able (or necessarily willing) to read every submission. Replying on receipt to cover a case where I was unable to (or unwilling to) respond would almost certainly be a catch-all I would use in addition to anything else.
I think, in this role, I would focus on refining the submission process to maximize the manageability. Summarize your work in 200 words or less, submit 500 words of your work, tell me anything else you want to tell me, including your prior publication or awards record in less than 100 words, etc.
Form reject anyone who doesn’t listen (if you can’t follow written direction, collaboration over writing is going to be sub-optimal), and use the high level categories for the most common issues for the rest.
It’s helpful enough, quick, and allows you to gather some statistics to publish on your blog or site to let people know more about the kinds of things you aren’t looking for in the interest of generating more things you might be seeking.
Anonymous says
A tangential comment here from one of the lucky 50 whose queries were featured–
I’ve gotten over 250 rejection letters in four days. That’s never happened to me before, and probably never will again.
I’ve also gotten TEN requests for partials and THREE requests for manuscripts in a 4-day period. That’s *NEVER* happened before. (I hope it will again.)
And over 275 strangers have read my query and responded to it one way or another — over a quarter of them with some sort of specific useful comments. That’s pretty darn cool.
Thanks, y’all.
Diana says
I just want to say to the people who donated their queries to this project:
Thanks for being so brave. This was a really cool experiment, but for you, it must have been pretty scary to put yourself out there like that.
Anonymous says
Regarding autoreply by dragging to a folder in Outlook, there is a simple VB script with instructions here:
https://tinyurl.com/dzo5qn
It seems genuine and I implemented it, but could not get it to work. You might have better luck. Only takes a few minutes to set up.
Tip. Naming the autoreply folder path correctly in the script might be the tricky bit. Still working on it.
austere says
Standard responses.
Maybe use three different grades of replies.
But for heaven’s sake, reply quickly.
Sarah Laurenson says
Form reject. I figure every writer needs more to finish their wall papering. Except I’d probably do it by e-mail. I’m such an e-mail junky.
And I’d request the query and 3-5 pages. I found I prefered reading the pages – or at least the first part of them – to reading the query.
I also glossed over all bio paragraphs as if they didn’t matter and I don’t know that I’d do that as an agent. It would probably be the last thing I looked at for those that interested me.
Anonymous says
I think this really highlights the crapshoot that query letters are. I tend to send out queries two or three at a time and revise every time I get a rejection.
I had one manuscript that I’d been rejected on about ten times. I went to a writer’s forum and got help with the query and instantly got six requests for fulls and partials. Two agencies are still considering the project. All of that from tweaking the letter, not by doing anything to make the story any better.
I’d prefer to skip the whole damn letter and submit my 1-3 chapters. So I guess what I’m saying is, as an agent, I wouldn’t put much weight into that query. Some writers (like me) just lock up when it comes to that letter, and it really doesn’t resemble what they’d write if they weren’t nerve-wracked and terrified of rejection. And it would suck to see a best-seller that I had previously rejected for any reason.
I’d ask for genre, word count, and sample chapters. Don’t tell me your story, just show it to me.
RainSplats says
Form reject – carefully worded thoughts on those that are close.
Kindle to read them on
First 5 pages – I hated not being able to see the writing NOW on some of the queries. (I’d read a few lines of most pages.)
auto-receipt response that pointed to a page that said: “90% of the queries I receive are rejected for these 3 reasons…..” etc.
I’d update the page whenever new slushy trends started bugging me.
I don’t think I’d make a good agent.
Hildegarde512 says
Thanks for this very informative experience!
As a writer, I don’t mind form rejections. I do feel for the agents/editors buried in queries. I still think the courtesy of a brief reply is not too much to ask. The beauty of e-mail is that it CAN be “reply with stationary.” I doubt I am super-agent, but I finished this challenge in an evening–after my day job, in between family and writing, including having to type in the word verification for every post.
It is not uncommon for me (or my assistant) to deal with a full in-box every day. Most of our mail can not be handled with form response. This comes with the job.
I continue to appreciate agents who do not leave us in query limbo. Is it really no? Is it lost in cyberspace? Battling the spam filter?
BTW: Kudos to all who submitted queries. The caliber of most seemed very high to me. It does us all good to remember that an agent is not looking for the “bad” ones to reject, he is sorting through the good ones for the best to accept.
Thanks again for hosting this project!
Memoirs of a Bulimic Black Boy says
I’m a big fan of polite and timely form responses. I also believe some sorta auto response upon receipt would be nice. I believe anything more eats up valuable time which might be better spent pitching your existing clients. One thing I find interesting and educational about this discussion is how different writer’s expectations are from say a prospective corporate or legal client. As both of these have fiduciary responsibilities attached, taking care of existing clients pretty much always prevails. Taking time to personalize a “thanks but no thanks” response is counter productive. So I guess a really cool agent would either be someone who sent me a nice personalized and detailed rejection letter or someone who signed me and sent everyone else a two sentence form e-mail rejection letter. Pray for me, I really am trying to be a better person.
Jada says
I’d form reject. I’ve tried to give a little feedback for the writers on this exercise, because I think if they were brave enough to submit they deserve something in return, but it’s way too time-consuming to do for each query, every day.
Crawling under the desk and hiding does sound tempting too though!
Anonymous says
Anon 9:20’s post made me go count the responses to my own query.
I just counted, and assuming I’m counting right:
Over 50 partials and almost 20 fulls.
*faints*
Anonymous says
I didn't take part in the challenge, primarily because I was already of the opinion that agents don't particularly 'owe' those who query them anything (but it was still great to watch)
I would form reject, but would have a handful of variants set up as signatures in my mail client.
That way you've got an immediate drop down menu of 'thanks but no thank', 'close but no cigar' or a straightforward 'do one' etc.
Have you thought about setting up sigs in this way Nathan? It would save you having to cut & paste which is a chore if you have to do over and over.
Nixy Valentine says
I would likely use a web form with boxes to fill in for things like Title, Word Count, Genre, Contact Info, and boxes for a 500 word limit synopsis and a 500 word limit sample. (Too many queries left off important information.)
The beauty of web forms is they can be easily set up to email someone a reply as soon as they hit “submit”.
I would absolutely use form rejections. Something short and polite, but firm.
The Agent for a Day game didn’t really change my view on this. I’ve always thought form rejections were fine.
Anonymous says
form reject
balinares says
Dear Nathan:
I found this page about configuring Outlook to use templates for replies:
https://www.payneconsulting.com/support/tips/outlook/
I don’t know how effective the whole process is, however. I know there are email clients where the entire operation of replying to the current email with a given template can be bound to a single key shortcut, but I am not sure the added convenience is worth the trouble of changing email clients entirely.
Hope this helps.
Melissa says
I’d send form rejections to most of them. I’d also set aside time about once per week to make a few thoughtful comments on the more promising rejected queries. I’d see this as a way of encouraging and helping newer writers who may be great after they learn a little more.
Melissa
Melissa says
I’d form reject. I’d also set aside the more promising rejected queries and make a few personalized comments on them. The latter part would be hard and time-consuming, but it would also encourage the better writers to keep coming back to me.
Melissa
balinares says
Blasted bilious barnacle — I hadn’t seen the question had already been answered in the next page of comments. Sorry about the spam, all.
JuJu says
Well…
I think that I would put all queries I accepted in a separate folder for later. I would then blanket-mail reject the people whose queries lost out.
I would then return to the queries I accepted and personally reply to each of them: partial to those I thought showed good potential and a full to ones I thought would be great.
Everybody wins: query failers get their long-sought reply, so to query passers, and not much work on my part (because so few people’s queries pass).
Heather says
What I’ve been doing is a semi-form rejection letter. There are perhaps five reasons why I’ve been passing on manuscripts (theoretically), and they’re based largely on this post by Rachelle Gardner. That being said, I developed a form rejection letter and then just insert the template reason why I’m rejecting; that way authors could know why I rejected and, if it’s something that could be changed, work on that (or in the more likely scenario that it’s just not right place/right time, not get dishartened).
Vic K says
I’d use form rejections for sure. I struggled more with writing the reasons than I did with making the decisions.
At one point, I wanted to give a writer some writing tips and then I decided it just wasn’t going to come off no matter how well I phrased it. So I passed on that, and now I absolutely understand why agents do too.
sylvia says
Unfortunately, I don’t use Outlook so I can’t help you with the auto-response option for a folder.
However, I do have to write a lot of the same information repeatedly. Copy and paste is much too slow.
You might want to consider using a macro program (I use Keytext: https://www.mjmsoft.com/keytext.htm ) where you set up shortcuts to write out phrases. I use three letters followed by a // (to ensure that the macro program doesn’t replace real text on my behalf)
So for example if you type
gen//
the macro kicks in and types “This query is outside of the genres I represent.”
der//
“I think the story as you have presented it is deriviative and will not hold its own in today’s market”
par//
“I am interested in the premise and would like to see a partial”
JKR//
“This could be the next Harry Potter and I’d like to send you a contract immediately.”
It doesn’t take long to come up with a limited set and it’s surprisingly easy to remember the short-cuts once you’ve started the system.
A program like Keytext runs in the background so the macro kicks in no matter what window you are typing in.
Janny says
Years ago, when you’d send something to Harlequin, you’d get a postcard back that had a form paragraph on it, stating that they would respond in approximately 12 weeks. I always liked that, because it basically gave you license to check after three months without feeling like you would automatically go into the “pest” file. 🙂 Don’t know if they still do that–probably not, with e-submissions and the like–but that’d be the equivalent of what I’d do. A form e-mail autoresponder saying, “Thank you for your submission. I expect to have it read within___ (weeks).”
I would NOT personalize every rejection, however. Even though it pained me not to do so on this contest, I knew going in that if I had to deal with 50 or 100 or 200 queries in one day, there’s no way I’d be able to personalize them all and get anything else done. The ones who were “close,” I’d like to put a sentence in about, if I had time to do so…but I can’t see that I would always even have the time to do that.
I also liked the idea of a query “holiday” that one commenter put up…in one sense. From the agent’s point of view, that’s a great way to have a chance to catch up on your e-mails and your sanity. However, if I were an author and arbitrarily saw an agent post that they were taking a “query holiday” without prior warning, and therefore my query would be deleted without being read…I’d be hacked. So if I took a “holiday” of sorts, I’d warn potential authors ahead of time!
Interestingly enough, I found the requests for partials MUCH easier to write–short, and sweet. “Send it in.” Those are much more fun!
😀
Janny
Jovanna says
Snow. White paper snow. Closing around me. Claustrophopia. There’s that sinking feeling that I’m about to be submerged under reams and reams of queries. How do you breath? Why is my water bottle empty?
Seriously, I found it rather dry and difficult after… 20 or so. My brain went on walkabout and I had no idea what I was reading. Forcing myself to sit here, I had to imagine myself locked up in a room in an impossible to escape tower, chained to the desk.
I would only personalise a rejection if the query caught my interest but for some reason, I would be unable to accept it (ie quota already reached)… or if the idea could work if redone in another way.
Form reject for the more typically obvious not-so-goods.
Reply-if-interested if the query really really caught my attention and struck me as not only very good but possibly very sellable, even if quota has been fulfilled.
There probably wouldn’t be enough space under my desk. I might have to make do with the chair.
Shoo chicken! There isn’t enough space for the two of us. Yes, I’ve come down to your level. (yes, the chicken is a house pet.)
Nevertheless, my sincere thanks, Nathan, for this interesting and insightful opportunistic experience.
Leis says
I found it exhausting work after only 17 queries. Could not handle 50 a day, every day.
There’s also an underlying guilty feeling…. what if I’m going too fast and I’m missing something; what if this one could really amount to something interesting, but I feel I need to pass on it because the author did not sell it sufficiently…
Some queries are easy to pass on: the writing or some other element makes it clear the author is not mature enough in his/her craft. But those right on the borderline — tough choices.
Anahita says
Dear literary agents,
I can think of two ways that deciding about a query could go wrong: 1) accepting a project that ultimately does not sell and 2) rejecting a project that would sell. In your viewpoint, which one is the main focus?
Anahita says
Dear literary agents,
I can think of two ways that deciding about a query could go wrong: 1) accepting a project that ultimately does not sell and 2) rejecting a project that would sell. In your viewpoint, which one is the main focus?
Donna says
I found it extremely hard to read 50 queries, and, to tell the truth, I quit at around #30 because I just couldn’t stand to read another… my mind was wandering and for most of them I couldn’t get a sense of what the book was like.
As a writer, a form rejection doesn’t bother me, and that’s what I’d use.
Donna says
By the way, in reference to Gregory, 4/16 at 3:08 PM:
I too have heard writers repeat the thing about Rowling being rejected 100+ times. *However* — in many direct interviews with Rowling, the way she tells it, her first query to a publisher came back quickly — “virtually by return post,” I believe is how she put it. And her second query got her published. And if this is how it happened (that is, if she was not simplifying the story for the interviewer, and it was really only the second query) then I think it kind of changes the moral that people want to draw from it. In her case, a publisher recognized a good book quickly.
Cat Moleski says
I would and did use a form rejection most of the time. I now understand why an agent would use a form rejection and I think it will bother me less in the future to receive one.
jimg says
Nathan: First, congratulations on taking the time to show writers your side of the coin. It was enlightening for many, I’m sure.
I think there is a major problem with the query system, especially regarding those agents who accept more than a query (as you now do). When writers get a rejection they don’t know if it is because of the query or the five sample pages. Don’t know if it is the content, writing, style, genre, etc… Perhaps a form letter that has a series of checks.
‘read the query only. did not resonate with me.’
‘read query and five pages. writing not ready’
‘read query only (another reason)’
I’m sure that between all of the writers you have on your blog and perhaps a few of your agent friends, we could come up with a form letter that would be easy for an agent to use and at the same time provide information to the writer.
The nice thing is in the long run it might help unclog the pipeline of you agents. As it is now, if I get a rejection, being the eternal optimist that I am, I assume it is because I didn’t write the query right. So I’ll wait a month, redo it, and send it in again. If I had received a form rejection initially that said, read query and five pages and didn’t like the writing (or something to that effect) I would likely move on to another agent next time.
Just a thought,
jimg
Amethyst Greye Alexander says
It looks like I’d be a bit of a smorgasbord. I had plain form rejections, form rejections with a tiny suggestion tacked on, personal notes, and personal praises.
Bija Andrew Wright says
Anahita writes: I can think of two ways that deciding about a query could go wrong: 1) accepting a project that ultimately does not sell and 2) rejecting a project that would sell.I think the second part of your question implies a kind of fatalism, that there are manuscripts that are inherently bestsellers, and everyone who rejected them missed their obvious quality, and there are manuscripts that are inherently unsellable. But I don’t think that’s how an actual market works. Any literary success story happens because the right people were in the right place to make it happen. So I do believe agents when they answer “This isn’t right for me,” or “I’m not the right agent for this.” In someone else’s hands, it could be a success story.
jimg: Did you do the “agent for a day” and answer all the queries? I think the answer to your question is obvious from the perspective of someone who’s read the queries. In any case when your query was rejected, it’s because someone else’s query was better than yours. Maybe their letter was better than yours, or maybe their pages were better than yours, but that really doesn’t matter.
We agents-for-a-day couldn’t accept everyone–by the rules, we could only accept five. Real agents don’t have an arbitrary limit, but they do have limited time. So of those fifty queries, we chose the ones we liked best.
Anonymous says
I never thought of the signature route. That makes a great deal of sense.
As an agent, I’d have an auto responder that sent off an email that acknowledges receipt of the query and give a response time. I would have three or so different signatures, conveying the main reason for queryfail in one sentence followed by a signature. E.g Thank you for your query however, I must pass on this project because: it is the wrong genre, it is too similar to other projects, the writing needs polish, etc. All it would entail is replying, selecting which signature applied, and hitting send. Voila! This would educate writers and hopefully, help improve the quality of the slush overall as I’m sure writers submit again with other projects. I could also set up a signature requesting partials or fulls and of course, I could actually write an email to the writer whose work I really really was excited about.
Thanks so much Nathan for this blog and contest! Such an eye opener for an aspiring writer.
Corey Schwartz says
Oh, got it. I have a picture book out and I was plucked from the slush by an editorial assistant at Walker. But I can see how going through a physical pile of full PB manuscripts is totally different from reading and responding to electronic “queries”. It just seems like there must be a better way. The current system isn’t great for writers and it’s even worse for you!
reader says
I’ve found this very helpful in rewriting my own queries and I wonder if we could have this as an added feature of the blog?
Not “Agents Day,” neccessarily, but if you could post five or six queries (of willing participants) every so often and we could comment on them?
I’ve found reading the other “Agents” comments to be very helpful and instructive. There were some that picked up on insufficeint word count, and others on plain confusion. All helpful.
Heather says
I guess I was one of those weird people who actually didn’t like the 5-page partial. I know in writing my queries I’ve been super thankful that agents are moving toward wanting to see a couple of pages before rejecting, but in this experience I didn’t use it. If you couldn’t sell me with a hook in the query, then I wasn’t interested; there was actually one project I was going to request a partial on, but when I read their five pages, turned them down–their writing wasn’t up to (my) snuff.
It was a big eye-opener. I can’t rely on the five pages… I need to write my query as if it’s the only thing they’ll ever see. (Because, to me, my book is important and I need to treat it as such and put all of the danged effort into it that’s required.)
lucy in the sky says
I enjoyed the process, although I responded to most with a pretty basic form reject. If it was really my job I’d write a better decline letter, but would still use a form letter for most situations.
I would definitely ask for 10 pages along with the query, there were some queries that the idea was interesting but I couldn’t get enough from the query to tell if the story was interesting, too. I think I would only ask for a synopsis if I was also asking for a partial.
There was one I requested a partial on based on the pages, not the query. I put that in my reply.
Anonymous says
Reader:
It’s important to keep in my that the people playing “agent” don’t always know what they’re talking about.
I noticed several people who mentioned “insufficient word count” on YA novels, for example, when the word count was perfectly within the standard range. When it comes to word count, it’s really best for people to do research in their genre. Relying on others is never a good idea.
But anyway, if you want a critique of your query, go to Evil Editor, Query Shark, Absolute Write, or the Blue Boards.
FWIW: 40,000 to 80,000 words is the “typical” length of a YA novel. MG’s can have fewer words (generally no fewer than 30,000).
Anonymous says
Correction: Keep in “mind”, not “my”.
abouttothunder says
I would form reject those that don’t interest me, personalized at least with the name of the project. I did not bother to do that in the blog, but email is a less cumbersome format. If something jumped out at me that I could comment on in 1-3 sentences, I would add that.
I also discovered that I would love to have five sample pages with all queries. If I’m not interested, no need to look at them. If I’m on the fence, it helps me decide. If I’m interested, I either get more interested or can eliminate something without needing to request a full.
Thank you, Nathan, for doing this. It’s been very educational. I hope that it has been helpful for those who contributed.
Disgruntled Bear says
Thanks for asking, Nathan!
For email queries:
I suggest a form email with optional sections that can be added if/when appropriate. Copying and pasting the name from the original query would be pretty easy, and it seems important to a lot of the people who are responding today.
For paper queries:
I suggest a pre-printed 1/3rd sheet for rejections (if there was a SASE) and a freshly-printed, full-page form letter (personalized with the person’s name) when requesting partials or fulls.