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Finally got my query inbox down to a manageable size after working at it for three days (70 queries, 7 fulls!)
#amagenting
#amagenting
Biggest reason for passing? The book premises weren’t unique enough to catch my attention, followed by a lack of narrative voice.
And quite a few really good books that I didn’t have an idea how to edit!
It took me...8-10 hours to get through it all? And that’s with the super easy QM system
Anyway; I know it can be frustrating to get a pass with no feedback. But I don’t give feedback unless it’s something really clear to me AND fixing that one thing will make a difference between yes and no
Authors take agent feedback SUPER seriously. But we aren’t omnipotent. I’ve seen authors radically alter their career plans based off 1-2 careless lines of commentary from an agent who’s just looked over their first pages
If I’m not seriously interested in representing an author, if I don’t really love the book, my advice might be the exact *wrong* direction—because I don’t have an intuitive idea how to position it on the market
And I need to go off my intuition, my subconscious knowledge of the market, because I don’t have the time for in-depth research on every potential project that comes my way
My form pass has some generic querying advice—search widely, practice your craft, find CPs—because this is helpful for every author
Truth is, if I love a project and I want to work on it, even if it needs lots of effort and strategy, I’ll reach out to the author and try to find a way.
You’ll never tweak a manuscript based off snippets of feedback to the point where it’s so perfect no one will ever say no again, but you don’t need to. The goal is to write something so good that, for the right agent and editor, they’ll say yes and fight for it
