Reapproaching Agents

popmuze

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I'm thinking of reapproaching some agents who rejected my full manuscript a year or two ago with specific comments. It's changed a lot since then. I would feel more confident about doing this if I had any idea of how many pages they read since most of the work has been done on the first 50 pages.

1) I'm wondering how many agents who request a full actually read the whole thing.

2) If not, why do they make global comments that seem to apply to the whole book when they've only read, say, ten pages.

3) This is why I like it when an agent requests a partial. If they then request the full you can pretty much figure they liked the first 5, 10, or 50 pages.

4) Or can you?
 

Filigree

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There is no way to know. The few agents who've requested 50-page partials from me read them and responded with detailed comments. Rejections, alas, but useful ones.

Beware of 'workshop syndrome'. Sometimes, those first few chapters have been polished to perfection so they can squeak into workshops, and the rest of the book suffers by comparison. So make sure the revisions reflect an improvement across the whole mms.

As for an agent liking the first few pages if they request the full, that's no guarantee they'll like or be able to market the full. Using a publisher offer, I recently closed a deal with a high-powered agent, to help me contract for one book to one publisher. But she's not my agent yet, because she needs to see the rest of my writing. Be sure I'm sweating over the mms I want to send her!
 

Drachen Jager

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If they made the request there was something about it that piqued their interest.

A year ago I approached a top agent who asks for a query letter only. She requested a partial which she eventually rejected. I really overhauled the manuscript and re-queried her a few weeks back with a note that she'd read it about a year ago, but it had been significantly changed and she immediately requested pages.

I think, so long as a long period of time has passed and the manuscript really is dramatically changed it's fine to re-query. It's good to mention that it's a re-query, because otherwise they might remember you and think, "Oh, I rejected this one before!" Also it puts you in a fairly elite group of writers who actually have the drive to stick with a project for that long.
 

kaitie

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An agent won't say, "I only read thirty pages," because the second they let on that they didn't read the whole thing, they're going to get a backlash from many authors who then write back saying, "How can you know if you didn't read the whole thing?" etc. I typically assumed for form rejections that they didn't read the whole thing.

Did you get specific, personalized feedback on any of them? Were they all fulls or did they start from partials? If they started with a partial, I wouldn't resend since you said the new stuff is mostly in the beginning. I also wouldn't resend for a form rejection.

I would, however, write back and let them know that there had been changes in the case of a personalized rejection, in particular if the beginning was pointed out as a weakness.

Just what I'd do in your shoes.
 

kaitie

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I'm not even sure I'd query normally. I'd write saying that it had been requested in the past and revised, and then include the query at the end of the email. I'd also not include the new manuscript unless that was specifically requested again.
 

Katrina S. Forest

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I got one rejection on a full that said something like, "Thank you for sending your manuscript, of which I have now read a partial." But except in cases like that, you really can't know how much of your full was read. To me, it's not worth fussing over.

Agents request a full when they think they'd like to read the entire book. They stop reading when it's clear they will not enjoy the entire book.

As a reader, I've sampled plenty of books that convinced me in a few pages to give up my hard-earned cash to buy the whole thing. Some I stopped partway through because the rest of the book didn't live up to my expectations. I'm not going to force myself to read something it's become painfully clear I don't like. I don't see why agents' reading habits would be any different.
 

kellion92

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I misread this thread title as "Reproaching Agents." Very tempting to do, rarely does a lick of good.
 

DennisB

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I, too, have wondered just how much agents read. If the topic sounds intriguing, but the writing is stilted or just plain bad, do they continue past the first page, or even first couple of graphs? Do they think the topic is so good that the project can be saved with some revision?
 

popmuze

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Agents request a full when they think they'd like to read the entire book. They stop reading when it's clear they will not enjoy the entire book.

Wouldn't you like to know if that point occurred 5, 50 or 200 pages into the book? Especially when they say, I thought the plot was nicely paced, but I just didn't fall for the characters.
 

MokoBunny

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Is it a good idea to reapproach an agent if they've rejected you at query level? I'm talking about after a whole year and a major overhaul on your book (i.e 75% rewritten)? I've mostly noticed people talking about rejections on partials or fulls so I was curious ^_^
 

Brigid Barry

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I'm thinking of reapproaching some agents who rejected my full manuscript a year or two ago with specific comments. It's changed a lot since then. I would feel more confident about doing this if I had any idea of how many pages they read since most of the work has been done on the first 50 pages.

1) I'm wondering how many agents who request a full actually read the whole thing. Maybe, maybe not.

2) If not, why do they make global comments that seem to apply to the whole book when they've only read, say, ten pages. Because they work in a business where they can have a pretty good idea of where things are going to go. Or maybe it was the style of writing and not necessarily the plot.

3) This is why I like it when an agent requests a partial. If they then request the full you can pretty much figure they liked the first 5, 10, or 50 pages. This is not a question.

4) Or can you? Unless one of the specific comments you got was "make some revisions and get back to us" I wouldn't go back to an agent who already had your partial or full. Especially since they will probably have you logged in a data base somewhere and be more annoyed by your hard-headedness than impressed with your tenacity.

There are plenty of fish in the sea, so start querying agents that have not seen your work.
 

Terie

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Wouldn't you like to know if that point occurred 5, 50 or 200 pages into the book? Especially when they say, I thought the plot was nicely paced, but I just didn't fall for the characters.

Sure, everyone would like to know that.

Expecting agents to tell writers that, however, isn't realistic. It's simply not going to happen.

I'm sure there are abolutely no generalisations anyone can make about how far agents read into partials and fulls, because every single case will be different.

For example, Miss Snark said she'd never rep a book where a child dies. (I think she meant a child dying being one of the critical plot points, but I can't remember for sure.) So if WriterA has a child die on page 3, Miss Snark probably stopped on page 3; whereas if WriterB has a child die on page 32, if she hadn't already stopped reading for other reasons, Miss Snark probably stopped on page 32.

An agent stops reading at the point at which they decide they don't want to rep the book. This is pretty much exactly like a reader stopping reading at the point at which they decide they don't want to finish reading. I've stopped reading books on page 2, in chapter 3, halfway through, all kinds of places. Do you always make that decision on a certain page? No? Then why do you expect anyone to pinpoint how many pages agents read before making their decision? It's different for every manuscript.
 

Katrina S. Forest

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Wouldn't you like to know if that point occurred 5, 50 or 200 pages into the book? Especially when they say, I thought the plot was nicely paced, but I just didn't fall for the characters.

*shrugs* Would it be nice? Sure. But it doesn't matter to me that much. They didn't fall in love with the book, so that ends my communication with them on this project.

Other agents did read the entire thing. A couple gave a considerable amount of feedback. Those are the agents I want to talk to and keep at the top of my list for the next book.

I have beta-readers to tell me where I screwed up. Agents' only job (in relation to me) is to let me know if they want to represent me. If I send agents the best book I can possibly produce at the time, then there's no point in obsessing over the what ifs. I need to take what I've got and move forward to my next project.

When I'm good enough to get an agent, one of them will let me know. :)
 

Debbie V

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What if the rejection opened the door for other work and made a specific comment - in this case to add a new first chapter or two - and you've done that? Would it be a good idea to inform the agent you followed their advice and see if they'd like to read it again? I have nothing else to send her yet.
 

JSSchley

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It can't hurt to ask, Debbie, if the agent otherwise seems interested and if you think the suggestions are sound. That's exactly how I wrangled my current R&R. The agent gave some super specific feedback (over most of the book), but ultimately rejected. I asked in a reply if she would be interested in looking at a revision based on her feedback and she said yes.
 

Debbie V

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That's what I was hoping someone would say.
 

Debbie V

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Updating, she requested the first three chapters. I'm trying not to think about it.
 

popmuze

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Then why do you expect anyone to pinpoint how many pages agents read before making their decision? It's different for every manuscript.

I couldn't care less when an agent stops reading someone else's manuscript. All I want to know is when they stopped reading mine. One time, several novels ago, an agent read the first fifty and requested the rest. Then they said the novel lost its momentum in the second half. That was really good information. I think everyone would like to know whether an agent read two pages or 200. I think they don't want to tell, because it would ruin their image of reading everything thrown their way. They wouldn't want to come right out and say, I'm making all these generalizations based on two pages.
 

bearilou

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I couldn't care less when an agent stops reading someone else's manuscript. All I want to know is when they stopped reading mine. One time, several novels ago, an agent read the first fifty and requested the rest. Then they said the novel lost its momentum in the second half. That was really good information. I think everyone would like to know whether an agent read two pages or 200. I think they don't want to tell, because it would ruin their image of reading everything thrown their way. They wouldn't want to come right out and say, I'm making all these generalizations based on two pages.

Considering the horror stories of writers who then harass and give agents grief when they've given their honest assessment, I can't fault agents for being vague in their rejections. They have no idea who you are, no way of knowing 'well popmuze is someone who can handle careful criticism without launching into a hateful diatribe about how I'm clearly an idiot who wouldn't recognize genius if it fell on me, so I'll send it'.

Not to mention they're extremely busy and if they're successful, they're pretty damn good about looking through the stuff they receive every single day and separating out that which doesn't work for them and that which does; what they can sell and what they can't -- all in a very short amount of time/amount of reading.

Be careful about making assumptions on a process in a business that is already fraught with the landmines of fragile Golden Word author egos and extremely busy days and full inboxes.

The best you can do is get that query letter in to shape and make sure your manuscript is the best it can be. The right agent for you and for your book will snap it up. Trying to figure out why books are being rejected and finding fault with anything or anyone, rather than looking to yourself is only going to frustrate you further. There are parts of the process you can control, parts you can't.

Put aside the parts you can't and work on the parts you can.
 

Terie

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I couldn't care less when an agent stops reading someone else's manuscript. All I want to know is when they stopped reading mine.

You do know how incredibly selfish this is, don't you? You want special treatment and don't seem to care or even understand that you've done nothing to deserve it. All you've done is the same thing hundreds of thousands of others have done: write a novel.

Bottom line: Agents don't make money off writers they don't represent, and there's no business reason for them to spend their valuable time on people they don't and aren't going to represent.

Suck it up and live with it. Continually complaining about something you can't change is not only pointless, it wastes energy you could be spending on something more fruitful.
 

quicklime

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I couldn't care less when an agent stops reading someone else's manuscript. All I want to know is when they stopped reading mine. .



well Christ, it could just be little lines like this.....


in writing and queries, impressions also count. That's just how it is. Rail all you like, but you're wasting time in a petulant, childish little rant...I'm sorry; that comes close enough to the RYFW rule it may get me a nastygram, but dammit, that's what this is. Did it ever occur to you, in your selfishly myopic mind, that where an agent stops on another project might actually be INCREDIBLY useful to you? doesn't appear likely.... :Headbang: From where I stand, I'm reading little bits like this, and thinking if things like that show up in your other communications, there's no way in hell I'd agent--agents aren't just there to sign talent and make gobs and gobs of free money, it is a partnership.

I look at the above and think "Ok, even if his story is great (and I already have my doubts now, because the most difficult children are often the ones with the least to offer anyways, but nevermind this growing prejudice towards your work you are creating), how the fuck am I gonna convince such a snowflake to actually edit when a publisher suggests changes?" see, that's a problem, because agents are in it to get manuscripts sold....now, fair or not, you're creating an impression you'd be an incredibly difficult and perhaps self-destructive partner for them.

Additionally, agents are busy; they don't have the luxury of crits. They also don't have the ability to only half-open that can of worms; as others mentioned, it can get them another half-dozen letters from someone they aren't going to work with.


I get that this frustrates you, but I think at this point it also only serves to hinder you.
 
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popmuze

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Bottom line: Agents don't make money off writers they don't represent, and there's no business reason for them to spend their valuable time on people they don't and aren't going to represent.Suck it up and live with it.

This is the type of thinking that has now led to agents not responding after they request a full.
 

quicklime

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If it please the court, I do believe you're taking that line out of context.



which is, for the court, irrelevant. my point was it leaves a very shitty taste in one's mouth--if you do this in your queries or other correspondence, you are quite possibly damaging your odds through the impressions you are setting. Continuing with the "court" theme, it's a bit like showing up at your own trial in a tattered "Young, Dumb, and full of Cum" t-shirt....

impressions count, and all I'm saying is your general tendency to "rail against the man" here leaves me wondering how much of that permeates your other stuff, because to me, the vibe I get is "impossible to work with."

You can dismiss that as me being a crank, or you can consider it, or you can do whatever else you like, but there it is, from my end. I think it is work contemplating.
 

Terie

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This is the type of thinking that has now led to agents not responding after they request a full.

Yadda yadda yadda. You've started that thread and beat that horse enough times.

At some point you're just going to have to accept that life isn't exactly what you want it to be. And god, you're even a grown-up. I know 16-year-olds who handle life's disappointments with more maturity.

Or if you can't accept it, you might want to keep it to yourself. It doesn't do you or anyone else any good whatsoever to keep moaning about how agents don't do what YOU want them to do.