After how many agents' similar opinions should I revise my manuscript?

mystere · Nov 10, 2016

Hi guys,

I'm in the middle of querying my novel and these are my stats so far.
I've sent my query to 38 agents.
I've gotten 6 form rejections by my estimation.
I've gotten 6 personal rejections.
A few others I've gotten no response and can assume they've read it and rejected it.

This is what they say:
-voice not as clever as what I expected
-can't connect to voice
-not hooked enough
-voice doesn't have spark I expected
(other two are personal taste)

At this point should I continue querying or should I change the voice? I don't know how subjective I should assume this feedback is.

Lauram6123 · Nov 10, 2016

Have you had any beta readers take a look at it?

If so, what did they say?

mystere · Nov 10, 2016

Yes, two beta readers, one more knowledgeable than the other. One found the voice fine lol. The other didn't say there was any issue about the voice but she doesn't read the genre so I value that lack of issue less.

LJD · Nov 10, 2016

How many partial/full requests did you get? Are these 6 personal/6 form rejections you refer to just on the query, or on partials/fulls?

mystere · Nov 10, 2016

LJD said:
How many partial/full requests did you get? Are these 6 personal/6 form rejections you refer to just on the query, or on partials/fulls?

Two fulls, no partials because most agents ask for sample pages with the query. The 12 rejections are a mixture of query only, query with sample pages, and one was query with full.

MaggieMc · Nov 10, 2016

Hi Mystere,

You need to be really really careful about assessing queries as personal rather than form. Queries that may read as if they are personal very often are form rejections, particularly queries that say something positive but general first followed by a statement like 'I just didn't connect/love it enough,' or 'Not enough voice.' A truly personal rejection is unmistakable - the agent will say something very specific about something your character says or does or a decision they make, or something else that clear and direct and very specific to your book.

If voice is the issue I think that is a tricky thing to fix. Not that it can't be fixed, but it may take a little time for you to find your voice. However if the rejections are form there may be nothing wrong with your voice in your novel, and it could simply be that you haven't found the right agent yet.

I'd suggest you have another look at your rejections and see if they are definitely personal, considered rejections before you think about revising based on them.

Best of luck!

mystere · Nov 10, 2016

MaggieMc said:
Hi Mystere,

You need to be really really careful about assessing queries as personal rather than form. Queries that may read as if they are personal very often are form rejections, particularly queries that say something positive but general first followed by a statement like 'I just didn't connect/love it enough,' or 'Not enough voice.' A truly personal rejection is unmistakable - the agent will say something very specific about something your character says or does or a decision they make, or something else that clear and direct and very specific to your book.

If voice is the issue I think that is a tricky thing to fix. Not that it can't be fixed, but it may take a little time for you to find your voice. However if the rejections are form there may be nothing wrong with your voice in your novel, and it could simply be that you haven't found the right agent yet.

I'd suggest you have another look at your rejections and see if they are definitely personal, considered rejections before you think about revising based on them.

Best of luck!

Thanks for this!
I definitely agree with you on a couple of those rejections: looking back on them I would guess they are
There were two however that were definitely personal and were addressing the manuscript

Sage · Nov 10, 2016

I disagree that none of these queries were personalized. They weren't terribly detailed, and are probably full of buzz phrases that agents tend to lean on when they're giving a quick personalized rejection, but referencing the novel's voice is not a form rejection. "I didn't connect to it" tends to be, but as soon as an agent mentions something specific, no matter how detailed they go into it, that is not a form rejection. Even if the voice turned off the agent quickly and they never got past page 5, it's not a form rejection.

Now, do the comments help you? Maybe. The words "I expected" are in there, so this suggests that something about your query gave the expectation of what the novel's voice would be. It is worth looking at how they differ (possibly also including your first pages, if those were included with the query), and decide what the correct course of action would be. If there is a difference, do you change the query/first pages to match? This would solve the expectations problem, but if that's what's drawing people to your submission, then you could be missing out on requests. So then do you change your novel's voice? And only you can answer that.

The answer to your titular question isn't a number. You might get 1 rejection that sounds exactly right to you and change it after the first rejection. Or you might think the advice is wrong for your novel, so strongly that you never change it at all, no matter how many agents mention it.

mystere · Nov 10, 2016

Sage said:
I disagree that none of these queries were personalized. They weren't terribly detailed, and are probably full of buzz phrases that agents tend to lean on when they're giving a quick personalized rejection, but referencing the novel's voice is not a form rejection. "I didn't connect to it" tends to be, but as soon as an agent mentions something specific, no matter how detailed they go into it, that is not a form rejection. Even if the voice turned off the agent quickly and they never got past page 5, it's not a form rejection.

Now, do the comments help you? Maybe. The words "I expected" are in there, so this suggests that something about your query gave the expectation of what the novel's voice would be. It is worth looking at how they differ (possibly also including your first pages, if those were included with the query), and decide what the correct course of action would be. If there is a difference, do you change the query/first pages to match? This would solve the expectations problem, but if that's what's drawing people to your submission, then you could be missing out on requests. So then do you change your novel's voice? And only you can answer that.

The answer to your titular question isn't a number. You might get 1 rejection that sounds exactly right to you and change it after the first rejection. Or you might think the advice is wrong for your novel, so strongly that you never change it at all, no matter how many agents mention it.

Thanks for this.

Alcasgra · Nov 11, 2016

I think that if the agents have given you something to work on, you might want to try and see if the advice could fit your manuscript and make it better. As the writer, I think that you know best what works well for your manuscript.

Barbara R. · Nov 11, 2016

You revise when someone gives you a thoughtful critique that rings true. The notes you mention in this stream don't sound like that sort of specific feedback, which, until you start selling your work, is really hard to come by. You can try some beta-readers, and/or this offer, which provides the sort of detailed feedback on openings that agents would give if they had the time and ability to respond substantively to all queries.

Good luck, and congrats on having gotten to this stage!

Aggy B. · Nov 11, 2016

I agree with Sage that it sounds like the issue may be the query is not setting up your manuscript properly. So what an agent expects after reading the query isn't what they're finding in the pages. That doesn't necessarily mean the pages are bad or that there's a problem with the voice, but it's different than what you've pitched.

I would start by looking at the query letter and analyzing what sort of expectations you are setting up for the manuscript, then decide if that's what you want for the book, and if so, how you might polish your manuscript to meet those expectations.

Best of luck.

Wolfalisk · Dec 9, 2016

First of all, as others have noted, I don't think any of that feedback is personal. You noted that you believe you received six personal rejections and posted four. I don't know about the other two, but the four posted are most definitely not personal in my opinion. I have queried around 60 agents, and all form rejections kind of have a similar ring to them. It's quite aggravating actually - my email service has this nice features were you see a preview of the first 15 words or so of an email. I can tell by the 8th word or so that it's a form rejection.

Secondly, I would never, ever revise my manuscript based on a form rejection from an agent. The only reason I'd ever do it for an agent is if they liked it and guaranteed representation if I fixed certain things. Then I would consider it. The feedback would have to be seriously in-depth and meaningful. If an agent requested changes and then asked me to resubmit without any guarantee of representation, I would give a resounding no. According to my research and the horror stories I've read, saying yes to a revision request without any sort of commitment is a good way to end up with five different manuscripts and no agent.

In short, if an agent is going to ask an author to revise (a very serious request), I feel there needs to be some sort of commitment to the author from the agent. If I was seeking professional feedback, I would take it to someone whose primary interest isn't changing my book to craft a more efficient cash cow by adding vampires.

Jimmy · Dec 9, 2016

I read an opinion that if you get rejected 10 times your book simply isn't up to scratch yet. That might be a little off.

@Wolfalisk - I know what you mean by being able to tell if it's a rejection - i.e. "Thank you for letting us take a look at your..." Yeah, yeah, you didn't feel it!

JulianneQJohnson · Dec 9, 2016

It's hard to tell if a rejection is personal feedback, or a well written form letter. From what I've read in various forums, a comment like "voice" can go either way, as can "couldn't connect with it" and "not my cup of tea." I say ignore the feedback for now unless you get specifics. (I couldn't connect with the voice because of the strong regional dialect, for example.)
Work on getting more constructive crit for now. Get your 50 posts and post some in the Share Your Work forum. Then you can also post your query, and see if it's misleading in any way. Wishing you the best of luck!

mystere · Jan 30, 2017

Thanks for this response by the way. Some of those rejections were personal and I did like the advice. Now having said that I did get a personal today where I felt the advice was almost silly.

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you Julianne! I'm getting more requests. I feel I'm getting close, I'm scared I won't get there though.

Oops these two replies were meant for two people. Not sure why they doubled up.

After how many agents' similar opinions should I revise my manuscript?

mystere

Lauram6123

mystere

LJD

mystere

MaggieMc

mystere

Sage

Supreme Guessinator

mystere

Alcasgra

Barbara R.

Old Hand in the Biz

Aggy B.

Not as sweet as you think

Wolfalisk

Jimmy

JulianneQJohnson

Ferret Herder

mystere