I get you're the big dog around here, with nearly 22K posts, and for some reason you think that entitled you to proclaim that others' opinions are wrong. But I still disagree with you. There are a lot of agents whose sensibilities ARE based on whims and fancies.
But those whims and fancies are developed through a thorough understanding of, and knowledge of, the market.
I just recently saw a Twitter posting in which an agent called for a uber-specific type of book based on the FANCY of her 9-year-old daughter. Saw another who wants only a certain type of book because she just fell in love with a certain pop band and now wants all queried novels to have the same "feel" as said pop bands new album.
You said, "An agent isn't going to turn down a book they love, which has strong commercial potential, just because it's not somehow tailored to some nebulous 'sensibilities." Sorry, but they do this ALL THE TIME AND FREELY ADMIT TO IT. The Internet is littered with stories from agents who admit that the book was good, had commercial potential, and they turned it down simply because THEY didn't like it. Read some agent interviews and some YouTube agent round tables and listen to all the stories of the amazing books that they turned down because of their subjective taste, and then the book went on to become a best seller anyway. Most of them call it, "the one that got away."
Sorry, man, but you can't really be this naive.
Jack, you're contradicting yourself, and not actually reading my posts. Look again at what I wrote:
"An agent isn't going to turn down
a book they love, which has strong commercial potential, just because it's not somehow tailored to some nebulous 'sensibilities."
And then look at what you wrote:
"Sorry, but they do this ALL THE TIME AND FREELY ADMIT TO IT. The Internet is littered with stories from agents who admit that the book was good, had commercial potential, and
they turned it down simply because THEY didn't like it."
See those two bits I've put into bold? Read them again.
You're contradicting yourself here.
I understand that it's frustrating, looking for an agent. And it's all too easy to become bitter after repeated rejections, or a lack of response. It's hard. I know. But that doesn't mean that the industry is somehow defective, or that agents are manipulative, shallow individuals determined to cause havoc in the lives of authors.
But really, I don't care about all that. I just want a damn response to a query. I don't think it's too much to ask. If you pitch an agent in person, they have the common courtesy to take 20 seconds to say no and perhaps give you a very terse reason why. I don't even want a reason; I just want a "no thanks" so I can stop wondering if the agent is still considering the query or not.
You're not going to always get that response, though. And it's not because agents are arrogant fools who laugh in the face of new writers; it's because agents have learned, over years, that a lot of writers are going to respond badly to a rejection, and that it's safer (and I don't mean emotionally: I mean physically safer) to just not respond at all.
I've spoken with lots of agents about this; I've seen the fallout that some of them have experienced as a result of sending out perfectly polite rejections. Some of the responses they've received have not just been rude or worrying, they've been properly frightening.
I've just had a quick Google for a couple of the accounts I've read and haven't come up with anything: but if I do find something I'll come back with a link, to give you an idea of the sort of thing that happens.
I know it's not fair that so many of us now have to put up with a lack of response, just because a few writers lose it when they get a rejection. But if you'd read some of the letters I've read, or had the conversations I've had, you'd be a lot more understanding, I'm sure.