Translation request

In the past few weeks, most of my rejections have come from agencies that either requested partials, or want sample pages/chapters up front. Invariably, I've gotten variations on this theme:

"I like your writing"/"I really enjoy your voice"/"I love the concept"
+
"but"
+
"can't sell"/"not appropriate for our agency"/"not right for our market"

Now, I have no illusions about agents being malicious people who feed on sorrow and schadenfreude or any other such nonsense. And the other thing that is noteworthy is that most of these were recognizably not form letters. (The form rejections I just disregard entirely and move on, even the cleverly-crafted madlibs ones)

Is this a sign that the hook isn't strong enough? Or they don't want to tackle a series author(no, I am not making the mistake of pitching the whole series at once!)? Planetary misalignment? Not enough vampire pirates?

The reason I'm finding these comments inscrutable is because I don't bother querying agents unless they list that they rep fantasy explicitly. I haven't reached the query-bomb stage of desperation to just hit up every agent I find, so things like "not right for our market" stand out to me as odd.

callalily61 said:

Cthulhu fhtagn!

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To you as well!

Anyway, yes. I have seen those specific phrases and variations on the theme within form letters as well. I have a healthy stack of form R's with gloriously generic praise, but that's not the kind of letter I'm talking about. I apologize for not being specific enough.

In this case, the question arises because I've gotten a recent string of R's that weren't form letters, but had specific comments about my work. But when those specific comments are boiled down, the message was what I posted above: "I like it, but. . . "

So I was just wondering if anyone knew what it meant when multiple agents are expressing the same sentiment to partials.

My beta feedback hasn't been from anyone in the AW community. I drew upon a group of people I know personally, but whom I firmly trust to give honest feedback and not empty praise. I was not disappointed; the lit scholars were fabulously brutal. However, the reaction to my opening chapters has been dramatically mixed.

I've had:
-Hooked from the first sentence
-Hooked by the villain's introduction but not the MC's
-Hooked by the prologue and bored by the first chapter
-Hooked by the first chapter and bored by the prologue
-Felt the story didn't start until chapter 3
-Felt that the events of chapter 3 would be hoplelessly out of context if bumped up
-Got into it too slowly to pick a spot, but eventually found it fascinating
-Confused by character names at first but was glad they were all introduced early by the end
-Loved the large cast because they love the feeling of a world of people and not just faceless props

I could go on. But it's always boiled down to highly subjective feelings on the matter.

See above. I was editing my post because I realized I didn't answer that question.

callalily61 said:

I'd be drinking.

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I don't know what else to tell you about the conflicting opinions, but if you've gotten nothing but Rs on requested partials, it's usually a sign that something needs to be fixed.

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Yeah, I'm having trouble seeing just what.

I've always been a reader who likes a MC I can root for right away.

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Yeah. My MC is right there in the first line of the first chapter. I think the confusion over when the story starts stems from the fact that in the partials, it isn't obvious that the A plot is the A plot because it's internal to the character. They're confusing the character's assumption that external events are important with the actual importance of them in the plot. In other words, its actually about disabusing the MC of their ideas of what's truly important in life. And that's not a perspective that can be gained from a partial.

Meh.

Still, that doesn't solve the issue of them not being hooked. I'm still at a bit of a loss on that one.

Thanks though.

Phaeal said:

Could be you rendered it so for streamlining.

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This. I focused on the underlying message, not the words. I probably regurgitated form responses just out of habit. (Aside from the "not right for our market." That's a direct quote that I just found strange, like they had pasted the wrong form reply at the end of the R. )