Agent rejected but...

Ninka

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Said that "I think it has potential." Do you think it is just a polite and nice way to say: thanks, but not thanks OR they really think it has potential (which would be very encouraging.) Thoughts?
 

Cyia

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It doesn't mean either, actually. It's a form letter, and all it means is "no."

That doesn't mean the next agent won't love it, but it doesn't fit this particular agent's list.
 

Ninka

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Makes sense. I was hoping that it is not a "form" letter but a genuine thought. :Shrug:
 

MaggieMc

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Hi Ninka,
I'd have to read the whole thing to be sure ...but I think it might be a personal R. I got lots of form R's when I was querying, and I don't think any of them said anything about potential ....
 

JJ Litke

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Ninka, you can look on QueryTracker and see what kind of rejections others are getting from that agent. A lot of people will post text of their Rs there.
 

Ninka

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Ninka, you can look on QueryTracker and see what kind of rejections others are getting from that agent. A lot of people will post text of their Rs there.

Just signed up with QueryTracker! What a great tool/database. Thank you!

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Hi Ninka,
I'd have to read the whole thing to be sure ...but I think it might be a personal R. I got lots of form R's when I was querying, and I don't think any of them said anything about potential ....

It might be. But in the end, it is still a rejection.
 

Chris P

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I don't consider any rejection personalized unless it addresses specific points. "It just didn't grab me" is very much different than "Jimmy came across as a tedius crybaby, so I couldn't care about what happened to him no matter how redemptive your ending (which I didn't get to) might have been."

Putting myself in the chair of the agent, I might use "has potential" to mean anything from "delete every word and start over" to "this is an incredible book that will do well in the market but I'm too busy with other projects." "Has potential" by itself gives me nothing to go on as a writer.
 

Wolfalisk

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I've received all manner of silly, useless, and empty compliments from rejections, including lines like "It just isn't right for me...but I know someone will think differently!"

...And all manner of BS. It would be immensely more valuable if these gatekeepers could simply say what they mean instead of worrying about my potentially hurt feelings. (I also wish they wouldn't excuse themselves from considering our books on the basis that they "...just have too many current projects and couldn't devote the necessary time and..." yeah.)

In answer to the OP, they probably do not believe it has potential. If they felt that it did they surely would have offered some kind of personalized feedback or expressed interest in you as an author. They are taking the easy way out and not taking their roles as gatekeepers seriously. There's no reason why they need to give us false hope with flowery phrases. A simple "This project does not interest me." is bare-bones, and I'd honestly be fine with it.
 

Ninka

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In answer to the OP, they probably do not believe it has potential. If they felt that it did they surely would have offered some kind of personalized feedback or expressed interest in you as an author. They are taking the easy way out and not taking their roles as gatekeepers seriously. There's no reason why they need to give us false hope with flowery phrases. A simple "This project does not interest me." is bare-bones, and I'd honestly be fine with it.

Yep, flowery phrases. That's what I am starting to think. From one side, it is nice that they still care about our feelings (not many of them do actually.) On the other side, just say something real like - your query didn't grasp me. It would have more value. At least, I would consider re-writing my query then. I also agree that if they did really see even a bit of potential, they would ask for a partial. Well... I am learning.
 

Cyia

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From one side, it is nice that they still care about our feelings (not many of them do actually.)

I know it can feel this way, but if you check into the number of agents who have been verbally abused, threatened, or even had disgruntled writers show up at their kids' school, you'll understand better why extremely generic or "no answer" answers are the safest choices they can make.
 

JJ Litke

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In answer to the OP, they probably do not believe it has potential. If they felt that it did they surely would have offered some kind of personalized feedback or expressed interest in you as an author. They are taking the easy way out and not taking their roles as gatekeepers seriously. There's no reason why they need to give us false hope with flowery phrases. A simple "This project does not interest me." is bare-bones, and I'd honestly be fine with it.

Yep, flowery phrases. That's what I am starting to think. From one side, it is nice that they still care about our feelings (not many of them do actually.) On the other side, just say something real like - your query didn't grasp me. It would have more value. At least, I would consider re-writing my query then. I also agree that if they did really see even a bit of potential, they would ask for a partial. Well... I am learning.

It's flat not true that agents will (or even should) give personalized feedback if they think your work has potential, or that they'd ask for a partial. That's expecting far more than you imagine—personalized feedback takes up a whole lot of time. All you can expect is that they're professional. Sour grapes and incidents like Cyia mentioned are why more and more agents don't respond at all when the answer is no. You'd think writers would appreciate getting a response, especially if the agent is trying to be kind, but you'd be wrong.
 

pinkbowvintage

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I have to say, "it has potential" doesn't strike me as a throwaway BS line in a form rejection that agents would send to just everyone. It might be a "This could potentially sell to someone else, but I can't sell this or this isn't for me." Seems slightly personalized, though clearly a form personalized.

For instance, at some literary magazines, there's a scale of rejections. A straight form rejection is a level 1, a "We enjoyed your writing but this is not for us" is a level 2, a level 3 has some line of personalized critique, etc.

Then again, who knows? I second the idea of looking at comments on QueryTracker and seeing if this is a pattern for this particular agent's rejections.
 

Old Hack

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It would be immensely more valuable if these gatekeepers could simply say what they mean instead of worrying about my potentially hurt feelings. (I also wish they wouldn't excuse themselves from considering our books on the basis that they "...just have too many current projects and couldn't devote the necessary time and..." yeah.)

Agents and editors have to worry about not hurting writers' feelings with their form rejections, because far too often those writers will retaliate against what they see as a, unkind rejection. I know publishing professionals who have been assaulted, threatened, and intimidated because writers felt hard done by. And when an agent does have too many current projects to devote the time required to get a substandard manuscript up to scratch, what's wrong with them saying so?

In answer to the OP, they probably do not believe it has potential. If they felt that it did they surely would have offered some kind of personalized feedback or expressed interest in you as an author. They are taking the easy way out and not taking their roles as gatekeepers seriously. There's no reason why they need to give us false hope with flowery phrases. A simple "This project does not interest me." is bare-bones, and I'd honestly be fine with it.

Generally, an agent won't say something has potential if they really think it's a crock. But they get such a huge volume of work across their desks every day that they just don't have time to give much personalised feedback.

And note that agents aren't primarily "gatekeepers". Their first priority has to be the authors they already represent. If they spend their time giving feedback to writers they're not going to represent, they can't do their jobs.

Yep, flowery phrases. That's what I am starting to think. From one side, it is nice that they still care about our feelings (not many of them do actually.) On the other side, just say something real like - your query didn't grasp me. It would have more value. At least, I would consider re-writing my query then. I also agree that if they did really see even a bit of potential, they would ask for a partial. Well... I am learning.

It is absolutely untrue that not many agents care about writers' feelings. I know quite a few literary agents and can count the bad eggs on the fingers of one hand. On the whole, publishing professionals are thoughtful, caring people who understand they wouldn't have a job if it weren't for the talent and creativity of the writers they represent.
 

Ninka

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I wonder... do you think that agents read queries and reply (rejections or not) or do you think we get rejections from their interns?
 

Marissa D

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Depends on the agent/agency--some have interns who cull out the inappropriate queries (like for books in genres that the agent doesn't represent or that are just clearly not ready) and save the good ones for the agent to read and decide on. Others read and respond to all their queries themselves.
 

Old Hack

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Marissa is right.

But even if the interns are doing the initial sort through the submissions, it's not a bad thing. They are carefully briefed to reject only the things the agents don't represent, or the works which aren't yet ready for representation, and so on. Interns don't just reject works because they are power-crazed and ego-fuelled.
 

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I try to take even the smallest compliments in rejection letters as a positive, but that's just because the process can be so depressing :(
 

Thomas Vail

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I wonder... do you think that agents read queries and reply (rejections or not) or do you think we get rejections from their interns?
That would depend on whether or not they even have interns in the first place. There is no single template you can create and say, 'all agents are like this!'

And if it was an intern, so what? That has the exact same significance as if the rejection came straight from the agent's own pen.

They are taking the easy way out and not taking their roles as gatekeepers seriously.
You don't seem to have a good grounding on what agents do. They are generally neither editors, nor beta readers. Their job is not to provide C&C for work submitted. If they do that, great, that's a nice extra they threw in. A good agent is going to be spending their time representing their authors as well as finding new ones and a good agent always has a large number of queries or pages to go through. That's why form rejections exist. Spending additional time on an author that they've rejected means they're doing that instead of the things that are their actual job.

So appreciate it if it happens, and understand it if it doesn't.

The above mentions of agents who dealt with very unpleasant rejected authors - it's a mirror of what you see in say, online dating, where a guy handles rejection very poorly and gets very aggressive with arguing that 'no, I'm awesome. Why don't _you_ see that?' so if you don't like someone, just don't say anything, rather than opening up that door for argumentation that even a short rejection would allow.