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.
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 ....
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.
From one side, it is nice that they still care about our feelings (not many of them do actually.)
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 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.
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.
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!'I wonder... do you think that agents read queries and reply (rejections or not) or do you think we get rejections from their interns?
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.They are taking the easy way out and not taking their roles as gatekeepers seriously.