So I queried about 32 agents for a picture book script. Got 18 rejections and 14 are still out. Most of the rejections were form letters and only like 2 mentioned they'd offer feedback if they didn't have so little time. 2 of the rejections were a bit more personalized and mentioned the story didn't grab them. I just got this idea for a new substantial revision that would hopefully make it stronger before I start querying more agents. I sent it to my family and friends and a few critique groups and they liked it. What should I do? Should I revise it or should I continue querying agents with the current manuscript I have now?
Should I revise my manuscript in the middle of an agent search?
- Thread starter Pinkarray
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I am not an agent. Sometimes agents post here, but I don't think it happens very often.
In my opinion, you should revise it.
Save the old manuscript, because you may decide to go back to it, but revise it before querying further.
At least in my experience, this how it works--over time we have ideas that improve our work, and as we work them in, the whole thing improves. It's like baking a cake. The cake needs a certain amount of time in the oven and serving it before it's done only disappoints everyone.
But I'd also recommend running your pages and query letter through some critique partners or else through the share your work forum here. If you skipped this part of the process, that might be another area for improvement.
In my opinion, you should revise it.
Save the old manuscript, because you may decide to go back to it, but revise it before querying further.At least in my experience, this how it works--over time we have ideas that improve our work, and as we work them in, the whole thing improves. It's like baking a cake. The cake needs a certain amount of time in the oven and serving it before it's done only disappoints everyone.
But I'd also recommend running your pages and query letter through some critique partners or else through the share your work forum here. If you skipped this part of the process, that might be another area for improvement.
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I don’t see why not. If you think you can make it better, revise it. It might not give you a second chance with the agents who have already seen it — I don’t have any idea how that works in the picture-book space — but as you consider other agents, why wouldn’t you want to send the best book you possibly can?
For what it's worth, I just received a partial request and the agent asked for the most recently updated version, so I think it's understood/accepted that work could still be done on the manuscript even if it's being queried. If you think your ideas will improve the story, definitely go for it!
If they didn't say something very specific about your work, it's not personalized. "Didn't grab me" is on a lot of form rejections. Sorry to say!
Open your current WIP, save it as something else, and make the revisions in the new document. That way you can make your changes but still retain the original piece.
Did you query all 32 agents at the same time or did you do batches?
Batches as I started querying in the new year when a lot of agents were closed to queries. Plus, I get burnt out easily.
That's probably still a form rejection.
That's also a form rejection. Go on Query Tracker and look at the comments for those agents. A lot of people post the rejections they got, word for word, so you'll see what I'm talking about.
Ideally, you don't do any revising after starting to query, as it means that your story was sent out too early and you blew your chances. And, normally, I'd say "well, as long as your query didn't change too much, then you can just give them the updated manuscript if they ask for a full," but you're doing picture books, which means you're sending them the entire thing. So...you probably blew your chances with those 32 agents, unfortunately.
But if you honestly believe that your new manuscript is better than your old one, then totally submit it. To entirely new agents, of course. Hopefully things will go better this time
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I know absolutely zero about picture books, or what materials one would send to agents with a query for such a book, but your question reads to me as: I feel I can make my book much better. Should I revise it and query agents with the better version, or should I query them with the current version I know is flawed and hope they overlook those flaws? So far no agent has shown interest in this version.
I honestly can't think why you'd query agents with anything less than your best, particularly since with any given book you only get one shot with the agent. If you've had no requests for further materials so far, and you have good reason to believe this is because the book isn't as good as it could be, I think you've answered your own question.