Decoding Agents' Rejection Notes

But WHY didn't they "love" it?

Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

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Hi Everyone,

First up, I have some actual news for this newsletter!

1. If any of you are in Los Angeles THIS SUNDAY [aka tomorrow] I’ll be moderating an incredible panel at the LA Times Festival of Books. The title is misleading. It should be called “This Earthly Paradise,” as all three of these fantastic writers are addressing with gorgeous urgency what we must do to salvage our planet, our human world, and our immediate communities. So if you’re a fan of Pico Iyer, Lydia Millet, or Rabbi Sharon Brous, I hope you’ll join us:

Meditations on Finding Inner and Outer Peace

Date: Sunday, April 21 
Time: 12:30pm--1:30pm
Moderator/Interviewer: Aimee Liu
Panelists: Lydia Millet, Pico Iyer, Sharon Brous

Location: USC campus, Hoffman Hall

Info & advance tickets: HERE or at at latimes.com/fob

2. My review of Rachel Khong’s new novel Real Americans will be out in the Los Angeles Times this week, posting online on April 23, I’m told. This book is a wild and beautifully perplexing ride. I hope I’ve captured that in the review.

And now, on to this week’s main post, which is a response to a recent question from Anna:

I received my first rejection after a full-manuscript read yesterday. The rejection was kind, but didn’t provide a huge amount of feedback. I would have been open to working with this agent editorially, but it sounds like either she didn’t want to take the time for that (based on interviews I’ve heard with her, I know she usually does want to do editorial work when taking on writers), or she really thinks other agents might want to keep it closer to how it currently is.

My question is whether I should say I’m open to working with agents editorially when I send the manuscript? My fear is that each one is going to say, “it’s good, but there was this one thing I didn’t like, so you should look elsewhere to find someone who loves every aspect of it.”

Also, do you think it would be okay to follow up with this agent and ask if she would mind providing a little more color about what it was that didn’t work for her? It might end up not being something I want to change, but it would be helpful to have a better idea of what turned her off.

I cannot pretend to have all the answers, but here’s what I can offer from experience.